I
Woke up inside myself again today.
I saw the reason people stay with their religion.
There were products in the blood not hard to come by.
There were cobwebs in the air above our dwellings;
there were passports that had made it, miraculously surviving.
And towers that imploded as they fell.
II
Woke up outside myself, and saw the reason
people stay with what they know;
there were Bank fees, Church fetes, School trips,
and we’ve shelled out a fortune on the Catering,
the wedding ring, the monograms, the pedestals and alcohol.
There were badgers eating turtle eggs, crocodiles
in cadillac’s, whales being scienced
and dolphins, from drift nets, singing goodbyes.
III
Woke up inside of someone else, again
I saw the reason for the Stories we protect
and the reason we protect what has been written:
only half awake I didn’t try to alter how we pray
and celebrate
the unrelenting strangeness of Creation.
Saw History’s undivided, daily, open molestation
guarantee survival for the present rival fictions
which supplement the coffers of the Client: Peace,
the Fighting Way.
IV
Woke up inside my eyes again today,
saw Taxes being used without a riot
to pay for and purchase satellites
which Promis [es] to police us
softly. Even [yes] over some event horizon,
a coordinated offering of care, a long conCERN
for our tomorrows. I saw entire Schools constructed
with buckets of collected nails
salvaged from the garage sales;
while GMO surgeons fleed
the crash scene in limousines.
V
From the ‘facts’ I woke apart again.
I woke up early,
called in paranoid. I felt ionospheric
violent soft explosions
blank the public, testing
stories
never written for the Paper:
the greater wonder of ourself, our self-correcting centre.
VI
Woke up and saw myself again,
my words black wrestle on the page,
read The Floor of the Bottles in dismay,
heard my Anger still becoming nothing else
but the door I have bolted to this beast,
the beast I’ve roped as best I can,
the beast won’t go, he is nothing
but a hurt child grown very tough.
And I can feel the fight caused tying Peace down.
VII
Woke up inside a church today, the alcohol and rain
had let me in. A priest was standing over me,
smiling, from his face His grace.
I thought of Alan Watts. I asked did he believe,
as he made my coffee, that every word was rooted
to the Source, along with Time,
and not a phrase was lifted, Atlantic Martian Egypt,
that Moses, really? Giant firms of Finance.
The even Christ, an artful fabrication,
2,3, fourfold in its purpose. How’s it doing,
how’s the coffee? Smiling from his face His grace.
Perfect, thank you, I replied, studying
him carefully. The beans are Ethiopian.
The Church supplies me only with this Instant,
and he pointed to the packets on the shelf.
That’s for the parishioners, I buy this for myself.
I see you’ve got the shakes. Can I offer you a nip
for morning health? I said I’m strange, please, lovely,
I’ve been a wicked man, but I like myself.
And he poured an aged spirit from the Highlands
Which lay me down upon the swirling pillows
In the Bledsol rooms, in the mansions of Immaculate Grace
Playing to each other on the Heart’s closet piano.
2002