Psalm for the Rapture

Farther away — much farther,

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high as a predator drone above the caution tape,
distant as a satellite from the chalk outline on the street,

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safe from the suck of the swamp,
its cottonmouths & mosquitoes,

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free from the burden of earth
& the deadly irredeemable stones,

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beyond the sting of conscience
& the discomfort of moral ambiguity,

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rapture me in the always-now of amnesia,
in the never-enough of consumption, rupture me,

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oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god.

10 Replies to “Psalm for the Rapture”

  1. Oh my, so many layers of meaning, so despairing and powerful.

    I love the photo of stone steps, Dave, but they look scary to walk on, as if they could all tumble down while walking on them – a shaky stairway to heaven?

  2. I was listening to a song earlier today that uses religious imagery to express sexual experience. The song may be influencing my view of your last photograph. Or it may be your fault.

  3. Peter – Obviously, I don’t shy away from mixing sexual and religious metaphors. I find the mutual interpenetration of the two realms of experience fairly unproblematic; it’s the way both tend to get distorted by self-centredness and greed that ought to concern us, I believe.

  4. Dave, I think your response to my comment is right on. I might add prudishness to the things that may distort both our sexual and religious lives, but I guess prudishness is based in self-centeredness.

  5. Maybe so, but it’s different enough that it wouldn’t have hurt to include that, too. (Come to think of it, I am myself somewhat prudish about prayer as well as sex.) I like any formulation that suggests that body and spirit are coterminous.

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