Salt by Ethan McGuire poetry Inspired by Leonard Cohen

A rock pillar of salt awaits those looking backward. 
 
As a staunch evangelical American, 
once I epitomized a top-rung Christian. 
 
You have asked me to discuss the future, 
yet we cannot discuss what has not been. 
Leonard saw the future, called it murder, 
the same as our own present and our past. 
 
My upward way is at once my downward. 
The downward path, it rises up likewise. 
God sees all time present for forever. 
I am not God; the night still spreads outside. 
 
I struggled long in lost worldview warfare. 
My weary back I never once unbent. 
Then one night, along the troubled pathway, 
a stranger told me he could build those walls: 
 
The walls between my culture and comfort, 
walls between the foreign and family. 
 
I sold my soul, crossroads, to the Stranger, 
though, true, he did not ask explicitly, 
only asked for proof of my loyalty, 
and my tired soul I volunteered in pledge. 
 
My upward way is at once my downward. 
The downward path, it rises up likewise. 
God sees all time present for forever. 
I am not God; the night still spreads outside. 
 
Once you sell your soul, lightning seals the deal. 
Even when the pendulum oscillates, 
your soul is sold. You cannot buy it back. 
I offer passers futures and my life. 
 
As I lie in the mud of dirty roads, 
even the Stranger mourns my fate in time. 
 
I lie trampled underfoot, Stranger of Gold. 
I gave myself to you, oh my paper stranger. 
 
I become a statue of salt as I stare backward.

TheFlummoxed.com

Twitter @AHeavyMetalPen

By day, Ethan McGuire is a healthcare information technology professional. By night, he is a writer, whose work has been published by Better than Starbucks Poetry Magazine, Flashes of Brilliance, Foundling House Journal, The Dark Sire Literary Magazine, Vita Brevis Press, and the West Florida Literary Federation’s project Life in the Time of Corona, among others. Ethan currently lives in the Florida Panhandle near the beautiful beaches of the Gulf of Mexico with his wife and their dog and cat, and he is a proud member of the Panhandle’s writing community.

Bio: Ethan McGuire works by day as a healthcare information technology professional and by night as a writer, whose poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Better than Starbucks, The Dark Sire, The Dispatch, Emerald Coast Review, New Verse News, The Poetry Pea, and Vita Brevis, among others. His debut poetry collection, Apocalypse Dance, releases through BSC Publishing in the Summer of 2022. Ethan McGuire, his wife, and their new daughter live in the Florida Panhandle near the Gulf of Mexico. You may connect with Ethan on Twitter @AHeavyMetalPen or at TheFlummoxed.com.

Available Now: Before I Turn Into Gold Inspired by Leonard Cohen Anthology by David L O’Nan & Contributors w/art by Geoffrey Wren

A Fevers of the Mind Quick-9 Interview with Ethan McGuire

unsplash photo by Brandon Green