Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 01:34:12 -0400

priests and poets


Usta be one o'the tribe, mebbe sumbody touched by the gods and made
DIFFERENT (apparent thru the fact that he was lame or she was
epileptic) and so wuzn't so good for huntin' and gatherin' and
birthin' and buildin' became the dedicated REsource devoted to the
DIVINE.  Hail the priest, praise the priestess, they know the
ingredients of the SACRED WINE, they know the places where POWER pools
up and spills over to leak on the human head, they can SEE not using
their eyes alone but their brains'n'hearts'n'souls all POURING through
those OCULAR UNITS givin' them what somebodies call the witchy look
and others the evil eye.

You can't control power, you can barely steer where the gusher goes -
when it slides through you and makes yr fingertips tingle and yr
genitalia heat up and yr mind race and everything go so fast and true
there's no possibility of stumbling, no room to fall.  But unless you
felt that, unless you had the pillar o'light burst through the top O
yo'head, there's nothing for you to understand and so you fear it!
Instincts fight or flight at the sight of the UNKNOWN!

But the world changes, as it surely rivers cut the earth flesh deep,
and the SACRED SOUL got cheap.  Sellin' out and givin' away sekrets in
return for what they think is more power, but it's just flesh power
not REAL power, but they don't know cuz they've only tasted it, never
drunk from the waterfall, never became one with the soles o'their
feets they onlee want reglar wine to cloud they heads and reglar sex,
a dull echo of the intimacy once shared with the holy fuck of
god/dess.

But the DIVINE don't care if you don't care, it's gonna come pouring
through you if it's yr time.  The wheel is spinnin' and it's not the
fool at the front of the room who's allus got sacred stuff, sometimes
it's the crazy on the corner and sometimes it's a new mom and
sometimes it's a body that remembers and sometimes... just
sometimes... it's the poets.

To dwell upon words - afore the mouths betrayed themselves, when the
power wasn't a trip it was a sacred trust, when the knowledge was
cultivated and kept gently and the priest spoke in the holy language -
we would go to him NOT cuz he had a direct dial to all WHOLLY HOLY but
because he could SAY IT BETTER than we could ever hope to express.
The gods have golden ears and only the prettiest words slide down the
spiral shell and GOLLY DAMN weren't those speakers-to-divinity sweet
talkers?  But like everything tangling, the talkin' got more important
than the listenin' and all was shifted again.  Anybody can pray now
and that ain't a bad thing, but nobody taught it right, nobody
imPRESSed any kinda powerful concept of all that is HOLY, SACRED, and
DIVINE on the peeples minds so they pray to win and they prey to get
laid and hardly nobodies prayin' with joy and fear and love and mud
all mixed up and laughing.

SOMEtimes though, the poet's eyes open wide with a holy see and the
words connect all linked up and rhythmic and we ask the poet to talk
for our hearts and she tries and even when she fails she succeeds cuz
she tries and she goes to a place where OTHERNESSS happens and wreaths
memories with smoke and sweets with the bitterness of living and the
screaming joy of dancing through this world remembering that WE CAN BE
MORE THAN WHAT WE ARE...

So let us pray.