Poem Before Breakfast in Oakland Jail

© 1992, Troy K Spears

The sad and saddest moment
is the one of realization
when we turn and turn
the self-mending process
into the "thing" – durable, breakable.
The actual breaking
is only the sadness of the realization
come to pass.

God is just now emerging from his dream.
But the God who is was already dead
and was born dead.

What is most cannot be said and cannot be saved.
What is least, and the excretion of the least,
has been collected and catalogued as learning.
But our learning still stinks of the judgment of Christ,
and his carcass still rots beneath our too worldly gaze.

Who touches does not know, who knows does not touch.
And to hallow one moment is to be blessed forever.

I am and still only cannibal,
I am last of my species.
I decree the blessed eucharist and wither
beneath my too cultured taste.
I starve without kindred.