DC Poets: Edgar Gabriel Silex

Saviors

cruelties crowding out the sun people radiating

with ironies the party that ended slavery festering

with the racist canker that has long ailed the world

religious extremists bombing racist satirists

preachers praying for the death of another’s soul

after every massacre at the bottom are the holy books

while the saviors are human beings overtaken

by a moment a Muslim hides some Jews in a freezer

a black woman protects a male racist from a mob

it happens all the time while I’m trying to eat

my pancakes it’s hard to love the world that sours

the flavor of a breakfast smothered with sweetness

I wake up to a world I don’t want to wake up to

children slaughtered in schools worshipers murdered

in churches gays executed while dancing teachers

sacrificing their lives strangers dying saving

strangers they are not heroes I choose saviors I want

to wake up to or live up to or find salvation in

I may live without prayers or gods but I still know

there are things which are sacred they shimmer

with ironies absurdities and immutable coincidences

and all of them will make your pancakes tasteless

and your day sad and your heart weighed down

with the spectacle of luminous human saviors

Edgar Gabriel Silex is the author of two poetry collections from Northwestern University Press (formerly Curbstone Press), Through All the Displacements and Acts of Love, as well as a chapbook, Even the Dead Have Memories, from New Sins Press. His first book of poetry was nominated for the National Book Award. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Maryland State Arts Council. He lives in Laurel, Maryland.