The Elephant Engine High Dive Revival - Softcover

Anis Mojgani is a two time National Poetry Slam Champion and winner of the International World Cup Poetry Slam. A Pushcart Prize Nominee and former resident of the Oregon Literary Arts Writer's-In-The-Schools program, Anis has performed at numerous universities, festivals, and venues around the globe. His work has appeared on HBO, NPR, in the pages of RATTLE magazine, and alongside Laureates Ted Kooser and Billy Collins in Spoken Word Revolution Redux. Originally from New Orleans, Anis currently lives in a white pointy house in Portland OR, where he sometimes has a beard and sometimes does not

Thank Goodness

by Andrea Gibson

(For Buddy Wakefield)

At the end of your ten day meditation retreat

you got in your car

drove thirty peaceful feet

and ran over a bird,

splayed its holy guys on the pavement

like God finger-painting "F U”

across that deep breath you were holding

the way your mother held her first born.

You

thank goodness

were torn from the Bible

the day before they burned it

for the verse about dancing to tambourines.

Once you saw the blood of Christ

on a knife carving redwood trees into church pews.

Now every Sunday morning you hear glaciers melting

and you cry easy as a one night stand

never ever is

when you see the feathers in your rear-view mirror

scattering like prayers

searching for a safe place to land.

Hold me to my word

when I tell you I will leave today,

catch a bus ticket west

just to stand in the center of your highway

blocking traffic 'til every feather's answered.

I've see too many prayers caught in the grills of 18

wheelers

and folks like us

got shoulder blades that rust in the rain,

but they're still g sharp

whenever our spinal chords are tuned

to the key of redemption.

So go ahead world

pick us

to make things better.

We've been building a bridge

through the center of this song

since Mother Theresa replaced the walls of her church

with the weeping cries of Calcutta's orphaned ghettos.

You wanna know what the right wing never got?

We never question the existence of God.

What we question is his bulldozer

turning Palestine into a gas chamber.

What we question is the manger in Macy's

and the sweatshops our children call the North Pole.

What we question are the sixty swollen lashes

on the back of a girl found guilty of the crime

of allowing herself to be brutally raped.

What we question is the idea of a heaven having gates.

Silly.

Have you never stood on the end of pier

watching the moon live up to her name?

Have you never looked in the eyes of a thief

and seen his children's hungry bellies?

Some days my heart beats so fast

my ribcage sounds like a frickin' railroad track

and my breath is a train I just can't catch.

So when my friends go filling their lungs with YES,

when they're peeling off their armor

and falling like snowflakes on your holy tongue, God

collects the feathers...