Sacral Triptych

I. A noon of an atheist outside of a church

An atheist sits to rest on a bench outside a church. 

She feels a certain guilt by invading holy land,

Everything but a stained glass window. 

She dared herself, Vampire Weekend as white noise,

Thinking it is congruent, the band

Outside the gothic cathedral.

I have always enjoyed lousy references. 

Hannah Hunt, but a homeless man is taunting his lungs

As he screams of sacrifice and things he has lost:

Wife, a father, his tent, the last cigarette

He recovers from an indifferent believer. 

They both stand equidistant to the church door.

I thought the Gates would be guarded by a myth,

Not a man that has little else to lose.

Broke ass, goddamn he says.

I wonder if that is an insult to the corner that is now his home. 

Fucked up my life, and speaks of his lacking mother. 

Vampire Weekend I play for static, but it is all unfortunately

Too human. It is barely Wednesday. 

I think he would make a fine preacher, a screaming soul.

He has hurt and grieved and is now raging. That is a god

I would believe in, suffering is no folklore. No one I know holds honest compassion.

Isn’t the human made to God’s image? This motherfucker, he continues. 

God? You? Me?

People keep on walking, don't mind the belie church,

The gospel homeless, the atheist waiting the street sermon.

And the church is empty.

Mass is over.

II. Sundays are for bleeding

Every Sunday I have cried,

Around eight thirty and nine.

The air just feels a little more of a burden

At this time of the dying day,

When I start antagonizing the day to come.

It is ritualistic,

Akin to spiritual,

Holy even, when one thinks about the

Tears and the boiling blood and the silence

Of a Sunday.

My leg muscles spasm,

Jawline clenches to bite,

Not to silence, slices the bawl right on the edge.

It is not sadness that leads my Sunday mass.

It is always, it has always been an anger psalm.

My fingernails bleed a little,

Skin turns to drywall,

And the room is unfinished.

The echo of my pleas is as hollow

As my means to keep waking.

Praying proves futile, when one’s hands

Are not clasped tight enough.

I cannot hold tight anymore.

When I do, my fingernails bleed

And my muscles spasm.

Even holding my own hand seems too much

Of a duty. I let it go.

My veins could leak,

Jaw could pop, skin could crumble and turn

to ashes. Grief does not do that,

Sadness tends to be kinder by the end.

With rage, one waits to be emptied out.

Blood just streams down.

Every Sunday, I haemorrhage silenced wrath.

And then again and again and, once more,

Again. Every Sunday,

A blood drain.

III. Bible

Perhaps Sylvia was right,

And the only thing left to do

At night, to feel a little peace,

Is to call Father a bastard

And move on. 

I can listen her lulling me to sleep,

Barely rhyming bees and

Coffins and the patriarchy,

Rightfully so. 

She could tell me I am

Vertical too, I am Lady

Lazarus too. Could’ve 

Shared the bell jar I say,

And she would smile in pain. 

She should’ve been ninety this year. 

Posthumous fame, you say?

I nod, cradling Ariel like

The bible. She’d be in disbelief. 

Is God finally around?