 Try to forget. Forget every lesson ever learned about so-called worthiness. Santa Clause’s Naughty or Nice List, grown-ups’ hot and cold love. The classroom’s gold stars and cruel words, the playground’s hunger games. Religion’s heavens and hells, society’s carrots and sticks. The spiritual olympics measuring how ‘high’ our vibration is. The second-hand violence, second-hand trauma, second-hand footsteps. I try. I open my mouth, in silence or aloud, and call out: “Dear Beautiful Rascal, Great-Open-Source-Dream, BlablaHalleluyeah, Divine Kink, Beloved Whatever…” Maybe my brain’s cracked, maybe Grace likes playful names. Either way, I keep tasting them as I try. Try to remember. Remember prayer is the unknown reaching out to the unknowable. A human being speaking to Spirit, whatever the fuck Spirit is, whether or not it exists, whatever the fuck human is, whether or not it exists. Sometimes it flows bang on, but sometimes I call out: “I don’t even know why I’m doing this, if anything is out there, or in here, if all this is just skull-cinema so be it.” It cracks me up enough to get me lit to the touch. Sometimes my mouth’s a sublime instrument, sometimes a wretched, spasmed orifice. It doesn’t matter which. Give the bullshit regiments the slip; lay in hedge-row or windowsills yelling anything with such gusto that love, grief, gratitude, forgiveness, laughter and weeping become exactly the same thing again. Many prayers are simple: “May this being find safety and freedom to live within life’s gift, and give back to it. May all beings find the same.” Other days though it gets interesting: “May the girl with the blue hat be safe, may the stupid sky be forgiven, may we fall on our arses towards heaven, may all trees come home.” There’s no need to know who the girl with the blue hat is, or why the sky needs forgiveness. “May all beings find the same.” What would you pray for today, if you chose to, and if you gave yourself permission to pray with no pre-conceptions of what prayer means? Add yours in the comments and we can make a freetyle prayer thread together.
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 "There's nothing heavier than an untold story." Maya Angelou So many forms of untold truth weigh us down; the great tragedies of history, family secrets and the unspoken truths of each moment. Each story wants to be 'told' in some sense, to be given back to the greater holding of life, released from our bodies and our psyches. If each of us can find safe, sustainable ways to release more truth back into the greater holding of life, more healing and transformation becomes possible...poetry and storytelling are just some of the many wonderful ways to do this. This poem is one of endless attempts to play my part.
Coming to Light Maybe, when history’s rewritten from the beginning, to tell the stories of all women, people of colour, labourers, slaves, indigenous, queers, creatures and elements whose backs paved the way for each famous white man’s fame… Maybe, when we stop pretending anyone can be free, be equal, be whole, stay alive, in isolation, or that anyone’s hurt is theirs alone…. Maybe, when every profit ever registered is measured in the balance with its loss… Maybe, when every victory is weighed in the same scales as its costs… Maybe, when the last ‘unbaptised’ child is raised up from their unmarked grave, into light, and blessed, not by the same carrion sacraments which proclaimed their bodies profane, but by being returned a name, being washed in the tears held in limbo’s decades… Maybe, when all the disappeared ones, and all the still disappearing, are spoken of in the same breath as the race for quantum computing, AI and star-colonisation… Maybe, when in one choking leap we speak the terror and grief swallowed from throat to chest to gut to grave, just to keep our heads up on this trading floor… Maybe, when in a single blink we catch sight of our own raised fists and admit, first; we’ve only ever waged war against ourselves, we’ve all played our part in this world that we’ve made, second; how much we love, want to love, all those whom we claim to hate… When the last lie which breaks life into pieces comes to light… When the last love we sought to protect comes home… Maybe, then… We’ll be able to say it: “I dwell here on this Earth.” PS: I first wrote this poem in response to a specific tragedy, the Tuam Babies scandal in Ireland. An underground chamber, a sewage tank in fact, was discovered to hold the bodies of 800 babies which had been secretly 'buried' there. There is still an ongoing struggle to have the full history of these children, and those from other Irish institutions, made public. PPS: Though my posts have had thousands of comments on Facebook, I'm only now adding them to my site, so they may be a bit lonely, without your words to keep them company. Comments are a thousand times welcome. |
AuthorDave Rock is a prize-winning spoken word artist and storyteller, and a conscious writing, speaking and performing arts teacher. He's worked with thousands of people, including award-winning comedians, actors and inspirational figures. Archives
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