Jody's Notes
Sometimes, in my poems, the narrator is a believer (in one or another religion--usually Christianity, since that's the religion I know the most about). Other times the narrator is an atheist. (Most of the time, of course, it doesn't matter: it isn't relevant what beliefs the narrator has about these matters.)
Anyway, there's a tradition in some religions--it shows up in literature, but in other places too: the problem of "losing faith," where one finds one's religious belief (in God, for example) challenged in some way: because of personal reasons or because of more abstract considerations (thinking about the traditional problem of evil, say), or both.
Atheism, I imagine, can involve a similar psychological complexity, a similar potential for a "crisis of faith"--only in the other direction, obviously.
The idea clearly appeals to me. As one worth exploring. In a poem or two.
I republished this poem in my collection The Lust for Blueprints.
The stained windows, stuffed with canned light,
offer only a glassy salvation: frozen pictures,
flat with hope. I pray, fervently
(my knees awkward against the pew),
as only an atheist can. My eyes are shut tight,
my lips move painfully over jagged
slices of the Lord’s Prayer, or perhaps,
the twenty-third psalm: echoes I pull
(successfully) from the black holes in my head.
Like a panicked squid I have sprayed ink
over my memories (I admit it) and
somehow God romps in the resulting shadow.
The tradition paints ghosts white.
But I know better. When he visits me he’s a root
trailing dark puddles, or a cigarette
snubbed out in an ashtray. Mysterious, at best,
but I have learned to approach soot
with trepidation, dust with fear,
whatever my beliefs may be.
Here, at last, is the happy ending:
when I leave the church (for ritual bleeds to
boredom), my brow is wet. I wipe my forehead,
find my perspiration daylight,
transparent.
© 1994, 2001 Jody Azzouni