I Could Have Swore

Backs against the wall
And faceless
No name to call
Wandering
If anyone
Ever
Will get their drift
Homie-less
At the center
A cross person
Surrounded by thieves
And gawkers
In a sea of blindness
In heaving this very day
Like a bunch of drunken sellers
With a king dumb struck
At hand
Suffering
A body politic
Right
And left
A loan
In perpetual lent
Wanting us to be saved
A dollar store
Perhaps
Inescapable worries
Of exactly how spent
Just
Give me
Those goddamned crackers
And a little whine
On my breath
My broken body
And bypassed heart
Giving
For you
Not me
I am
A men!
All of life taxing
Except perhaps one percent
Forgetting the rest
Waging undomesticated lives
Unmanageable
Where people have to sell themselves
To survive
And giving it away
They are down with that
That lame walk away
I could have swore
I was in church
Universal
Unconditional
Love
Going off like a balm
Proclaiming release
To those dammed feelings
In unfamiliar tongues
Wheel gather together
In a circle unspoken
Everyone faced
Crying only
Jesus
We need a man
Who knows what it’s like
To be
Unfucked
And when we see him
Will wee
No it

This poem was inspired by an open mic session held at a church where several people made comments throughout the evening about how they were editing their work and/or trying not to swear.  I’ve long felt this was a somewhat odd thing, given my understanding of God.  If God is the Lord of all and omnipresent, why are we so concerned about doing something wrong or inappropriate in a church building.  Frankly, I am much more perturbed by religious folks who are all pious and reverent on Sunday and offer offense freely to God throughout the week.  Swearing as an offense is technically “taking the Lord’s name in vain.”  Of course, the Lord’s name is not a series of letters spoken.  “Name” here refers to God’s character.  To speak or act as if God’s character is powerless or meaningless — “vain” — is the offense.  It seems to me that God is way more concerned with our actions than our words, and whether our actions are consistent with God’s character.  Having said that, I can recognize that irreverence and humor can actually be a very effective tool to deflate the pious and self-righteous.  In this case, irreverence is reverence to God’s character.  I definitely can swear that God’s character is mysterious.