Michael Mackin O'Mara
  • Poems
    • A Brief History in Pink
    • a poem (Ars Poetica)
    • the boy who could fly
    • the conflagration
    • Dissertation
    • Dreams in Black & White
    • For the Dear One
    • Goya, The Third of May
    • Interrogation Survival Techniques circa 1988
    • In the South Pacific
    • In Your Global Warming Dream
    • The Irish Goodbye
    • The Lost Canoe
    • Marisol
    • Night Prayers to Guadalupe
    • On These Nights
    • Poem at the End of the World
    • The Scrutinies
    • The Smallest Color
  • GRAPHIC ARTS
    • Declining Nudes
    • Lily Pads on Acid
    • Polar Series
    • Torso Studies
    • Who Do You Love
  • PHOTOGRAPHY
    • Outback
    • Skins
    • Splintered
    • Walk About Colors
  • Contact

Picture
Accepted for publication by
Schuylkill Valley Journal Of The Arts
Night Prayers to Guadalupe
            "No estoy yo aqui que soy tu madre?" 
 
Gaudalupe, Guadalupe, all my clocks have different times
the walls drip with the indifference of miraculous vision
each shadow a waiting demon.
 
O Fatima, the drone of your rosary scars my throat
if faith is the unseen made visible
what are these fears
this madness layered in all the many layered creation?
 
Lourdes, unknown mother of strength and
bewilderment, I too have dreamt God in my severed hands:
the memory of each nailed to a different cross.
 
this madness visits me, miracles cannot survive the lengthening
night, votives, novenas, the rituals of superstitious hope-filled
prayer as if we could summon or protect, as if we knew, 
 
this prayer, this twisted doubt-filled incoherent prayer of faith
is an old man's winked conceit, a child's reflexive trust, a wish
we wish upon ourselves, O Mother of God…
 
Gaudalupe, Guadalupe, all my clocks have different times
Guadalupe, come, hold me till sunrise.

@minwpb


  • Poems
    • A Brief History in Pink
    • a poem (Ars Poetica)
    • the boy who could fly
    • the conflagration
    • Dissertation
    • Dreams in Black & White
    • For the Dear One
    • Goya, The Third of May
    • Interrogation Survival Techniques circa 1988
    • In the South Pacific
    • In Your Global Warming Dream
    • The Irish Goodbye
    • The Lost Canoe
    • Marisol
    • Night Prayers to Guadalupe
    • On These Nights
    • Poem at the End of the World
    • The Scrutinies
    • The Smallest Color
  • GRAPHIC ARTS
    • Declining Nudes
    • Lily Pads on Acid
    • Polar Series
    • Torso Studies
    • Who Do You Love
  • PHOTOGRAPHY
    • Outback
    • Skins
    • Splintered
    • Walk About Colors
  • Contact