Bindings (2000)

The etymology
of the word “religion”
suggests a ligament
(ligare) which binds
us back (re) to God: The
Christian binding sucks,
tut-tutting with a
threat of hell any
gambols in cherrycoke
tits & rye: But the
Church has continued
to provide community
for many, its faith
wrapping the bone
and sinew of strong
& committed good:
For me, the Church
has long died,
sacrificed perhaps at
the altar which
broke my parents’
marriage: But the
notion of religare
is still potent:
Marriage has provided
such a ligament for
me for ten of the
past 12 years: Held
in place there, I’ve been
free to roam here:
I’ve launched so
many poems
from the stability of
my study in a house
with a wife asleep
upstairs & a cat
purring at my feet:
Poems which tested
and questioned the
bindings of a marriage
though I always shut the book
and headed upstairs
to stroke my wife awake
when it was time, taking
solace & comfort in
that mutual breathing warmth:
Now I’m separated from my
wife and these lines
sound like a torn ligament:
The spaces are now
too wide and wild
to get on the page:
Free to roam, I don’t
know how or where
to start or even if
I want to: There is only
the rages of emotion
in my torn heart:
Well, these poems may
be bad and worse
until I can find the
ligament below or
inside this ruptured one:
I’ve got to find rituals
and nuptials and
ablutions devout enough
for the stronger
rivers I now flounder in:
Maker, renew
me in the binds
where truth and craft
are sworn and further: