Grace
Sweet girl
Led into a place
Where men tell you what God wants
Dropped in a public space
They send you out to proseletize
You ask question after question
Feigning interest in my life
But what you need is the accomplishment
Of being the one
To talk me into saving my soul
I don’t need your grace, Grace
I have it already
And I don’t need your prayers
That my heart change
Because my heart is full of Love already
And I’ve given up trying to convert the converted
8 thoughts on "Grace"
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You use rhyme for effect and speak your mind after that…
Thanks Rudy!
Yes!: “I don’t need your grace, Grace/I have it already”
Thanks Shaun!
Great poem. I love how it opens with Sweet girl, expanding from that—that really frames it with a wonderful empathy. I like the repetitions of grace/Grace and convert/converted contained within the same lines, emphasizing the redundancy of her charge, and even the general redundancy of proselytization. I feel like grace, as it’s been explained to me, is something inherent in everyone already. I also love “Of being the one” broken off on its own there; it really stands out to me, suggesting at the very least a) a particular vanity to crusading for converts and b) almost ironically this sense that we’re all one already. There’s a lot there, even though it feigns being pretty straightforward, like a really great Frank O’Hara poem.
The New York school.
The New York school.
Thank you Goldie! Whoa! Frank O Hara! What an honor to be compared…
Also, your insights are great! It was my “publish a poem so that I can write a poem without feeling rushed poem” lol.
But that’s the way it goes sometimes.
Great ending. I like how the speaker knows its own self. “I don’t need your prayers that my heart change “