Cross As Hell

I pick poems out of shit
walk in it, sit in it, smell of it

whatever it takes, wherever it takes me
I go, obedient to poetry

into the worst places, for verse sake,
for the sake of verse

wherever poetic voice is dictating to me
I follow, I go

blows of the hammer upon the head of nails
horrible as this is, as this was, I must bear witness

bare witness, stripped of his clothes

stripped off his clothes, diced for them
at the foot of the cross

how many otherwise - other lives, otherwise –
would have been lost


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2006
6:21 a.m. 27/may/06