Friday, June 17, 2016

DC Poets: Edgar Gabriel Silex

Saviors


cruelties crowding out the sun people radiating
with ironies the party that ended slavery festering
with the racist canker that has long ailed the world

religious extremists bombing racist satirists
preachers praying for the death of another’s soul
after every massacre at the bottom are the holy books

while the saviors are human beings overtaken
by a moment a Muslim hides some Jews in a freezer
a black woman protects a male racist from a mob

it happens all the time while I’m trying to eat
my pancakes it’s hard to love the world that sours
the flavor of a breakfast smothered with sweetness

I wake up to a world I don’t want to wake up to
children slaughtered in schools worshipers murdered
in churches gays executed while dancing teachers

sacrificing their lives strangers dying saving
strangers they are not heroes I choose saviors I want
to wake up to or live up to or find salvation in

I may live without prayers or gods but I still know
there are things which are sacred they shimmer
with ironies absurdities and immutable coincidences

and all of them will make your pancakes tasteless
and your day sad and your heart weighed down
with the spectacle of luminous human saviors



Edgar Gabriel Silex is the author of two poetry collections from Northwestern University Press (formerly Curbstone Press), Through All the Displacements and Acts of Love, as well as a chapbook, Even the Dead Have Memories, from New Sins Press. His first book of poetry was nominated for the National Book Award. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Maryland State Arts Council. He lives in Laurel, Maryland.


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