April 4, 2015

CHRISTOPHER SUDA: "A YOUNG MAN STRUGGLES ACROSS FIFTY STATES, THE THIRD COMING, AFTER TURNING OLD"



Christopher's poetry has been published in Digital Americana, Indian Review, Shot Glass Journal, Wilderness House Literary Review, and other literary journals. Christopher attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham and has just attended the A-I-R program at Byrdcliffe Artist Guild in Woodstock, NY.




A Young Man Struggles Across Fifty States

God, seeing man
stretched over
    marriages
    mothers
    tombstones
what’s next
comes easy
    for us.
    It reminds one
of countries   
full of laughing
gas, heads together
    beside polite
    words lipped
    along every jail
from shadows
to the shaded
    beaten
    street
long since dulled
with feet
    that fell
    from paradise:   


old friend,
go wax your wings
then try again,
again, again.



The Third Coming


There’s a hole in daddy’s arm
where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose.
-John Prine


Nowadays, no one moves
unless they’re shoved.


Jesus tricked everyone
by walking down a road
with his mouth open;


in turn, perspective closed it.


If he strolled into time
again there wouldn’t be
injustice; instead he’d get


a just room prepared
without corners or ledges,
a space for life
to lose fire
by shutting out the lights.




After Turning Old


When I’ve turned old enough
    don’t disappear down


those hills we’ve shared.
    let them perform


their own recital; otherwise
    the memory folds.


if I turn about
    in that tin-boat of dust


above the fireplace
    atop the mantle


where all the children pause
    for Christmas morning,


toss me in while they are stunned
    by sleep.


Those ashes are not
    bones—my bones were built


with God’s wrists.


When I am gone,
    let another earth rise.

~CHRISTOPHER SUDA

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