your mountain;2 For, lo, the wicked bend the bow,They make ready their arrow upon the string,That they may shoot in darkness at the upright in heart;3 If the foundations be destroyed,What can the righteous do?4 God is in his holy temple;God, his throne is in heaven;His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.5 God trieth the righteous;But the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.6 Upon the wicked he will rain snares;Fire and brimstone and burning wind shall be the portion of their cup.7 For God is righteous; he loveth righteousness:The upright shall behold his face.
I have put my trust in you
Not knowing you
Merely sensing you
Suspecting you
The innate they say
Felt
Not understood
Not tested
No trials
Unsurveyed
Still
For the unknowing
You
Five thousand years of promises
To destroy my enemies
Raining fire and brimstone on whose we call wicked
This, the revealed inheritance
Prayed aloud in the camps
By the evicted and the starved
The butchered
The hanged
As the wicked drove off
Afterwards
To their ceaseless celebrations
In Portofino
Cozumel
And Beverly Hills
Psalm Twelve
1 Help, O God; for the godly man ceaseth;For the faithful fail from among the children of men.2 They speak falsehood every one with his neighbor:With flattering lip, and with a double heart, do they speak.3 God will cut off all flattering lips,The tongue that speaketh great things;4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail;Our lips are our own: who is lord over us?5 Because of the oppression of the poor, Because of the sighing of the needy,Now will I arise, saith God;I will set him in the safety he panteth for.6 The words of God are pure words;As silver tried in a furnace on the earth,Purified seven times.7 Thou wilt keep them, O God,Thou wilt preserve them from this generation for ever.8 The wicked walk on every side,When vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
I am surrounded by betrayal
Praised to my face
Flattered loudly
None better, they say
Another version of me
Is visited behind my back
I am misquoted
Defamed
Slandered
Where are you
Who promises to cut off
The lips of my accusers?
Who promises to keep me safe?
You turn me into a corporate wife
To be cheated on relentlessly
You claim
You are truth revealed
When in fact
You are the truth of money
Collected at the door
Psalm Thirteen
1 How long, O God? wilt thou forget me for ever?How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul,Having sorrow in my heart all the day?How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?3 Consider and answer me, O God my God:Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;4 Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him;Lest mine adversaries rejoice when I am moved.5 But I have trusted in thy loving kindness;My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.6 I will sing unto God,Because he hath dealt bountifully with me.
Who will hear me?
Somebody who
Where are you now
Whoever you are?
Lighten my soul
Lift my sorrow
Otherwise
What good
This hunger in my heart?
What sense
Can I ascribe to pain
And loss
Did someone mention death?
They say the world laughs at calamity
The misery of the poor
The sorrows of the elderly
Scratch that
We are here to be entertained
Definitely
The young and the restless
A small screen narrative
Endless coupling
Held together by greasepaint
And subterfuge
Lipstick ruby red
A cacophony of compliments
And lies
The way of the world
A cliché come true.
I remember the simple elements
The beauty of the black brown soil
The laughter of dogs
New life come spring
It’s all of a piece
Complexity
Guaranteed
Whoever we are
Remember
We are still the human race.
Kyrie Eleison
Psalm Fourteen
1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.They are corrupt, they have done abominable works;There is none that doeth good.2 God looked down from heaven upon the children of men,To see if there were any that did understand,That did seek after God.3 They are all gone aside; they are together become filthy;There is none that doeth good, no, not one.4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge,Who eat up my people as they eat bread,And call not upon God?5 There were they in great fear;For God is in the generation of the righteous.6 Ye put to shame the counsel of the poor,Because God is his refuge.7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!When God bringeth back the captivity of his people,Then shall Jacob rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.
The fool hath said in his heart
There is no God
Declares the Psalm, once a simple song
Apparently now absolute
According to Evangelicals
Is the Lord, what a word—
How about potentate?
How about wizir?
Really looking down
Follow the dotted line
To discover men, women, and children
That