The Unholy Flower
No hour shall be forgotten
And no sinner shall weep.
Image credits: Gordon Matta-Clark, Splitting
And
What unholy flower
Blooms in the shadow
Of heaven?
Unseen by no face of God
Or by any unknown mortal audience,
As I arch my back
And watch how shapely
My shadow has become,
As I shave my face
And cherish the sacred
Image of my new reflection,
As I wear my dress
And feel the murderous gaze of
Pilgrim, pedestrian, and panopticon,
As my body crosses the intersection
But my spirit watches me
From the window,
As all things around me
Wither with the ghostly glow
Of streetlights and windshields,
As I look above and find
Stealth bombers circling
The rocking cradle,
As I look below and find
Sinless beggars circling
The shining city on the hill,
As I look ahead and find
A world made according to an image
So blank and pitiless as the screen,
As I behold the spectral fluorescence
Of every single breathing thing
Entering and departing each other,
As my feet forgets the earth
And my soul becomes one
With the symmetry of the universe,
And with all the strength
This ancient body can gather,
I weep and whisper:
“I will not confine this world
As it has confined me.
I would sooner suffer
A thousand centuries
Than enter oblivion
In this coffin of skin.”
And
What unholy flower
Blooms in the shadow
Of heaven?
Bring your lovely hands here
And tear me limb from limb,
And find that no flower remains a flower
When it has left your garden.
I look all around me
And find my petals
Disfiguring and distorting,
Wilting yet becoming anew:
Becoming flesh, fish, and fowl,
Plastic bags, price tags, and power lines,
Cookie wrappers, catalytic converters, and cups of tea,
Debris and detritus, junkyards and wastelands,
High rises, skyscrapers, Babelian towers,
Aged care homes, zoos, maximum security prisons,
Styrofoam and shopping centres, stupas and stelae,
Psych wards, monasteries, public toilets,
Coins, credit cards, Opal cards, banknotes, bible verses,
Braille and binary, alphabets and algorithms,
Reels, shorts, online friends and crucifixions,
Every line of code, every single pixel,
Each mote of dust and microplastic.
We are merely flowers
Sprouting from the remains
Of roadkill.
And
What unholy flower
Blooms in the shadow
Of heaven?
Even as all the world’s
Pilgrims carve their shape
Upon the naked body
Of this grassless earth,
Even as every hand
Is clasped in prayer,
Even as every church
Is built in my memory,
I will not wait for eternity,
I will not stop for death.
I command the universe:
No hour shall be forgotten
And no sinner shall weep,
I have found freedom
And freedom
Has found
Me.