A Poem for God - L. E. Scott

A Poem for God - L. E. Scott


I've lain with the preacher-man's wife
I've lost my innocence
She sings in the United Methodist Church
My grandmother once said from the Good Book:
The sins of the father will visit the son
There ain't no God if this is true

A letter from a long-lost friend came
Telling me and asking me did I remember
Patricia Strongman? - She's dead
Her mouth is full of dirt
Her face is dissipating
My childhood was yesterday
My grandmother still reads from the Good Book
And in the graveyard
So many of my friends no longer speak to me
As cold, as cold, as a winter's windowpane

Standing by the door singing a spiritual
Is a one-eyed blind man
Talking about all God's children
But he doesn't say what
Perhaps he could say:
In my father's house
there are many mansions
if it were not so
I would have told you

I am going away
to prepare a place for you
that where I am
there ye may be also
In my father's house

Standing by the door singing a spiritual
Is a one-eyed blind man
Talking about all God's children
But he doesn't say what

Day before, when I was nothing but a snotty-nosed child
Your Mama used to whop me for doing wrong
Gave me a note to take home and
My Mama whopped me again
The preacher-man has died in my life
And I'm still being whopped
I've been a Baptist all my life
Did Mary feel good when she conceived?
In other words, an orgasm
Did Jesus Christ ever shit when he walked
The earth?
In the winter time if you don't mind the cold
You can walk on water
A miracle is nothing more than a season in your life

In front of the church, near the pulpit
The fat women sit
Swaying and sweating
Bright red nail polish
Who wants to be born again




http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/taonga/scott.asp