BROKEN PROMISES

BROKEN PROMISES

at eighty years two months
the sun beats down on me
like the gleam in the eye
of a butcher lowering a hammer
on the head of an unsuspecting cow
being led to the slaughterhouse

the memories circle me like
old time Indians circling
a wagon train

I walk backwards into my birth
each new year like
a sharpened knife in the hands
of a trembling surgeon

lost in insomnia like a blind man
walking a dark road in
the dead of night

waking like a shotgun blast
in a killing field
lost in a language
I can not translate

the priest passes
the collection plate
rejects my confession
my sins laid out like
a sea of stars in
a far away constellation

all my poet friends take sides
purity versus the hucksters
God's choir plays bagpipes
refuse to play referee

the creaking coasters
of my grandfather's rocking chair
sing in my one good ear

the Holy Ghost devours
me like a python
my childhood like a bat
in a dark cave waits for God
to come out of the closet
and deliver the long
promised resurrection