Troubled Waters...A New Poem

Hey folks...here is a new poem...it's been a long time in the making. I started it the first week of last September, and I finished it this morning. It's funny how poems come to a close...this one was waiting for something...and it turned out that it needed the addition of the lyrics to the old spiritual Wade in the Water. Which, I was not thinking of when I wrote the bulk of this poem!

I have a performance tomorrow night at 8pm at Macalester College in St. Paul in the student union. I am one of the featured performers and there is an open mic as well. It's on the MDO Stage in the Weyerhauser Student Union. Come check it out.

Troubled Waters

Wade in the water

Wade in the water children

Wade in the water

God’s going to trouble the water

In my chest there are troubled waters

vibrations causing expanding ripples

a sense of unease

a trembling waiting like a breaker collapsing

on the verge of spilling

over, through, and out

out here

right now

head shrouded and engulfed

slight pain above the temple

and I’m not sure what its all about

tired and wound too tight

at the breaking point

but there’s still much more to break through

before I’m truly in danger

unless I’m too tired to care

too care worn

Wade in the water

Wade in the water children

Like ripples on still water

movement inside of stasis

understandable separately

but meaning only grasped together

while I sit watching time

and time watches back

counting me as I beg it to move faster

move forward

move onward

need closure or an aperture

something to let out the pressure

building aching stretching my guts

distending everything I taste and touch

pushing out

until a kitchen knife offers c-section hope

a quick slice to give birth

to steaming waters gushing from my abdomen

turgid and churning

colored by intensity

tinted

tainted

polluted with insecurity

troubled waters

flooding onto the street of my familiar

filling footprints pressed into mud

unable to judge success or failure

in the silted impression

Wade in the water

God’s going to trouble the water

In my chest are trouble waters

ripples bashing against my breast

eating at my sternum

micro-fissures leaking into my chest

soaking my shirt

iron tang mist

metallic taste tongue touches

the roof of my mouth

pushes through into my nasal cavity

all smoke and no fire

as it pours dragon-style from my snout

cartilage ripped away as I try to escape

tried to run

to flee the rising flood

to get to higher ground

instead I go around

back to the place where I no longer belong

find myself in charted territory

map in hand

willingness bound

by hard water chains

Wade in the water

Wade in the water children

Wade in the water

God’s going to trouble the water

Wade in the water children is what the old spiritual says

wade in the water and get your soul wet

so I step into my chest of my trouble waters

plunge deep into the whirlpool

lift my feet planted on the bottom

watch as the finger of God stirs the waters

watch as he stirs them fast

in vertigo realizing

that my troubled waters are a gift

a baptism

a reconciliation

that the footprints I’ve seen

are a getting-through trail

left by those that walked before

left when God troubled the waters

by making them part

pushed them aside

smoothed them out

so the way becomes clear

that the trembling and shaking

that the hurting and fear

that the ripples and the waves

are signposts

mile-markers

step by step instructions

“Let those that have the ears, hear.”

In my chest are troubled waters

I lift up my feet

plunge in

drink deep.

-Brandon Lacy Campos

-Minneapolis, MN

-March 23, 2007