No Nothin’! GOD!

You’re a No Nothin’!
baptize
with fire
water
blood

You’re a No Nothin’!
brand you
drown you
rape you
stab you

You’re a No Nothin’!
drag you out
dress you up
white sheet robed
walk up, spit

You’re a No Nothin’!
plunge a knife
into your chest
blood ooze out
now squirting red

You’re a No Nothin’!
dead

dove appears
above your head
knife falls out
bleeding stops

stain of blood
at first a mess
forms a cross
red crucifix

baptized by Spirit
love of Jesus
loudly you say
In The Beginning

No Nothin’! GOD!

Written for the Sunday before Martin Luther King Day in honor of Martin Luther King and his work.

Read on MLK day 2004 at the Church of Our Saviour, Arlington, Massachusetts as an alternate recitation to Duke Ellington’s “In the Beginning God” from his Sacred Concert. Scriptural inspiration from Genesis 1:1, Isaiah 43:2 and Luke 3:21-22.

© Jamie Coats January 2004