ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
sam sax is the author of Madness (Penguin, 2017) winner of The National Poetry Series selected by Terrance Hayes. His second book 'Bury It' will be out on Wesleyan University Press in 2018. He's received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Lambda Literary, & The Michener Center where he served as the Editor-in-chief of Bat City Review. He's the two-time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion & author of four chapbooks. Winner of the 2016 Iowa Review Award his poems are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Guernica, Ploughshares, Poetry Magazine, + other journals.
October 5, 2016
Easy Fast
It's yom kippur
Which means everybody's a bttm
'til sunup: practice repentance
Through penetration, to give
Another pleasure how you peel an olive
& offer the bitter meat
To someone only half-hungry.
All love to the lord's begrudging
Acceptance of our debacles
Resplendent with judgment
A rolled pair of omnipotent eyes.
I've done bad things in my life.
Stuff no ancient religion would let live
Unpunished: hurt people i loved,
Really hurt them.
They'd cut off your hands
For just eating swine back then,
Now I'm all pig
Lips to stomach.
Still i make my catalogue
Of unforgivenesses
Write it out in my own shaking hand
On real paper i fold into a little house
My mother hopes i'll one day fill
With children. i name names. lick
The page & seal it.
It's yom kippur which means
i'm on my stomach waiting
For the lord to enter
My back a slow motion whip
My window open
The wind an unlubricated & holy finger.
My people fast one day a year
& are forgiven everything,
Their insane nation state & whatever
Else they've done with hands.
All love to us sinners
Our mouths pork & torturous thorns
Our hunger so ugly it floods
The mirrors with steam.
Some things aren't meant to be
Forgiven. all hail us who punish
Our own damned selves
Everyday & still let the lord
We don't really believe in fuck us
Once a year like a ship
Leaking blood across the waters.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
