When The Gun Is Pointed (A Psalm)

I am waiting for the gun to be turned at me
So I can say "Yes,
Take me to that dream, that motorcycle dream,
Where danger is the road and the road is always free."
My Saints are all Saints because of how free the road.
And how inaccessible they feel to me now -
Kerouac, Gingsberg, Vonnegut, Dylan, Thompson -
Come release me when the gun is to my head,
Help me say "Yes" to the motorcycle dream,
Exploding all things quiet while slaying the dragon
Then building it all again to tear it down once more.

Let there be no brilliance in it,
No prophet-seeing knight.
Brilliance is unseen; resilience is known and matters.
All it takes is to be in no way dead,
To shake the sun for its worth and pick up the change,
Find the center where gravity will hold you up
And never lose sight of your feet in their shoes
On the wet rocks you traverse while time tries distractions.

I remember all the things I've seen
And the one time I came closest to Sainthood
Elevates me still today -
The biggest waves I ever saw
Smashed into the cliffside boulders
Outside of Cascais, Portugal.
I climbed down a perilous, stone way
Onto the boulders where the violent ocean abused the land.
The rocks trembled at each wave's impact
And I felt erosion in action, the decay of titans
The weathering of earth
All underneath my feet.
I could have died that day with one misstep,
Fallen to a scraggly doom
In the crevasse between two boulders
With the ocean pounding my carcass,
Ripping it apart so to never be found.
But fate had other plans,
And I did not perish.
I had approached the living power that resides
In the gut of the ocean;
Tasting that force I never will forget.
I lived on and climbed out from the cliffs
But the taste of danger that flirts with doom
In the powderroom of freedom
Was forever emblazened on the lips of my soul.

I cannot forget it.
It haunts me to this day.
Looking over the edge into chaos' animosity
And coming back alive is enough to inspire a lifetime of being lost.

I'm trying to be found and becoming tame, I think, instead.
Saints, I implore you, let me know freedom again -
That vast freedom that lurks so close to death and the territories.
Come into me, fresh as a salmon, electric as light.
Get me down on my knees in front of thrashing nature
To see the abominations we protest but can become.

Stop ye Global Warming woes, arrest the glaciers still,
When the gun is pointed (and you know what that means)
Let me say "Yes,"
Let you say "Yes,"
Amen, amen, amen.


09/09