in the temple of my spirit (5)

in the temple of my spirit

in the temple of my spirit
there is a congregation,
a network of cells
more complex
than any
bolshevik
can
conceive...

when i should feel so sad
is a certain gladness in my heart
the substance & evidence of the
workings of spirit? when i am
burdened & beset with trouble is
the absence of worry proof of
the kingly rolling function of jesus?
that king jesus would actually roll all
burdens away was the poignant
promise of the gospel singer that i
took literally so convincing was
the touch of her voice like soft lips
brushing against my ears like breath
caressing the fine hairs at the nape
of my neck standing them up &
erect like love resonating in the
hollows of my sin-sick soul
rippling outward in tingling
tension pricking my skin like a
thousand needles from the inside
out filling my chest with some-
thing heavier than air filling my
scrotum with something more
than blood

in the temple of my spirit,
what a fellowship of
sensory motor &
interneurons.
what an electro-
chemical
joy divine...

my eleven year old curiosity
would know the neurophysiology
of rapture the sociolinguistics of
speaking in tongues; how being
filled with the spirit differs
from possession from generic
schizophrenia my youthful curi-
osity yearns to know the thera-
peutic effects of the laying on of
hands or the process involved in
acquiring one's heavenly name but
alas my curiosity cannot shape the
questions cannot form the right
words my eyes are presented with
the evidence of things seen the
seizure-like jerking the jumping
running foaming at the mouth
& flagrant losses of consciousness
my ears are presented with screams
that are indistinguishable from joy
or pain & the binding forms of my
eleven-year-old logic tells me that
even if the kingdom of heaven
were at hand – nothing neither
spirit nor nerves piety or pathology
would make me carry on that way
if in my power to prevent

©Joseph McNair;2009