Sometimes I feel as if I need to die
To make the world a better place to live.
I am not asking to be crucified.
I have only one life to give.
I do not want to be a Messiah.
I do not want to save anyone’s soul.
I’d rather be spit on like a pariah.
Eternal life has never been my goal.
I do not profess to be the only Son
My blood will not guarantee salvation.
Touching my garment’s hem will heal no one.
A black man’s death is no revelation.
Sometimes I feel as if I need to die
To save the world from the pain I hold inside.
* * * * *
Antonio Parker is a poet and a philosopher.
This poem is a part of Soul Portrait Magazine’s “30 Days of Poetry” to celebrate National Poetry Month. If you’d like to participate, please submit a poem.
Tagged as:
Antonio Parker
Photo by Josh Hunter. Used by permission with a Creative Commons License
They crucified Him with rhetoric,
wrapped His dingy body in swaddling lyrics,
And buried Him in five feet of iambic pentameter.
But on the third day, He wrote.
Guided by a harlot muse, He rose through a fiery lake
Of charred souls and dancing satyrs
Sisyphus held the rock steady
As His voice resounded through the valley:
“Behold,” He said peeling away His skin.
“I make all things new.”
And their white eyes popped,
Their scaly flesh seared,
Their icy blood melted.
And this was good.
He wrapped the skin around His head like a turban,
And conjured Dante from the inferno.
Sophists and poets burned like kindling
In the recesses of His naked mind.
The sea gave up the dead that were in it.
The ground spewed forth the living.
He showed them a river of crystal water
And led them to the lush Elysian fields;
Sounding the first trumpet of the apocalypse
Through a broken whisky bottle.
* * * * *
Antonio Parker is an engineer and a graduate of Prairie View A&M University. He has published a chapbook of poetry titled “Kingdom Come.”
This poem is a part of Soul Portrait Magazine’s “30 Days of Poetry” to celebrate National Poetry Month. If you’d like to participate, please submit a poem.
Tagged as:
Antonio Parker
