Alpha/Omega: A Double Helix


Alter my heart, or should it be altar it?  Is this a quiz?
     Zero at the bone wrote Miss Emily, as she penned a
bunch of poems, then put them in her trunk.  Today
     you can recognize her genius, but they were numb,
couldn’t see it for the words.  Women, the fairer sex,
     x cetera, were only meant for the domestic
daily grind.  Step outside the lines, and pow!
     Won’t just everybody shun you?  But did
Emily care?  It’s not like she was yearning to be on TV,
     video, or even the stage.  She had time
for dreaming, up in her room, didn’t need a guru
     until the world intruded.  Enter the pasty-faced minister of
God’s holy house, the white church down the street
     that wanted her on the hard pew, what a drag.
How did love your neighbor come to this:
     Sunday morning’s slow march,
itchy clothing, endless sermons, torpor
     rendering the congregation insensible.  I
just don’t think it’s what God had in mind, the ps and qs
     quietly morphing into zs.  Even the Muslim hajj
kicks more butt that this circumstance and pomp
     putting us to sleep.  Seek
love where you can find it should be the motto,
     or else you risk losing your soul.
Maybe Jesus had a better plan.
     No more hate, no more wars, and sure, use a condom.
Never mind the liturgy, the organ’s sonorous hum,
     move in your seat if you feel the rhythm low down,
or groove on the trumpet blare, the snare drum roll.
     Love one another is the only credo.
Politics, environment, chastity:  a mixed up shtick
     keeping you from listening up.
Quiet, hush, says the Librarian.  Rock on goes the DJ,
     jump, jive and wail.  Your IQ,
running to high numbers, isn’t going to save you.  I
     italicize every word that’s important.  Our
souls continue their wayward search.
     Happiness?  Riches?  Success?
The secret could be as simple as bootleg
     Gucci stonewashed jeans.  Or it might not.
Up til now I thought it might be a Hèrmes scarf,
     foulard, loosely knotted in a drop-dead manner.  You
very well might admit this.  Women know we
    exist, if we shop.  So cut me up with a shiv.
Wash my feet, pour something sweet on them, like nard.
     Deny you know me, three times.  The cock’s crow.
Xray my heart, is the blood still pumping, frantic,
     coursing, lub dub, lub dub?  Remix
your tapes, turn up the woofers, let it throb,
     blast, make the angels shake their celestial booty.
Zero in on what’s important.  Be bop a looma
     a love bam boom, alter or altar, all that jazz.