I am left timeless. My skin is timeless.
Like the rusty mercury gauge in an old Chevy.
I am gazing upon Christ. I am aggressive.
My density is aggressive. I am an out of body
experience. My blood pressure drops to zero.
I am a cardiac arrest. The feeling of absolute resolution.
I am the hangings, shootings, and burnings. I am a path
of radical poverty. United to each other as brother and sister.
I am the problem of religious language. I am an impassioned heart.
Everything deserving of praise. The world whose beauty the sun and moon admire.
I am a deserted street corner in Brooklyn. I am Crazy Horse and Little Big Horn.
I am the tail of the Great Bear-Ursa Major.
I am a young prisoner. I am neither above nor below.
I pledge my allegiance to the rocks and plants. To the soil.
To the oak trees and the woods. I am the holy body and blood.
I am replete with goodness. One who loves. Those enemies I never met.
I am what the poor know. What never ends up on a family tree.
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Havana Times, South China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more.
See all his poems on Tea House here.
