Here and Hereafter

i’ll have none of that, you see
none of the exclusivity of clubs
with their business of foundations,
divisions and the self-satisfied
whole-hearted embrace of conceits,
moth-eaten and self-righteous,
the mythopoeic and parabolic
spelled by men into stone and dogma,
the collision of sacred language with
parochialism and that left-over tribalism
exploding into disdain and violence . . .
how is it that vision ends and lunacy begins?

lead me instead to that inchoate space,
between saint and sanctity, soul and spirit
bequeath me into the great yawning
where my mother thrives as Khoas unquelled
where my father shines dressed in anarchy and
my sister sips tears from the wan cheeks of sages,
 . . . . . let us begin again

© Jamie Dedes