on the idea that the meek will inherit the earth

I have been at this a long time,

I mean this unraveling

this unmapable scar tissue;

a shining bucket of intimacy.

I love the chairs in

your mothers house

the ones that scream of your

little brothers peanut allergy 

the ones that closed his throat

like the thin pumping neutrality 

of a Ken doll. I ideate it,

either me, straining from a

hollow space, my eyes watering

with love. ISIS

crawling in my window, the one I

have saved Malachi and dismal,

to chop out my benevolent tongue.

They unearthed  a slave ship

on the grounds of the world trade center.

Imagine that? Imagine that people

were once brought here as slaves

on wooden ships, no doubt.

Only to be blown apart by religious

madness.

Reviews

[jacob erin-cilberto]

first we mistreat each other, then we are blown apart by those claiming to have all the spiritual answers to salvation...it's all madness...from that very first chair in the mother's house...
that closed the throat of humanness and made us into ken dolls...

those who in vanity find themselves as perfection...but in the end...they are just as apt to fall into madness...all of their wealth won't buy them health...or the earth..
so as paul simon sang...they should "smoke a pint of tea a day"

[Tree]

I like how you wrote: my eyes / watering with love.... This piece gives us several potent scenes, one after the other. And the connection between that ship excavated at the WTC and slaves, then several hundred years later finding ourselves in a mad religious war? was a powerful interlinking of these turn of events, one that I will be thinking about for quite a while.

This was a really good poem Dana.

Diego

[Beccy]

'The meek shall inherit the earth.' It's never going to happen.

The bully with his finger on the trigger thinks only in terms of power over those he perceives as weaker.

Beccy.

[Marie Anzalone]

"Meekness" seems to me to be a brilliant concept created as a tool for defining inequality of power. "Give me your obediance in this world, and you can rule in the next." What rubbish... almost as poisonous as undefined "patriotism." "You can't do that, that's unpatriotic." The man who loves his country the most is his greatest critic; the man who passes the deepest through doubt and insecuroty is the only one who can hold the space open for another soul to shine. You can, if you want, defend a whole lot of cruelty with religion... or you can do its opposite with spirituality.

Your words are digging deeper into the heart of our world with every write. Thank you for all you do and share. write.

[writing mojo]

yes this subject matter does have some familiar resonance..chocking source sorcery and the big damn olive branch pendulum swinging in Jonah tonsillectomy with ocean back wash cross sectioning
with man playing god again..excellent piece

[W.k.kortas]

For what hath our meekness wrought us, and on so many levels? The final metaphor, of the slave ship unearthed from under the ruins of the Twin Towers...just otherworldly stuff. The manner in which you come at us indirectly, through the side door when we are not looking, and then drop something of that nature on us like a right from the Hit Man, is just a jaw-dropping, head-shaking wonder.

[Delmar Cooper]

What other uncomfortable facts are buried beneath our feet?

[Emily B]

you are really my hero, Dana. John's anthology is almost finished. Just waiting on one of his new jersey friends to contribute some spoken word stuff she has access to . . . i am so ready to see his words walk across a page

much love to you

[uNmAsKeD-dEluSiOns]

Wow this is flawless, very good job! I loved the deepness of it