Manifest Presence Poem by JDC LeDrew

I was over-long on the strand today,
Beneath the burning cancer star.
Until my lobster-legs radiate by memory its heat.
I'm over-done by wine and sun.

Something can be heard above my breathing.
It disturbs my meditations of the violet sunspots
Exploding across my eyelids.

There is a presence from which emanates
An insistent, rhythmic hum,
Like that of the soul disturbed in church.
Not by the passionless, droning voice,
But by the understanding of silence.
The troubling ownership of silence.

It is here, humming and pulsing,
While I, in a state of half-consciousness,
Drift between awareness and amnesia.
Past and present images merge as one experience.
There is the smell of over-cooked flesh and of summer sweated sheets.
And I sense the room for what it is;
An animal's lair.

It's so steady, the hum.
This must be a call to worship!
Unroll the prayer mats to cover the filth of the alley.
Prostrate to posture and sweat and repeat centuries of praise by rote.
Kneel down to take the wafer on your tongue,
This is my flesh,
Eat it in remembrance of me!
In rote remembrance of me.

Yes! This must be a song of worship!
It hovers above me and invades me to anguish!
This sun fever, it must be my penance, Master.
Oh, I knew you as a child, Lord!
I cut you from a page and colored your robes purple.
I pasted you down upon construction paper and made you mine!
Almighty God,
I hear and heed!
Your presence is truly manifest!

Then a screen door slams.
I should get a drink of water,
Maybe with ice.
I should roll-up a newspaper and kill the fly
Buzzing in the light-cover overhead.