A Stupid Faith

( I think I've been reading too much Eliot. This is a piece I might take to SPU's workshop. Any thoughts are welcome, all 3 of you blog-readers. )

May 21st, 2011

Well, that dream bled out

with a tick of the clock, to

a soundtrack of maniacal snickers

and stifled sighs of secret relief.

Cementing a place among

our litany of

crack-job prophet jokes.

What now? A man’s shout

at the timid believer clutching his red suitcase

tears through the dank

Times Square Air.

Out of the rain, in the red booth.

I blow on my miso soup

Creating stippled cosmos, a swirling galaxy of perforated

Tofu. With the wind of my lungs, on the surface

I bequeath life, and feel my whole living self sink the red seat,

across from a man I love,

who is sipping green tea and staring at the rain.

I take his flesh-and-blood hand, to feel it,

And watch the news play on the TV screen.

Where is your God now? A jeerer

calls, probably not meaning

to echo anything.

Everyone’s thrilled

at faith’s fall. Yes, it was a stupid

faith

Still this man

packed a change of clothes,

chewed his cereal, caressed it, one precious last use of jaws predestined

to vanish soon.

He agreed to the cameras

believed the way few believe, told the crew,

I am blessed, I am, indeed.

If I were God,

I would have broken my silence

broken down at

the sad, naive hope of

such easy escape.

I cool my soup, watch the worlds spin.

A tiny world that can

begin and end, in time.

I wonder how God loves

him, all of us,

in our existence

in our stupidity.