Now is the cross road.
Whatever we do cannot be
the way we’ve been going.
There have been so many tipping points
we’re in the crossing turnstile
spinning on the turning center.
The cathedral is right there
above the deep subway sounds
that tell us of near passing.
I look down into the labyrinth
whose curved lines slip my hold,
which draws me deep down into the hold
of my gurgling belly that moves with the trains.
It lifts me through ceiling, floor and roof.
At once I move with clouds and groundwater.
This is the crucifixion. There is the labyrinth.
They both are cross and I remember, remember
to remember when I in desperation that spawns hope
said Jesus, Jesus come into my life and
went upstairs in the old karate dojo
to discover the form, the kata, somehow
I’d been doing for 10 years was a cross.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.