blogpoems

It's not something I usually write about
and thinking never really stays on one point
but it something that I want to do
to hover uneasy around the other self

I have sinned willingly
I have reached down to tear at my soul

Not that I wanted to do it
Not that I was not fearful of the consequences
There were precedents
There were bones marking the way

The goodness I saw mocked
The innocence I felt sullied
By the souls more pained than mine
My situation less tortured than theirs

Faith, the fire
Belief, the hammer
Truth, the anvil
Love, the water

Somethings can never be taught
What I know was never told to me
Rebellion was a daily lesson
In Grade One I learned to run away

Self respect is part of the other self
The other self is beyond daily impurity
The other self is incorruptible
It makes no demands, has no appetites

The other self does not dwell here
We live separate
This self survives on the passions
Desire is the engine that drives

The desire to touch
to be touched by a hand
The pain once touched
Bitter wounds, bitter wounds

Once I remember after being touched
After the wound healed
I met an innocent
Our other selves touched

The leaves stopped their rushing
The quiet pulsed calm, so calm
Shame blushed the moment
Wounds bled hot, so hot

While our peering into the deep
Our other selves waited
While wanting to touch
Our fingers burned, tongues dried

Autumn leaves fell, we stood still
The first frost bit our lips, still we stood
In the spring I found the Church of Christ
By summer she was in Hay River, NWT

Church was soulless filled with good people
Good people filled with soulless designs for me
I really wanted to be on the right side of God
I feigned piety to receive praise, I had standing

The more I prayed, the deeper I sank
The more I saved souls, the closer I felt to death
The other self started to fade
The mirror began to dull

I reached out and found nothing
I went to university and found ideology, again
Again I had to suffer through the certitude
Again someone else knew me better than I

The socialists burned to be different
Always dreaming for an alternative
Always waking up to the desire to control
I tried to conform to their free-thinking ways

I really want to do right by going left
I actually thought people before ideology
I called myself an anarchist and respected women
I became a eunuch for her in search for freedom

Then I was denounced for wanting to be poet
I called down for being bourgeois
I failed the revolution my peasant grandfather gave up on
I failed because wrote with the wrong pen, again

There I stood pen in hand with nothing to write
In bed a lover turning to pottery and other women
In church a sermon tired in its piety and spiritless
Gazing over this domain I could not speak nor laugh

I went the Doctor told him of my affliction
I rolled out my pain to the Jewish deconstructionist
He said I had a Jesus complex, I laughed
The irony of his words woke me, I could laugh

The Buddhist mocked me, slowed me
He let me breath again, let me feel once more
Desire returned and left, I was filled and emptied
Over and over each breath slowed to less than a gasp

Still, I roiled and burned to disappear
I wanted crawl out and through away the past
Still, I felt soiled and yearned to free my self
I flew away to Japan and dumped the past.

Faith, the fire
Belief, the hammer
Truth, the anvil
Love, the water