Fast Day 92 March 6 2009 {I Wish I Had a Poem}

I wish I had a poem
to write, to speak, and dance to;
a wide ranging poem about the world,
and all the life therein, the quick, the dead,
the men and the women, the loving, the hate:
whirling like a dervish upon the threshing floors of Crete;
Zorba - lightning - arrakh!
dark haired women and their music...
I wish I had a poem.

I wish I had a poem
to flaunt, to wear, and flourish;
a flash, trash ensemble catching eyes,
and turns the heads all 'round to look at it;
and drive adoring acolytes to kneel-
before my wind swept chest encased in leather tattoos,
drunk and mad and waiting
for the shirtless, pallid vision...
I wish I had a poem.

I wish I had a poem
entrancing like Astarte's
perfumed encapturing embrace of love!
who walked along Yonge Street one Sunday morn
and drove parishoners from their kirks,
seeking haloes antique of lovely goddesses and gods!
forswear, soul, do forswear
the throbbing crush, the madd'ning roar...
I wish I had a poem.

I wish I had a poem
that would relieve the world's pain
and save children everywhere from harm;
and lullaby sorrow, and wipe their tears
lest all their fathers should ever depart
into warfare's hungry substantial market place of blood:
haggling costs of our sins-
idolatry of precious metals.
I wish I had a poem.

I wish I had a poem
that would pick me up at Central Park
and take me on a trip to St. John Divine;
and stop to look at cherry blossoms
in the morn of spring after a storm
when sky and ground burst alike into pink petals
we spread our blanket and
even saints join our picnic...
I wish I had a poem.