You say your hands are broken and coarse
\nYour voice, though sweet, is rough.
\nThat decades of your songs are hoarse,
\nTell me, haven’t you given enough?<\/p>\n
Giver of life, grant me a love
\nLike oranges ripe in the Valencian sun;
\nSinner in my arms, sinner above,
\nI’ll leave you hungry, leave me undone.<\/p>\n
I see purple wisterias above your head
\nLike long dead deities used to wear.
\nA fit crown for the gods, I think,
\nA fit piety for me to bear.<\/p>\n
I knew you in those ruthless days
\nOf stained mouth in maddened Crete,
\nIn every verse of Attic plays
\nI knew the taste of your tired feet.<\/p>\n
Like the wintry breeze of sudden south,
\nAn apostate I was at a heathen door.
\nAll that was wine I drank from your mouth
\nI ate and ate and I wanted more.<\/p>\n
I wish to love like spinners do \u2013
\nThey lick the threads to paint their skies,
\nI’d lick your ankles as a rite of church
\nAnd the yoke of creation on your thighs.<\/p>\n
A holy crusade to your name my love,
\nA thousand whips and I’ll remain your hound,
\nI’ll sing for you with bloodied feet
\nAcross the bloodied ground.<\/p>\n
I know the wealth of bread and wine,
\nI see Hunger in every ghost I meet,
\nI tell them my second poem was ‘Mine’
\nAnd my first ever was ‘I want to eat’.<\/p>\n
Rotten, rotten, corrupted hands; I could never be your saint and yet You came over me like a holy rite \u2013 I wish I could love you like a homeland, God I sat you on my trembling lap, Tonight I joined the cults of search Would I be a sinner if I loved you so? When a piece of bread won’t fill my mouth Somoshree Palit You say your hands are broken and coarse Your voice, though sweet, is rough. That decades of your songs are hoarse, Tell me, haven’t you given enough? Giver of life, grant me a love Like oranges ripe in the Valencian sun; Sinner in my arms, sinner above, I’ll leave you hungry, leave me… <\/p>\n
\nWith what eyes shall I behold but you?
\nThey’re dolled up saints for a share in your lands \u2013
\nI burn countless Romes for a taste of you.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nBetween your name and prayer I’d not choose.
\nTell me, God, what prayers you hear,
\nWhich do you grant, and which refuse?<\/p>\n
\nMy mouth is scarred with rhyme.
\nIf you’d eat me whole leave out my throat \u2013
\nI’d chant your name one last time.<\/p>\n
\nMy jaws on the ground and reeling of sod,
\nA smile to the worms that feed in the sand \u2013
\nA tongue full of desire, a mouthful of god<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nMy sabbath in the cologne you wore,
\nThey’d read you psalms in hallowed halls,
\nI’ll read you on my bedroom floor.<\/p>\n
\nWith forgiven names etched on stones.
\nThe baroque arch of that ancient church
\nLooked a lot like your collarbones.<\/p>\n
\nThey’d hate my piety as a harlot’s fraud.
\nWould they raise a tower for this devious girl,
\nOr a six yard pit for this fallen god?<\/p>\n
\nI would eat the church. For whom will you wait?
\nThe ones with the cross on ivory robes or,
\nThe one with the crucifix on her dinner plate?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"