a poem by Mather Schneider

WE ARE A SMOLDERING

We are a smoldering
of the oldest symbol
and every morning the alarm goes off
and we get up and do it again
and the sad and beaten sit
in church on Sundays
crying like cats at
the doorways of strangers.
Some people live too long
and others die on the cross
and morality is the last hieroglyph
on the last hill.
I want to be aroused
in the hour of no cities,
the placental flame licking the bleeding wound
of knowledge,
eyes in the dark
staring into it
like animals
on the precipice of insight,
a new, hot wind
in my face.

© by Mather Schneider

 
Gutter Eloquence Magazine ~ Issue #5 ~ September 2009