Monday Poem

Build no Mosque Near Zero

—zero's too near the hole in our hearts: the naught
we know at night when the bogey-man bites, the zip
we feel when we love hate, the nada of exclusion
which seeths in the interstices between faith and fear,
the cipher that numbers the digits displayed in a holy fist,
the nadir of our understanding, the O in no,
the void which deepens our capacity to destroy,
the nil of unknowing, the aught of unloving,
the nullification of our presumptions of God's
will in the midnight of His contradictions;

—no mosque must be built near the silence
of the negative space in which god speaks
his or her or its apparently futile
promise of peace and good will
among men

 —no mosque and no church


by Jim Culleny
8/26/2010