(from THE PULLING DOWN OF STRONGHOLDS)


IN TONGUES


They answered a call that had no voice,
Choosing freely to be free of choice—
But something real would only threaten it all,
Yield years of doubt or years on the couch.
In some, it stirred their souls…
In some, it fostered goals…
Envisioned revisions of those called as Paul,
Twitching tongues causing the called to crouch—
To wage war among the saints who slouch.
.............(I felt the heavy air;
.............I felt heavily pinned.
.............I felt the rushing wind—
.............I felt it rushing past me…)

A fount of numbed and numbered amount,
Squirming to serve sermons on the mount.
Some moved mountains, some moved to mount an attack.
Inspired tongues of fire like angelic chariots
In unknown tongues that stammered…
In serpent tongues that hammered
Nails into the wood and witch upon the rack.
Like Sons of a Carpenter God, build and bury it—
The Rock of Peter in the Field of Iscariot.
..............(I’ve seen the masses sway;
..............I’ve seen them swayed in mass—
..............And when it came to pass,
..............It came to pass me by…)

Mortgaged mortal emotion
Devolved into devotion…
One human sacrifice of praise
That left blood trickling from the altar.
Fascination for a fastened nation—
The lowest common denomination,
Divine nature found carnal ways…
To hear Wisdom cry, then assault her—
To halt in wonder…wander…halter.
.............(Writhing bodies prayed against me;
.............Lips in glossolalia betrayed me with a kiss…
.............And as my crux of life was in flux as life is,
.............I crossed my fingers and prepared to be crucified.)

For vast passing aeons,
Fast amassing peons…
The living dead, like living waters, run
Dead in the water in the latter rain,
Playing God and losing the game in scorn…
Blindly shearing sheep with sharpened goat’s horns.
Benediction or bendictation?
Though few discern inspired from insane,
Ockham’s razor still threatens Samson’s mane.
.............(Picket signs and wonders—
.............Jesus wept and Atlas shrugged…
.............But all I ever heard above
.............Was someone, somewhere laughing at it all…)


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