Even God Does the Dishes

Even God Does the Dishes

 

You approached me like road whose course was unknown

with the stride of a slave somehow cautiously freed

from a master who once loved but could not deign          

to pollute his people's pure seed;

so he parted from you, with light laughter, his conquest

like a jockey to his fastest, most beautiful steed

who he loved not for love but for beautiful joy

of loving at such an extraordinary speed;

 

in a prayer kissed by the wind

you moved from place to place unseen

while I searched for you not near or far

but in some missing in between

I thought I found you in a cornfield

I thought I saw you in a desert sun

but every time that I caught sight of you

the vision seemed to come undone.

 

So in some momentary slowness

I kissed your cheek in a harsh wind

and though it lasted less than a broken second

I felt like a child who had first sinned

but your presence faded quickly

as though some brilliant light had dimmed

I was stranded in a curious emptiness

you were merely shaken and chagrined

 

So I opened my box of puzzle thoughts

and laid them out for you to see

you say that you were overwhelmed

by the simple magnitude of me

the moment had become just so colossal

neither you or I had the energy

to keep it from collapsing on our heads

nor to keep from sinking in the debris

 

So in some distant, more comfortable

netherly never- our paths will cross once more;

where the currents we followed coalesce and converge

in the eye of existence's storm

 

 

and so I went to my beautiful, nether world

where you always are waiting for me

with a smile on your face as though

you were caught in the midst of some perilous glee

whispering promises of some distant future

which neither you nor I could possibly see

guiding me gently through the force of these visions

to some knowledge, universal, like a skeleton key

 

There are conspiracies on every corner

Everyone thinks theirs is The Great Big Wave

Waiting to burst forth and overwhelm the earth;

I know two women, born into cabals of secretive lives

Bleeding to be normal, to bear children, to be wives.

I discovered a simple circle, lying hidden in the trees

and so I'm tired of the lying, and of the mysteries

My head is sore from thinking, and my eyes are red from peering

Trying to see something that you're not supposed to use your eyes to see.

I'm bored with the longing, and angry at the ceiling

And I've been praying so hard there are sores on both my knees

but if you want to know where I'll be....

I'll be kneeling with the children of the desert

And I'll be kneeling with the children of the plains

The city doesn't feel like the city should tonight

And my little red Subaru feels like a Chevrolet

There are winds and there are breezes

And tonight the buildings feel like trees

Somehow I keep expecting the stones blown by the wind to sway;

And it blows through my dark desi hair

Blowing like some gods at play

Like the thoughts of some lost lover sleeping

With someone else so far away

  

But it's hard to be a muse

When there's dishes to be done

And you can't lie in bed all day

When through the window shines the sun

 

And I'm open and I'm weak

And I don't want to open up the dam of love

Cause with love comes need

And when I'm needy you are distant

And when you're distant I'm insane.

 

I sit, somewhere outside the timeline

Rearranging events to our benefit

Learning from the giants who have walked this path before me

 

Toying with thoughts, so colossal

I can barely find the energy to control them.

From the birth of prophets, in the desert

To the dirty dishes, in the ghetto

From the secrets under every stone unturned

To those buried in the hearts of those for whom we yearn

 

but the taste of her smile in winter was sweet

and you remember the coat that she wore

and you're trying to find out what happened that night

as you picture yourself a few hours before

and you think of all the memories

and the moments that you keep

as you lay staring at the ceiling

looking for a metaphor to help you sleep

 

But you're thirsty and she is Woman

and you want to swallow the sun

because there are currents that run deeper

and sometimes to the surface they will come;

they will come in flashes and in moments

where the world breaks like a mirror

because time is overflowing,

with every breath you're getting nearer

to an understanding lack of thought

that pulls you to the ground

like the lustful eyes of a fallen angel

who loves to scream just to hear the sound

of some plastic, artificial rapture...

because you run away, and soon

you're just a child on a summer evening

staring longingly towards a crescent moon

You want to be with her,

but she wants nothing to do with you

and so you go on, peeling grapes

and bitching, that you've paid your due

 

and you're hungry and you're lonely

and you're dying for a bloody steak

and the coffee's getting stale

and it's three AM and you're still awake

you don't want to go to sleep

with these storms inside your head

you're looking for any dry place with a roof

some mental bus stop or motel or shed

you've got some candles and a blanket

worn and dirty and bare of thread

and she beckons to you at the edge of the earth

in a long dress standing next to a comfortable bed

You want to feel alive and sinful

and so vibrant and deliciously used

and you're damp and you're dirty

and you're eyes have come open to a new set of hues

and you're kneeling like a beggar

for some blessing at the pews.

 

 

Now the sandbox is gone and the trails are bare

Though the wind tastes like caramel

And the weather is fair

There is mumbling regret in the eyes of his shadow

That the river is smells rancid and the fields are fallow

The pollution is rampant, wherever he runs

Maybe he carries it with him,

Like the stains on his lungs;

As he exits the party, his thoughts start to stir

That the fish was like plastic, and the sauce mediocre.

These simplistic thoughts, behind equations of love

For I don't think that he knows, to him the moon is above

So in between the smoke, and the coffee and kisses

He doesn't understand, even God does the dishes.

 

To the wind's heavy ovation

I recited my personal tale of creation

-a goddess who stands at the sink

clapping her hands like the crowds in the stands

who don't bother to know what they think.

I was lost in the midst of some frigid elation

burning to discover a new kind of God

who is muddy, like us and walks naked through

basins where the river gives way to the sod;

he will be unknown to men who sit in the towers

chanting of Golems and Christ

While you lie like an eagle in a patchwork of quilts

between an ocean of cod and the fields of rice

in some burnished, electrified temple you built

infested with roaches and mice

 

And with olives and linseed I made you an oil

to anoint you as one who may pass

through the hailstorm my angry cousins had built

to shatter our bulletproof cities of glass;

for I worry for you when I hear news of the earth

and know that you walk the earth too

 

and I will dance like a renga

off the tip of your tongue

like the air of some ominous easterly gust

that catches me standing in a puddle of water

doubting the people I trust