Air Now Here Now
for Tyrone Ferguson

I am held together by prayers I pray

in spite of being threadbare
in spite of my shoes, embarrassing me,
bursting, coming apart in places

I coming apart, going to pieces
but I pray and I keep and I hold
though I fall apart or seem to do or seem to be

I am held together by prayers, by poetry
even when I am or seem to be coming apart mentally

by God and by prayers, I am held up
and I hold together

in spite of the fact that the world I'm in,
our little country, geographically fragmented,
because of crime, mismanagement

is fragmenting and because it is in need of prayer
is not holding up, is not held together

I hold together even when I hang by no more than a thread

by a prayer in my mouth, by prayers in my heart
by the pen I grip like a drowning man grips a straw

through a straw I suck at life, I suck up life


© Obediah Michael Smith, 2009
9:50 a.m. 24.10.09