can't cry

can't cry

anger has dried my soul  into a waterless hole    an empty cistern

numb and cold

grief like a harried widow droops near the bald pond

lamenting stunned emotions

i would like to cry my angers    cry poison from my prison

cry doubts of God's embrace    cry wasted belief

cry the confidence of the assured    cry ashes grasping for spent straw

cry for heaven's sake    cry from barren clouds hanging like dry breasts

for a starving child

cry from dead eyes where the tsetse flies suck puss to fill their empty guts

cry envy that it might hate enough to fill hell a thousand times

cry 'gainst the complacent crowd reveling in my handcuffed fate

cry for prisoners within safe and gated mistakes

cry 'gainst the sinlessness of righteousness that revels in no-fault grace

cry through the opera of the night    where might is right

and white is might    where Jesus won't cry for American guilt

i want to cry

but what are tears for the guilty

but a dumb response inculcating sin

and hiding the guilt of the accuser's faults?