Kissing Under Rembrandt

it's fun to go back and look at these when i haven't read them for awhile

 

On the steps out front

College students lie down and smoke

Grasping the few warm rays of the sun

Before He darts behind the clouds again.

Homeless men talk about Vietnam

Saying I could at least toss them a quarter

Since they gave their leg in the jungle

So I can walk down the city streets.

 

Inside the great hall

Black men in blue suits shuffle about

The marble halls.

Their footsteps echo down the corridors

Waking the old women from their naps in the Garden.

 

The stare of Jesus terrifies me.

I turn my back from his crooked smile

And seek refuge from his somber sight.

His golden locks hang round his shoulders

And cover any damage left by the thorns.

His white robe adorns His nude body

Yet crushes him under its weight.

He’s not like the man I saw in church.

The one in the cookie cutter stained glass pictures

Carrying a lamb

Or holding a child on His knee.

No, this is real.

 

I start towards an old man in a funny hat

But before I can make out the wrinkles on his face

Or the cracks in the paint

You pull me back towards the Ghost

And ask me what I think.

My eyes make love to the floor

Ashamed to match my gaze to His.

 

A tight squeeze of the hand

And a smile that can only come from your face,

Not the hand of a master,

Is my personal salvation.