Precognitive Pietas
(2004)

I

On Adverse Affects

For thine is the Kingdom and the power shone
within me outside of poets talking about
how it makes them feel, All Over the Road
wandering 'What should be said next?'
Left out? Brought in?
Put it right there alongside,
For Thine is the Kingdom,
leadeth me to pastures; I shall not want.
That is my sheperd, the boy down there
with a stick, he's alive dammit!
Better not talk to him, better not trick
him into believing
For thine is the Kingdom,
he shall not want; his moses stick
his determined walk next to two dogs
his flock all there rooting around
in everyone's garden, and he smiles
the rudimentary smile of child labor,
returns home to his small meals and hangs
his filthy rags up on a peg
smells the goats outside, hears the bleating:
For thine is the Kingdom; He shall not want
his backyard full of the usual -
chicken dung and vague decomposing vegetable matter
a little naked sister wanders into the traffic
onto the highway which she'll remember in her old age
as "her childhood". For thine is the Kingdom,
she shall not want, as she bears a man ten children
she shall not want to read this or Ulysses,
she shall not read the messages on her pharmaceuticals,
For thine is the Kingdom, we shall not want
pain or disgruntlement, nor the reminders.

II

On Indications

For thine is the Kingdom, here we are
in the dismal parody, the meandering gaze
Get thee behind me, my daily bread
lives a better life, more consistent
with what it is, For thine is the Kingdom
of mold forests, the kingdom of slag heaps
this tiny world on a frog's tongue
as it licks out, caught in time lapse digital,
For thine is the Kingdom, all on that tongue
for the millisecond, a generation is obliterated
at one whack, an entire line of mosquitoes
their forebearers extinguished, the progeny
extincted, For thine is the Kingdom
on the DVD, the entire Sonnets and whatelses
For thine is the Kingdom, MacBeth and creation
from the Bible on down, For thine is the Kingdom
transplanted like a mole from a face
to the petri dish, to the bread crumb
For thine is the Kingdom
stigmatic, still warm in the histologist's hand.

III

On Contraindications

For Thine is the Kingdom, the four o'clock call
from the addicted mother, ye shall not want
at four o'clock, her children miserably alert
Not a good time for a visit, the nine
year old tears a paper in half, I'll punch you
in the face For Thine is the Kingdom
of child labor and child recalcitrance
For thine is the Kingdom of the pill hungry
alert madonna, the pieta of the bruised-faced
child, For thine is the Kingdom
of abstinence and fixing, negotiating
the skeletons of the marriage from
the fleshy baby fat, For thine is the Kingdom
of the Pediatrician who fills out the forms,
the nine year old with pettechiae
the purple flower of madonna's grace;
For thine is the Kingdom on the bruised chin
she'll remember in her old age as "her childhood"
signs a letter to the father who fell in love
in Moldovia, fell in with another prostitute
"So what was wrong with my mother?"

IV

On Healing Lepers

For thine is the Kingdom where you shall be sent
near still waters you leadeth me to drink
get thee behind me and my daily bread,
this island of the lame
the decomposing matter called our skin
contains what it must, necessitating
explanatory revelations: For thine is the Kingdom
the body the temple and the temple buried
For thine is the Kingdom
still as it lives and as it rots
as it is and as it will be
when it is becoming; Lame and leper
the island knows only itself,
a colony tuned into the desire of a few
mainstream types in their own isolation
before Pasteur, before spontaneous generation,
look around What do you see?
All over the place, transgressing forgivenesses
blended families Sodom and Gommorhha,
pillars of salt in the DU, golden helmuted
stinging fly things called Apaches,
What a framework! Everything fits
as it should:

For thine is the Kingdom,
for thine is this illusion.