…And as the sparrow fell, I followed her down.
Drew a white line around her,
collected her feathers and put them in my halo of cruciform red glow.
And I wonder…
How heavy were your hands when they pulled me from the earth
and hung me back in the sky like one of your stars?
Truly my fall and ascension has created a beaten path from earth to heaven,
but I’ve made my place of permanence your presence.
For as babes nurse and slaves surrender,
this heart of human has finally found his complement,
housed not in the torso, but in the secret place-
where silence becomes a spoken language.
So please, in the following abstract string of sentences,
Give us God!
The stage is set and wet with the tears of our sisters
and brothers and mothers of the martyrs.
Love has made us tired; let all of earth admit it.
Our eyes are so used to closing,
used as clothing and no matter how much they speak and spell and spill,
they have not washed the want from our faces.
But unlike minus, they add something…
Our chains have been changed
and locks turned to lockets,
which collect every cell you expel.
We scrape your words like resin and mix them with the dirt from your nails,
our tattoo ink of brand new baby glue.
Making new mirrors. Milking new magnets.
Cutting new concepts and freezing them like light paintings.
Had I not been wanting and wanting and longing and waiting,
my lips would have never been so heavily glossed with loss
(of self, he is silent).
You, Hero, have hushed my vespers to velvet,
my longing to lavender and gathered my rose colored hands and made them useful again,
You who lift the blues,
the deepest blues of mourning,
are the Miracle!
The Father of all numbers.
Let him count our poems by the drip, drip, drip
as halves are halved and halved again.
Blessing and blasphemy held in both hands, so tight our knuckles are as white as corpses.
Unfold your fingers!
… and nail your palms to His.
Embrace the cross ‘till your torsos kiss.
Drink the blood that drips drips drips
from feet which days before were anointed by a prostitute.
The blackness of her past has been used for us, the abused,
as proof that no day is like today!
Let all of the earth admit it.
No day is like today.
Sleep.
Sleeping is praying.
Sleeping is sexual, for it’s our dreams that drive us.
When our eyes close to crow’s feet,
creating a canvas of blue and red stars,
a stage of eternity behind our eyelids (you’ve seen them),
we can follow the stars we see,
from end to end and roll our eyes open to invert light’s reflection.
Yes, sometimes, sleeping is stopping.
Testing is testimony.
Some are given the gift of immediacy, while other’s a gift of a story.
Some will bend from adoration, others from broken legs, but all things…
from the highest pitch to the widest niche,
All things,
smoke and the sense of incense,
dance of the candle’s flame and the birth of every breath,
all things,
time before no time and the speed of the lines we trace,
trying to trade the moment for the morning,
and our witness for the rapture,
all things will become worship…eventually.
We the angels are in a world of opposites, born to be born again.
I can speak for them.
I’m tall enough to see them at eye level
and stoop low enough to carry their history on my back,
transfer it to the tangible,
hook their question marks on the scars raised on each arm,
as I now raise my arms and sing the sweetest song
to him, who has held my halleluiah, even in hell.
Prove to them that you’re a father and not a liar.
…that faith isn’t plastic and we truly can live outside bottles, capsules and rolling papers.
And when you have decided that you have crushed us enough
and we’re completely erased..
When just one more day
and one more try
and one more escape from the torso’s grave
turns to one more stamp of our Savior.
When that day comes,
I will tighten all vices, suit my skin in Sonlight™
and use every muse to explain you to those who were the ghost of me.
When I see little Johnnys who haven’t enough strength to lift their eyes from the pillow,
I will show them my neon scars, placed by you as proof
that your word is in fact, Wonderful.
For now, in the belly of Advent,
I carry myself collected, and tall in the art of the fall.
As if I was already on the right side of the timeline.
Forgive me for what I’ve written.
+Cross my confessions+
For my lips were never meant to curse you…
they find their form in kissing you,
my Invisible Immortal.
Audience, drop your pens and clap your hands,
for the One who has named you, now pursues you.
Suppress, yes, submerge yourself in the belly and leave it there.
May it follow its intended destination.
The very end of digestion, as your spirit out grows its own clothes.
Lift your heads…often.
May your questions become cures,
And your waiting; worship.
Lovers, let your light shine
from end to end and every moment of miracle in between,
Amen.
©2009 Jonathan DeLucia, all rights reserved
...I had talked to this guy a couple times before tonight, so it was really awesome to hear this. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, and that God spoke to you through "The Belly of Advent."
Happy Advent Season!
