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Michael Simms: Against Prayer
Okay,
God of crib death
and dirty needles,
of heroin and fentanyl,
God of twisted steel
burning beside the road,
God of truncheon
and unholstered hatred,
God of the mob and the blood-
stained floor of the cell,
what do you want from me?
Forty years ago I fell
on my knees and asked you
to remove my craving.
Thief, drug dealer,
addict who’d steal
his mother’s crutches
given the chance
I had no right to ask
yet the light grew
in the dark room,
a weight was lifted.
I walked into the bright
heat of a Dallas summer
and each face I passed
glowed with love.
So I ask you now
if you can save
a thief and thug
like me why take these
sweet ones? Who
are you who gives
and withholds light?
What are we to you?
From Strange Meadowlark (Ragged Sky, 2023) by Michael Simms. Copyright 2023.
Michael Simms is a poet and novelist, as well as the founding editor of Vox Populi.
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What a very powerful poem, Michael. Thank you.
–Amrita
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Thank you, Amrita!
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I’ve though for a couple of days now how I might respond to your poem. I have no response. Not really. The poem is masterfully crafted. I just don’t know how to respond to the content.
A few years ago, my wife and I were having dinner with a dear friend, a Mercy nun, Michelle. Our friend spoke of a woman she knew who was despairing. (I use the term “despair” both in a theological sense and in a psychological one.) The woman had a series of tragedies in her life, but, like Job, she was religious. Michelle had no answer to that eternal question – Why do bad things happen to good people?
Perhaps there is no answer. Or, if there is an answer, how would I know it?
On the day I got my doctorate, I was in the university library. I looked down a single shelf of books, and realized I don’t know a tenth of what is in this single row of books.
I”m 74 years old in a 13+ billion year old universe.
When I see a photo from the Hubble Telescope, I’m amazed at what is shows, yes, but I’m astounded at what we have yet to even explore.
Why do bad things happen to good people? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.
I’m Catholic, meaning I’m not much of a Bible quoter. But I do often reflect upon the 38th Chapter of Job, which I think of as a series of Jewish koans. It’s the chapter where, after all the reasoned explanations, God speaks to Job. He questions Job. “What is the way to the parting of the winds, where the east wind spreads over the earth? Who has laid out a channel for the downpour and a path for the thunderstorm to bring rain to uninhabited land, the unpeopled wilderness; to drench the desolate wasteland till the desert blooms with verdure? Has the rain a father? Who has begotten the drops of dew? Out of whose womb comes the ice, and who gives the hoarfrost its birth in the skies, when the waters lie covered as though with stone that holds captive the surface of the deep? Have you tied cords to the Pleiades, or loosened the bonds of Orion?”
I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Perhaps our only choice is to take the obsidian knife from the priest, cut out our own heart, and offer it to the god we’ve all forgotten.
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Wow. Thanks, John.
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There is Man and man does so many bad things, even smearing a pair of small white baby slippers with blood. God comes before all this or maybe after, but I’m sure you shouldn’t ask him about things committed by man for his own thirst for power. Caino docet.
Your poem is beautiful. And he asks for silence.
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Thank you, Marina.
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I won’t call rereading this a pleasure, as it is a genuine, gut-twisting wrench. But it is so well done– and so true to like experience at my end. Happy New Year, Mike!
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Thanks, Syd. Sorry to twist your gut. Poetry does that sometimes, no?
Happy New Year.
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Love this one, Michael, for obvious reasons, but especially those less so.
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Thanks, Matthew. This poem was written shortly after the death of a friend’s son, as well as the deaths of many children in Gaza.
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This poem heightened my awareness of how I continually straddle the line between hopeful believer and rageful denier. But it feels better to believe there’s something bigger than I am because….every once in a while, a light does grow and a weight is lifted. Grounding in Eastern philosophy helps – as do honest words such as these. Thank you.
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Thank you, Patricia. I feel exactly the same way.
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Ah, those great questions at the end…
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Thanks, Lex.
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a very moving and memorable poem x
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Thanks, Pascale. Love your work.
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In times of pain in a world of people who claim to be peaceful and loving, I will find myself calling out to a god and then the next moment visions of unjust death and war lead to my usual thoughts that there is no loving god, that perhaps there might be some moving or initiating force untuned into human suffering, but probably there is only this self aware creature in a sea of self aware creatures, just for a weird second, a certain confluence in an infinite possibility of confluences, and I try to do good as this spec somehow sees good, but hate seems so strong and, dammit, I am tired. ( Your poem will probably prod my brain for some time, and I will come up with myriad responses, usually in those awake times in the dark night )
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A beautiful meditation, Barbara. I hope you will always feel free to share your thoughts in this space.
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Michael –
A stunning poem, leaving silence in its wake.
Thank you for this!
Susan Berlin
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Thank you, Susan!
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This beautiful poem is steeped in the problem of theodicy, of which I have never found an answer. The silence following the poem’s final question is daunting.
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Thank you, Bob.
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You put the exact words to so many moments of deep doubt I experience. Living alone, I hear myself exclaiming aloud “But the children, why the children” in a perfectly silent house…
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All wars maim and kill children. All wars are immoral.
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Is part of that the living alone? Same thoughts. Same questions. So many whys?
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This poem touches my soul.
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Thank you, Lois.
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Powerful and straight to the point.
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Thanks, Robbi!
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I love this poem, Michael, and ask the same burning question. Thank you!
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Thank you, Susan.
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Love this, Michael!
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Thanks, David. It’s one of those hard-won poems.
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Yes, and they are profound poems when they come. As a poet, I want the hard experiences that generate such poems. As a person, I could probably do without them!
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Thanks, David. I think everyone has the hard experiences. Death, loss, grief, anger…
Doubting God seems to be a universal experience as well. I’ve never understood Christians who think one’s faith should be perfect, and doubting the love of God is a sin.
The Book of Job makes it clear that sometimes God is just fxcking with us.
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Yes. So many Jews lost their faith after the holocaust. There was no answer to the question: what kind of God permits this? The platitude that it is not for mere humans to understand the will of God somehow didn’t cut it. I think people of faith and people not of faith all have to grapple with this if they are honest.
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