Page Ripped from Rockbottom’s Own Invented Book of Prayer
God if you ever dare get near me
I will demand answers
to so many questions I want to know
what the river sounds like just before dawn
and when there are people talking
on and on for years sometimes
getting nowhere what are you
sewing between them what stitch
in the land keeps me from entering
the wood across the field
and why do they say you’re here
in the midst of the city why
don’t you look at me through the light
of that small girl’s hands what
is keeping the carnival going all this
time you’d think no one appeared
to wet his lips for a game
you were watching weren’t you
God is there another
whose bed you sleep in
when the music is turned
down low what noble
compulsion keeps certain
words off my lips
like a nail collar are you
angry at me God are you angry at me
if you’re not I don’t know how to live
[Even your shoulders]
Even your shoulders brush, a crumple, the suit on its
side. Even your shoulders hesitant, please I have tried
to. In the clothes of a good heart even your shoulders
imagining: you keep folding over yourself. And crumple,
you lost man lost in a keep trying deflation, you made
me dispassionate, you made even your shoulders. Even
arrest in looking your shoulders, some such absence
call it dignity. Dignity shoulders the blame, cut and
crease you blame not a still life in broken, caught thing.
Shoulders blessed even and skew, now skew, now
more so. More so. Nothing wanted more than even
your shoulders, clump and crease you crumpling man.
You in the clothes even dignity could, even it nothing,
and shoulder. We all have something to prove. But
your even shoulders could crumple necessity, the
lack and therefore slack, even this, even skewed up,
and shudder. You shoulder even it back, even it back,
shoulders to brush, I brush and even it back. Your good
heart wet and face shock, shock and shoulder, sturdy,
keeping dignity and time. Your blessed to be even to be
shoulder talk to me, even your prove it blame and bless.
Crease the crumple. Fold shoulder, tighten. Even your
shoulders. Even your shoulders and please.
_____________________
Image by Jean Cocteau.
