some definitions

a library is a place full of a lot of books that people rarely read.
a church is a community of scared people.

my poems are churches full of scared people.
they go there to pray.
they sit at catholic pews and clasp fingers.

there is magic hidden into comfortable reality.

doctrines do not run clean of each other.

the people stare up at the stained glass
but do not look past it.

they have set boundaries on god.

they pray really hard
and they drink wine and some services they do not speak
and some services they try to speak
and every now and then there is gospel aura
that spills into the church and they dance.

they dance like the queen of cups.

they dance like victory day for America
if it ever gets here.

i digress, they dance like that.

i digress from time.

there is always a queen singing in the church
and where there may be flowers there are just
cups of water and she sings straight black-eyed
into the face of the devil and she speaks not in
hymns but in mantras and she speaks not in
demands but requests and she pushes through
each and every one of those stained glass windows
and the ghost of john muir comes in with the trees
and hallelujah.

do you hear me?

i have given up on american jesus.

i haven’t given up on the holy spirit.

Brice Maiurro is a poet from Denver, Colorado. His poetry has been featured by The Denver Post, The Boulder Weekly, Suspect Press, Birdy Magazine, Horror Sleaze Trash and Stain'd. He is the author of Stupid Flowers and the Editor-In-Chief of South Broadway Ghost Society. His second collection of poems, Hero Victim Villain, will be out this June through Stubborn Mule Press.