On television
a holy man again proclaims
God's love for vengeance.
He worships the clot and the hurricane.
He is a hosanna in a dark suit.

I thought I recognized him
from a picture
I saw once
but he is not as red
as I remember.

He says what he wants and
believes and I watch it.
Fact is shattered on that end
and reglued on this end.
Light never comes through it
the same way after that.

I turn the channel as casually
as I might spit on a sidewalk
to get something out of my mouth
that didn't belong there:
millions of agreements,
billions of tacit approvals...

Go farther.
Turn off the TV,
turn off the power,
turn off the lights.
Turn off everything.

The coma patient
bursts into song. The heretics
rise from their fires. The wind
stops blowing.

Count backwards from a trillion,
count by tens, hundreds, thousands.
Count fast, count faster,
past the Gospel
all the way back to the One Word.

We leave our homes and look at each other
standing in the street, our backs
straight, blinking in the sudden bright,
wondering:

what that voice was we just heard
that sounded so little like any we've known?

I looked at this for a second time just now. I would have commented that you it's like you're reading "the gospel" to these people who need to hear real, pure truth, but with the last line its apparent that you let "the voice" speak for itself. Good job.

Great poem. I like the following imagery..like we are all puppets/robots...

We leave our homes and look at each other
standing in the street, our backs
straight, blinking in the sudden bright,
wondering:

hotstuff wrote:

Great poem. I like the following imagery..like we are all puppets/robots... We leave our homes and look at each other standing in the street, our backs straight, blinking in the sudden bright, wondering:

Ah, now, that's interesting...I saw that image as emblematic of liberation. I pictured people hunched over in front of their TVs, and this was their release.

Very interesting. I love it when poems are not set in stone


I thought it interesting as well when you said "the wind stops blowing"
The symbolism in wind, my understanding of it, being freedom. Therefore reading that freedom stopped blowing... as with the religious aspect of it in the beginning then how you

"spit on a sidewalk
to get something out of my mouth
that didn't belong there:"

by turning the channel.

Basically, I felt that the poem jumped back and forth from freedom (the freedom to choose) then back to captivity (He says what he wants and
believes and I watch it.)

Bahh ok..thoughts out somewhat. Very nice