once, i saw god
he was standing in the left turn lane on atlantic avenue twirling in right hand circles
round n’ round while wrapping his head counter-clock-wise in a whirlpool blanket
he was busy pointing to sky with his free hand and shouting with grace softness
he saw me on one of his twist or his turns or at least he saw through where i was standing
from his pockets i heard the jangle of the tambourine man echo on through
the thin mercurial tone made fractured against the chain link fence of the abandoned lot
that singing of conductive copper dimes the metallic shifting and shearing of high electricity
whether through the spirit or an invasion of insanity or alchemic-chemistry we was a conduit of energy
she was stitched into the subway wall tile where you can always seek her out
cross from me no matter which platform i am standing on or where i am headed
plastered into every mezzanine mirror as if a fleeting freeze temporary like the parthenon
i have come across her alone faded into the corner crouched and small
i’ve seen her short and stout with a child strung across her chest eyes steeled feet quick
some days i find her in a state of pure fire and flame evisceration and reckoning on her tongue
the same tongue that after fingers split a pale peach apart as halves to the pit skin pinched like pink cotton dough
would briefly taste the perverse fruit-body the grotesque mocking delicacy of all there is always around
i have seen god
a defiant morning of blue due silver-lined clinging to the leaves
it was an incandescent day coming on clinging to the bloomed leaves
the useless and wasted bloom of a fallen tree axed apart at its roots
someone felled that bloomed tree with few lean sharp-cornered strokes
strokes natural clean steady and true as if guided along forthright
god delivers his strokes sincerely clean and without hesitation too
god delivered in sacrifice that tree back to the earth upending innate balance
god too sacrificed his son by bleeding him across cedar pine and cypress
once, i saw god
she was waiting at the crosswalk
he was bending down at a dying cottonwood tree
she was walking alongside a horse
he was running down a passing train
she was whistling The Tammy’s “Egyptian Shumba”
he was howling and hissing at that crippled caboose
she heard him far down the railroad tracks
they were both bound for glory
once, i saw god in the theater
he was marlon brando railing wildly at wayward men down by the loading docks
he was peter sellers and james dean and charlie chaplin and richard burton
his senses are simultaneously detected and distant yet here communicating with you
he shows what there is and can be but if you meet him he will not impress in the slightest
she was uma thurman with steel leading her down trails of blood and divine wrath
she was bette davis and mae west and bridget bardot and marlene dietrich
she embodies everything contrary to popular demand as it should really be
she gives nothing that she doesn’t want and i shouldn’t have expected anything more
i have seen god
he jump hurdled the humble fathers loosely laid lattice fence
that for the boy of only six was just as impossible and daunting as anything
as if the wrought-iron gate of a crusaders castle the neighbor imported from Krak Des Chevaliers
the dilapidated one that moans behind him in the background of his weekly nightmare
a fossil-faced-fence made out of bones and lost souls but yet still breathes
the child survived every sour or bad thought from the days before and this one too
just then they plucked the young sister out of that pool as she slipped below
when she was only five years old by some swift hand of a compulsive heart
once, i saw him
in children on a newsreel spitting blood across the eastern deserts described nearly in the ancient text
now tinted of blonde-blue and plundering-white of crimson hate the brutality of the old wars and older gods
the place has never been conquered yet always is contested and never can settle as a home
with these children forced to swallow venom spewed so the future is secured to fail
she’s a woman who’s still got the gall and some grit while the boys rained on her with rocks
their pockets emptied like a relentless breeze of sand in the shadow of the sinking boulder
the slow weight imposed from the time-of-man nestled at her chest and would not decompress
she was sleeping on the cathedral steps with an already dead baby in her arms
once, i saw god as the sun went down
he on the lips of a kneeled down man mouth wrapped round his lovers cock
he too was there with his hand on the back of the head of the choir boy
he gushed feared no rapture and could not wait for the rupture from the loin
he too hallows out his heart and with it his mouth a vessel of repentance
i saw god pass glances and notes slipping from under their sunday-best-slacks
i too saw god go slithering under a church pew below a boy slipping into his pant leg
he an expansive tibetian who adorned a thistle-thorned crown that etched soft along sovereign sun-sipped cheeks
he too was pale of death and envy that made him shine as blacked skies veil silver he chocked the boys’ spine
once, i saw god in the country morning time
before the bus came barreling down the barren and stripped dusty back roads
as the news flash reported a child aged seventeen found an oak of strength to stand the scorn in his eye
there he hung himself from infantile dreams that his prayers could be answered
all along a man in white lunged for him every waking moment calling the child to his side
like axes to the ears with a sack full of stars and broken hearts hung low within reach
the temptation to see and hold had worn and warmed him with an unwavering grin
for all he wanted to do was get out of the broken landscape he was born to but not fond of
now not even a trickle of strain fell from under his pristine pits as it had for many prior moons
once, i saw god at night
with the head of a lamb who spoke like a man but was not a man in the slightest
strong tiny fingers hung around their neck clanging like chimes against freedom
but they truly sang like tears and smelled of foul desire and tarnished fruit
there was nothing there but temporary reprieve from inevitable desolation
coming on slow out of the wilderness from whence they roamed with purpose
but when that horned head appeared visible all vulnerability was vanquished
there were no walls a man ever made that one could hide behind from this serpent
no valley of gods to take refuge from the demon-tongued-tempter there before me
that god
they dawned a clever chic cloak of clumped hairs clasped by golden molars
side-saddled on the left hip was a flute that scratched against the sky for miles away
a sweet satirical symphony stuck to every skull as slow-dripped arsenic honey at the ear
despite any attempt all eyes nose and mouth crusted close to only hear that horning
all the flowers moved queer when they spoke both repulsed and relieved to be released
the sour was soon forgotten by the promise of the sugar that likely never came
maybe those gums were blackened in blood but they were of the dearest friend then
it was a moment that lasted a lifetime and yet probably never at all
the days i saw god
the-thousand-or-so-day-nights impeded by slow—shackled—steps not of golden nor bronze
where i met they-he-she-them they perched neither on the cliff-side nor clouds
it was never clear if-when you turn the corner or climb the hill they’d be there
on this morning she-sat-silent-n’-strong-as-a-root rolling her fingers over twine
her hands red-as-cherokee-clay palms-blooming-pots to catch rain-fall from the violent sky
his face washed with halcyon light you-know-only-to-exist-as-something-unreal
a moment i thought i-heard-birds-singing-caged-in-his-belly but found the voice to be mine when-my-mouth-opened-wide
an-echo-in-a-minor-key hoping dearly that blue-bird-would-bathe-in-water-near and fly true
the evenings god passed
as-a-girl-who-grew-in-a-house-of-broken-glass shattered-before-birth that’ll remain after her rot
left now with colors all-of-each-shard-chiseled-together-into-windows for the light to still be let in
across the lawn in-an-obvious-state-of-obliviion-n’-loss walking-surely with each step forever-forward
there-i-fell-in-love-permanently yet knew i had to still turn ‘round and let her go by
he’s the boy who-watches-mother-lashed consumed-by-flame from behind the bedroom door
his-father-drinks-enough for an adult-life every-day and falls apart with-infuriating-disgrace
he wishes father only drank water and carried only it in his fists as chief marshall of fires
there-through-the-window i saw the-boys-fist-finally-open exhausted-after-several-years-clinched—i wept at my sill for all families
she’s a saint and martyr
who painted a bannerol out of tears and carried it in the ceremony to end the war
she surrogated ever fostered child left from a parent that went for a cigarette forever long
she was there never to provide the right home but rather just a home
in this there was nothing to be told of her and no knowledge to be gained
she’s the girl who was poor and sweated for every penny through poverty and pain
she yet gives her riches back to the children just like her to partake in unification
she is the woman who has nothing and everything that wants it all or not at all
she who is mute and sings in private spaces like an angel unobserved
he’s charmed with charisma
sitting in a car casually stoned sweet-talking the ticket away saving the teenagers a life-arrested
even when my brother broke off road dead upon arrival at the maple he still carried him home
he bummed me a cigarette and whipped my tears when i sat cold outside the funeral home that humid august evening
he told me i could be whatever i wanted to be if ever i could crawl out from under it all and prove it
he bent down and tied my laces giving a glancing look of knowing that i somehow forget most days
for love cannot keep you safe and there is never any winning when you can get by on the minimum
so shown when he pulled up his sleeves exposing the scars carried etched across his arms
i was assured they had been there time and time again to see things through to the end
god is there for finding
god is astonishing and banal and bizzare and known to be seen or felt or tasted or smelled time-to-time
but this won’t be when you are speaking or looking or grasping or sniffing about
god is on your tongue but only when it truly knows it’s tasting some-thing other
god is in my feet when i am dancing but only when i’m just there dangling in the air
i quit searching for god while pretending to pick through the clouds when i was nine
i scarcely prayed before then and never did again because the sound was so deafening
i recall the day well when i knelt next to my tree and wept for life while none came to me
so now daily i be sure to put my toes back on the ground because god is there out in the streets
2024, February 7th, Wednesday, Abandoned For Years Until Today Upon Hearing Mehrnam Rastegari