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Description
Jesus never let things go. He must have
held a grudge to come walking out of caves
and float above the grieving, he must have
loved oddly for this to be his mercy.
And the things he opened are the things I
wished he’d open and the words don’t matter
if they’re breathing. Not until they’re gone.
If Jesus ever let them cut him
Down, he really wouldn’t be anyone’s
messiah. (And it doesn’t matter the children
that tremble at the sight of a bleeding
divine, there are other barefooted
doxies to the lord who’ll dance spring and
fall for him again and again,
blood for blood, spring for spring.)

*

Nothing’s coming back. That he winters
in my soul, that we wait together to die,
that there is ever spring – that I am someone else’s
child, and moved only as an alien music moves
a drunkard too far out to remember that
this isn’t his language – even these
will not now hold me to the promise
that love still spirals up, and in.
The winters win, sometimes, and when forgiveness
comes, it comes from holes gouged in frozen ground –
where the dead know enough to stay.

*

Jesus never let things stay dead and,
were I not a follower of a sort, I would
hate him better than this. But those of us
revived again and again to love have only
the hope that the taste of death will recede
one day, and leave behind something bigger
than the knowledge that nothing comes back
but some saviours refuse to leave and God
never opens all the secrets but lovers
suspended between giving and forgetting
will hand over the keys to anyone
with a cross in the eyes.

*

Will you never cut me down?
The man with the sponge
hasn’t been by for days.
It’s the spark, love. Is someone
else looking to be your messiah?

Description
Jesus never let things go. He must have
held a grudge to come walking out of caves
and float above the grieving, he must have
loved oddly for this to be his mercy.
And the things he opened are the things I
wished he’d open and the words don’t matter
if they’re breathing. Not until they’re gone.
If Jesus ever let them cut him
Down, he really wouldn’t be anyone’s
messiah. (And it doesn’t matter the children
that tremble at the sight of a bleeding
divine, there are other barefooted
doxies to the lord who’ll dance spring and
fall for him again and again,
blood for blood, spring for spring.)

*

Nothing’s coming back. That he winters
in my soul, that we wait together to die,
that there is ever spring – that I am someone else’s
child, and moved only as an alien music moves
a drunkard too far out to remember that
this isn’t his language – even these
will not now hold me to the promise
that love still spirals up, and in.
The winters win, sometimes, and when forgiveness
comes, it comes from holes gouged in frozen ground –
where the dead know enough to stay.

*

Jesus never let things stay dead and,
were I not a follower of a sort, I would
hate him better than this. But those of us
revived again and again to love have only
the hope that the taste of death will recede
one day, and leave behind something bigger
than the knowledge that nothing comes back
but some saviours refuse to leave and God
never opens all the secrets but lovers
suspended between giving and forgetting
will hand over the keys to anyone
with a cross in the eyes.

*

Will you never cut me down?
The man with the sponge
hasn’t been by for days.
It’s the spark, love. Is someone
else looking to be your messiah?