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UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY - 04/2004
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CHARLES PLYMELL Pope visits Mexico And I watched the television news of the great arrival Swelled masses around the bullet-proof popemobile (Something cartoon-like about the pontiff’s wheels) And something too serious about a swell of people The news cameras panned over the masses Focused in on a man who was standing beside A life-size cardboard cut out of the pope prop A photo op collage against a background mass To be put in the icon stack in the living rooms The reporter then interviewed a woman standing with Child in arms, the only madonna and child in Chiapas He asked her why she wasn’t making her way Down in the masses converging to see the pope He’s just like any other man, she said, no more, no less A human born to this earth of flesh and blood like you and me She was just there when the crowd formed around her village (I search for her forever and kneel to her simple radiance) She holds frail hope of a spirit beyond polluted flesh: this life That populates the unknown like a cancer destroying its host Abstracting gods in icons, symbols, and beliefs, and blame And the horrible, murderous sufferings that all religions bring In the bellows of distance of all blank space we’ll meet in spirit Beyond the cartoon revelations that destroy the world cut adrift Beyond all those praying masses bent with their asses in the air Beyond all those praying banging their heads to the wailing wall Beyond the lynch mobs born again pointing to another scapegoat Who all claim certain some godly abstraction for this dying planet To contribute slyly to murder and destroy the innocent creations Charles Plymell's bio can be found at Cherry Valley Editions |
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© 2003 Underground Voices |
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