Anyman/Everyman

Any man may raise a cross to frown upon the town,

And to there stand in guilt stained until they crumble down.

 

Any man may strap a bomb across his hollow chest,

And stand below a crescent moon and thump his coward breast.

 

Any man may curse their God then hide inside his home,

But when death arrives at his bedside he desperately atones.

 

And what of God?  What would he do if callously confronted?

Would he stomp about in righteous rage or sit quietly affronted?

 

The saints and souls in heaven, having watched ambition die…

Do they strain against heaven’s bonds or languish idly in the sky?

 

Have they met God?  Or does he weep inside his room?

Could it be he can’t answer why he left so soon?

 

I don’t know if he’s coming back, I don’t know if he’s dead,

I don’t know if his blood is wine or if his body’s bread.

 

I don’t know if a man out east ascended to the sky,

And I don’t know if man can live after his body dies.

 

When ships at sea split in two against the mossy stones,

I wonder if God had these sailors drown scared and all alone.

 

Or when a woman is violated in a dim city street,

I wonder if God is evil, or maybe just effete.

 

Is he angry with us?  Does he hum a light, sprightly tune

While he busily plots all our future dooms?

 

Why’d he do any of this?  Curse us all these ways?

And then pack his bags, unplug his phone, and then quickly walk away?               

 

Do I miss It?  How could I?  I’ve never met the Thing,

But I think it’s him I spy with every newborn spring.

 

I don’t know, and to think so always causes pain,

For everyone, everywhere, the result is the same:

 

If you can’t prove it, don’t enforce it, not for God above:

As his beasts of burden, let us carry love.

I’m stuck somewhere in a field of blues and regrets, and I haven’t an idea of what could’ve caused it.  Old friends perched in trees hoot at me quietly, not to surprise me but to remind me.  I’ve left them for dead, but they still roam the fields.

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They came and went, from forward in time to dead and behind.  I went to their funerals the day after we parted, allowing them a place to be and things to do that never again would include me.  I didn’t know if they were dead or changed or somewhere else.  I wanted to find them.

The stars hadn’t begun to shine when this thought was born, and I think I’ll carry this thought beyond my death to the collapse of the sky.  Rafters creaking under the weight of heaven, God bellowing that the time has come and we’ve put it off too long.  Just move along, when you’ve fallen asleep in a field of blue and woke up dreaming in a field of blue.  Oh, man, this awful field of blue.  We’re collapsing in upon the people inside of us, all screaming that they can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.

The dragons in our past breathe fire through our mouths, while the stars in heaven twinkle behind our eyes.  These bright colors blind us and bring us to the arching vault, where so much gold is stored yet even more is sought after.  Desired.  Impotent, lazy, and brimming with desire.

I could’ve been any man, but instead I’m everyman.  Or maybe the opposite.  I wish we would’ve built ourselves something a little more snug, where we could’ve pressed ourselves against each other until we switched.  We deserve something better than what we have, we think.  We’re almost sure.  Don’t fool me, the fool…you get what you deserve.

How can I fit into this?  The limitless into this?  The unexplainable into this?  When the icy face of the lake stirs, is it the life inside or the life without that flings waves across the visage?  And when the waters recede and leave the life inside to gasp fruitlessly, aren’t we the same?

The realities of life are consumed by an inability to comprehend them, and our guilt enables the continuance of their predication.  I’m running upside down until I’m rightside-up, the thoughts and feelings from long ago changing themselves.  We’ll find something we didn’t like and dress it up into something nice, and even now our guilty verdict waits patiently for a sentence: death.  Meet me here in the icy blue of the fields.

Havne’t you an idea?  Or have you stolen it?  Are you a regurgitation of a bunch of wailing penitent paupers consumed with a need to escape a field of blue?

I’m confined.  Unrefined.  Stuck in so many points in time, and I don’t know If I left something of myself at all those random places.  Sometimes my hazy form and intangible face make very convincing cases.

I’ve dispersed into the sky, only to be compressed overly tight into what pretends to be me.

The patterns in my hands and the material of my pants and the green of the sawgrass all begin to bleed, turning it to that and these to those, and I realize that all is one and just a little bit of me.

Rise Up! Rise Up!

dear preacher, thanks for making time for me today
hope you don’t mind if i hide behind the curtain
it’s been fifteen years since my last confession
by your good book’s standards, i’ve sinned like a champion
but that book seems a tad bit out-dated

please forgive me, for questioning divinity
it’s an ugly job, but i think i’m up for it
i’m not saying who’s right
i’m just saying there’s more than one way
to skin a religion
there’s more than one way
to explain our existence

reverend, sir, i don’t want to seem malevolent
my teenage angst is far behind me
but father, certainly it’s troubling to see
all these people kneeling, instead of dealing
with the fact that we are all we have

so, rise up! rise up!
there’s no one to worship!
but plenty of life to lose!
i’m not saying "let’s burn down the church"
but do you want to hear my confession?
it’s my greatest sin..

okay, here it is:
i wasted half my life on the thought that i’d live forever!
i wasn’t raised, to seize the day, but to work and worship
’cause "he that liveth and believeth" supposedly never dies

rise up! rise up!
and live a full life!
’cause when it’s over, it’s done
so rise up! rise up!
dance and scream and love!

[barely audible outro]
you’re not the chosen one
and i’m not the chosen one