Psalm From The Avenue

Oh Creator of all things
Saver from the evils of demons
and even death too

Here I lay
Seething
Weeping
Burning
On this Avenue
like Ferguson
So angry
Nay fucking pissed
Yes

at you

Names lost
Blackened sheep
Fists pounding bullets
Round my head
Men, women, children
Arrested to forever sleep
Sandra Bland
Breonna
Oh
How we weep

Blood soaked
bedtime streets

Hands up
and
Empty hands

Mercy
Simple
blessed mercy

too high a cost
too many
too soon
too dead

How could they walk
Blood soaked ground
Shed from a body
Michael Brown
laying in the sun
like a piece of debris
for hours and hours
didn’t you see?

what crime?
What crime a child having fun
A stick
A pretend gun
Shot to death with a real one…

Oh heavenly Father
are you really full of grace
take these images from my face
Put a halt to the vicious grind
these thoughts wreaking havoc on this

poor mortals mind

O Most High
can I wonder why?

Oh my God why do you let them do
Nay, what did we ever do
To earn such chains, whips
burning crosses too?
Why?
This suffering
your children must endure
who shakily now stand
and ask what for?

I thought you cared for the least of these
hanging fruit
terrifying to see
Where?
What seed gave birth to the lynching tree?

My tears, oh lord, are drowning me

Oh Divine and Merciful savior at Galilee
Who gave Your only Son for everyone
including the so-called least of these

yea even me

upon the cross in that Roman way
a promise fulfilled
his life he gave
and yet in this fetal position I lay
weeping, moaning
A heart left to beg

how much longer
must we cry
or try
to contain
This stewing cauldron of collective
dark-skinned pain?

Oh my child I’m almost drowning by your tears
rest assured
even as Habakkuk’s plea
I hear

And like Jesus I weep
now hear
this from Me

Diallo, Garner, Arbery, Taylor and Bland
all names and so many more
I speak
I understand
whose cries I hear
by the bush of tears

nothing happens to my children in vain
every drop in the street becomes part of the wave
of fulfillment of all promises I have ever made

The lost
the herded
all my precious sheep
I am that I am
My promises I keep

Regardless of who tries to set the stage
The wages of sin can never change
My child hold tight your prayers and pleas
I have not forsaken thee
not even what you think the least of these
remember the well that saved mother and baby
take these words
I am enduring truth

For I do work
Yes!
Work
and in time you will see
Though right now
I know you choose not to believe
Even if someone were to say
This is what God will wrought
in His most timely and perfect way
They who sin shall weep
and gnash to the bone through the gums
of their sinful teeth
on the road of blood they pave

I am
write and remember these words
I am
prayed
with you this day

Oh Lord, my God your words to me
Like balm on my heart
they set me free
to sit in that space
of quiet knowingness
that You are God
and we as well are blessed

But I asked in all humility
Could you please
be a little more specific with me

Four hundred plus years
such a long time
so many tears
to witness and bear the scars of these crimes
Oh how I would love if you could but say
in what torturous manners will You make them pay?

Oh my child my precious one
Resentment is such a raging fire
that but consumes the source
that would desire
to give a vengeance
not theirs to give

heed my warning
that you may live
another day
to contemplate
these words I say

Do not dare taste this treacherous wine
that sours and ignites such vengeful designs
leave to me the balance of the law
remember God
that’s what I am for

Oh Lord I do know
that you are the King
of our hearts and minds
of everything

ok
grateful
even that you are listening
and promise Your Justice will surely ring
I will rest and put aside this wicked thing

as you have brought me
oh,
this far
through thick and lean
and all in between
Yea
even in spite of me
as I live to see
another day
of miraculous gifts unfolding
I will be still
and wait upon thee

Michael Soaries