What To Put Poems In
for Miss Karisma

poetry spills
when the cup of life gets knocked over
every time it does

so many tiny containers
like little colored cups of candle light
upon and about an altar

flickering, festive, at eventide, at even song

whenever life, what's inside, gets knocked over,
like holy communion wine,
I am there to sponge it up

sponge offered up to Christ on the cross
when he cried out, "I thirst!"

similarly I thirst for life
love life too much to see it waste or let it waste

make poems to put life in like those candles
in all those little colored glass containers
lit up like Christmas

St. Margaret's Church, unlit otherwise
incense swinging, sweetening a small boy's life

loving worship, learning how to
blessed be God, blessed be his holy name
blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true man
blessed be Jesus Christ
in the most holy sacrament of the altar

in ecstasy in Church in worship
warship enters the harbor of a city far away
like a woman

what a vessel, intending/intended for destruction
want to be a vessel of life, of light

Christ was a love vessel
how love leaked out when he was tacked up

as full of holes as a sweet milk tin


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2008
6:05 p.m. 15.09.08