John Tustin


FAITHLESS

You asked me about the efficacy of faith
and this is what I tell you –
some people felt that she was faithless 
to her husband, 
even though she left him and they
were living apart,
making her and me co-conspirators
in an adultery
but I see it differently,
see?
I thought in terms of her and me
and I felt that faith was owed to me,
not him.
Not anymore,
as faithless as she claimed he’d always been.
They were still married
and no one filed for divorce
but it seemed a formality to me,
embroiled in my own divorce for years.
I didn’t know he was still in the picture:
she kept that from me
and I was probably knowingly ignorant
because I wanted what I wanted –
her and me in our clandestine corner,
in love,
hidden from the world
even though it was more and less than that.
I know that now.
I was faithful to her
and you can read right here
what I have to show for that 
and you can ask her about it
but you better do it 
when her husband isn’t there,
since they are living together again.

People have told me
that there was a slight emergency
at some wedding you attended at Cana,
in Galilee,
when there was no wine
but only water
and you turned the water into wine
when your mother said,
“Wouldn’t it be nice if?....”
Look,
I love you, man,
I really do;
I wouldn’t be telling you all this
if I didn’t love you –
but I couldn’t bring myself to believe
that really happened,
the turning water into wine:
not even if I was there
and tasted it for myself.

 

GOD’S EMISSARY 

Born to reminisce about centuries-old wars
And venerate the God of desert and vendetta,
He emerges from the cave of his ancestors
Insisting that he can drink the sand
And that water is just for washing the sinners away.

He polishes his chalices and his guns
Then mans a rocket to the other side 
To make it a hell on earth such as from
Where he had come.
It is his sacred duty as God’s emissary
To set the world on fire
And bathe in the flames.

Born to reminisce about centuries-old wars
And venerate the God of desert and vendetta,
He grins in the sun’s shimmering unrelenting heat
While insisting that he can drink the sand
And that water is just for washing the sinners away.
 


KNOWING HOW TO RIDE A CAMEL

The bell rattles tinny in the distance
and the rain lashes the branches against the windows.
The galaxy appears quiet except in this one corner
with its noisy bell and the flag flapping crazily across the street.

The wind is like a living thing that knocks on the door.
Maybe this will be forty days and nights of rain like in the Bible
but just on this street, around this one house.

If that’s the case it would be fortuitous if I knew how to build an ark –
but one just for me and my few possessions –
like knowing how to ride a camel would come in handy
if one were stranded in the Arabian desert
and came upon a domesticated camel just wandering around, 
waiting to be ridden

but it just doesn’t make sense to prepare for such preposterous things
until they happen, of course –
then it seems obvious.

John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. His first poetry collection, Written Under Duress, from Cajun Mutt Press, is now available at Amazon . fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.

 
 

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