Poem: The Story By Tom A. Delmore

The Story
Praying in old temples and missions
Is more conversion and red knees
Than looking for forgiveness
Among holy dirt, rituals
And adorned Madonna’s.

Sometimes I wake
And Mohammed is more
A boxer than prophet.
Miracles come out of
Families of dysfunction
And rings of the pugilist more often
Than a rider ascending to heaven
On a flaming chariot.

There is a belief among boulevard trees
Who worship oversized vehicles; that God
Is in the topiary. And there are those
Trees who believe it is the devil
In the edgings.

Why is there a book of Lamentations
And no book of Oz- a book of Psalms
And no Howl in the canon
Of sacred texts.

When one finds a new
Lost scroll, dead or otherwise,
Do we keep them under a bushel
And whittle out what makes good
Kindling? All stories spark fire
Saints and prophets are full of this refuse
There mouths spitting orange embers.