Cerebral Contents:

Update for 05.13.08:

Male Model by Phil Doran

Set to Replay by Willie Smith

Backsliding by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

Tree by G. David Schwartz

05.05.08:

Disintegration by Don Hucks

Five Feet and Building by Joel Van Noord

Grocery Aisle by Richard Lighthouse

Cross the Road by Ashok Niyogi

04.29.08:

Lookalikes by Phil Doran

Dinner by Brandi Wells

The Modern Covenant by Daniel E. Wilcox

Death by Onions by Michael Frissore

04.21.08:

Future's Children by Kimberly Raiser

Identity Theft by George Anderson

The Datists by Adam Engel

A Great Deal of Money by Justin Hyde

04.14.08:

Mr. Papaya and Dale by Eric Suhem

California by Caroline Imreibe

Aftermath of Vehement Argument #1,068 by Cynthia Ruth Lewis

Trip-Hammer Vitality by Lisa Nickerson

04.07.08:

The Florence of Basel, or Why Readers of Nietzsche Need to Read Burckhardt by Jeff Crouch

Slideshow by Miles J. Bell

Friends of the Poet by Sean C. Bowen

Picture Perfect by Leah Baldwin

03.24.08:

The Streak by Jeremy Hendrix

Grab Your Butts by Emme Hor

Far Away by Ashok Niyogi

Staring Down a White-Tailed Doe by Aleathia Drehmer

03.17.08:

The Hairbrush by Vernard Kennedy

Dog Days of Winter by Niall Berkeley

Poem From My Grave by Michael Lee Johnson

Mashed Potatoes and Hamburgers by Matt Finney

03.10.08:

Hard Work by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

Jetty Cake Pigs by J.D. Nelson

I'm Quiet in Bed by Moctezuma Johnson

Tequila Shakes by Richard Lighthouse

Namesake

by Dave Morrison

There were, as far as I knew,
no Davids in my family.  My mother
named me after King David, in the Bible.

When I was small she would sing this song
that went, "Little David, play on your harp—"
which I assumed meant that I was supposed

to blow harmonica in a blues band, but I
don't think that's what she'd intended.  I didn't
know who I was supposed to be.

Mostly I grew to suspect that I had a
lot of work to do if I was ever going to
be accepted by God.  There was

one narrow road one had to
walk to be a good Christian, and I
kept wandering off of it.

I was taught to avoid sex and violence, but the
Bible was chock-full of it.  In fact, my namesake,
who seemed to relish war, got one of his soldier's

wives pregnant, and then arranged for
the man to be killed on the battlefield.  This
is where I got confused; I believed that the
 
tiniest infraction was intolerable to God, yet
King David could fuck another man's wife and
have him killed and still be loved by the Lord —

if we went to the wrong church, or drank or smoked
cigarettes we would be locked out of Heaven.
Our sins were puny but exacted a high price —

how could the murder and betrayal in the
Bible somehow score lower than my doubt
and vulgarity and confusion on God's shit list?

King David played a stringed instrument and
eventually so did I, but he played for sheep and
kings, and I played in bars, so that offered no clue.

Finally I realized why I had been named for
him, and it had nothing to do with my mother or
Sunday School or Goliath; God bless him, David was

a poet.  He sinned mightily, but he wrote the Psalms,
and had a bold heart, and I imagine he was doing the
best he knew how, as who he was.

It began to make sense, I
began to make sense.
My cup runneth over.

______________________________________
See more of Dave Morrison at www.dave--morrison.com.

posted 02.11.08.

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