a brief history of prayers & nothingness
i gathered my sleep into prayers, that’s how i tried to find God with my knees coupled down into the cold tiles.
but blessed are ye uncle eric that found God through the dust for ye shall inherit the kingdom of God.
i should’ve opened this poem with a prayer,
because we’ve opened everything with a prayer like the civil war & the night
we watched my uncle traveled into fire then into ashes & the hole his brothers dug for him with prayers babbling on their tongues.
& blessed are we for we shall be called the children of God
i have tried to say these things to the multitudes in my body & my friends about how my mustard seed faith refused to unburn a burnt boy or save my uncle’s son from drowning in his own bath bucket.
i have never told my mother how i watched her prayed for my father to one day return to his county from Accra as a prodigal son while i prayed for the war to end.
2003, with my father away i walked through nights reciting prayers for him. i gave my voice to rain drops hoping my father would hear my voice in them from across the sea.
every night my mouth worked in the garden of God, planting prayers in the wet soil of my mouth.
‘’Lord, please let me know my father like the way your son knows you’’
amen!
but blessed are ye uncle eric that found God through the dust for ye shall inherit the kingdom of God.
i should’ve opened this poem with a prayer,
because we’ve opened everything with a prayer like the civil war & the night
we watched my uncle traveled into fire then into ashes & the hole his brothers dug for him with prayers babbling on their tongues.
& blessed are we for we shall be called the children of God
i have tried to say these things to the multitudes in my body & my friends about how my mustard seed faith refused to unburn a burnt boy or save my uncle’s son from drowning in his own bath bucket.
i have never told my mother how i watched her prayed for my father to one day return to his county from Accra as a prodigal son while i prayed for the war to end.
2003, with my father away i walked through nights reciting prayers for him. i gave my voice to rain drops hoping my father would hear my voice in them from across the sea.
every night my mouth worked in the garden of God, planting prayers in the wet soil of my mouth.
‘’Lord, please let me know my father like the way your son knows you’’
amen!
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BIO:
Jeremy T. Karn writes from somewhere in Liberia. His work has appeared and forthcoming in 20.35: Contemporary African Poets Volumn III anthology. The Whale Road, Ice Floe Press, Up the Staircase Quarterly, ARTMOSTERRIF, Lolwe, Vagabond City, Ghost Heart Journal, FERAL, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Liminal Transit Review and elsewhere. His chapbook, Miryam Magdalit, has been selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani (The African Poetry Book Fund), in collaboration with Akashic Books, for the 2021 New-Generation African Poets chapbook boxset. He tweets @jeremy_karn96
Jeremy T. Karn writes from somewhere in Liberia. His work has appeared and forthcoming in 20.35: Contemporary African Poets Volumn III anthology. The Whale Road, Ice Floe Press, Up the Staircase Quarterly, ARTMOSTERRIF, Lolwe, Vagabond City, Ghost Heart Journal, FERAL, Kissing Dynamite Poetry, Liminal Transit Review and elsewhere. His chapbook, Miryam Magdalit, has been selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani (The African Poetry Book Fund), in collaboration with Akashic Books, for the 2021 New-Generation African Poets chapbook boxset. He tweets @jeremy_karn96
