Sin-Eater          

**In Welsh & Scots folklore, the sin-eater was called at the death of a family member. He or she was paid a small coin and bread, beer and salt were passed over the corpse, and were  eaten and drunk by the sin-eater, who would say a few words, thus taking on all the sins of the deceased, so the soul would rest and not walk about the earth. The door to the cottage would be left open, so the spirit could fly free. When his purpose was accomplished the people burned the wooden bowl and platter from which he had eaten the food handed across, or placed on the corpse for his consumption. At all other times, the sin-eater was shunned, living alone in remote places, avoided and despised by those who chanced to meet him/her.

Sin-Eater          5/15/15

we come into this world

eyes still misted with the Wisdom from the other side of the veil

gaze with infinite compassion, no judgement, whole acceptance

the milk of our best moments pours into that new awareness

and the mists thicken

suffocating the memory of Oneness overlaying from here

modeling humanity

to there

thread tenuous

small spurts of lightning

Zip! under the radar

Zap! the vestigial organ

vast preknowledge encapsulated in remembrance

never lost

the soul a fly on your lips

ephemeral

half seen, sticky

from visiting the honey jar

fortified for the Journey

in-breath and out take on concrete

harden the briefly osmotic skin

permeable still to the voice of deep space

stars, planets so far away they are only rumours

brush the veil aside and enter what’s known as Reality

the connection to the veiled world makes sin-eaters of poets

condemned to gather the sorrows, petty angers

sins of omission

commission

jealousies

murderous thoughts

killing actions

condemned to recreate recreate recreate without end

the deeper remembrances of the womb pave the road to that other world

beyond and back again

some of the same ecstasy spilling over into normal potluck

in the universe of flaming sons and daughters

sacrificed to the post Enlightenment backslide

tick tock tick tock tick tock

footsteps at the roach end of the night

soot-blackened buildings lean close in

watchful

ruined morning

fumes of dead streetlight auras follow the lost ones

home to their cribs pads hustles

a few hours sweaty sleep on gritty sheets

or no sheets

drag stained ratty comforter close to ward off the nightmare of daylight

ordinary life impossible for the nightwalkers

stories fit only for the ears of rebels and madmen

like Cassandra

like the Christ

like Malcolm or Lamumba or Peltier

or who knows what nameless female locked away

discredited

assassinated

the earth trembles

and the mouth of the mother opens to swallow her children

morning dawns unknowing

desolation waste and wreckage all around

when the fog has melted rigid edges of shared experience

dreams melt with the mist

buried for another day

until the dirt maw shall claim

the unresisting

break bread and lick salt from the wounds!

a palm crossed with silver       

and I will take from you darkness

that threatens to devour the pristine temple of spirit

who would be a sin-eater, a poet , a visionary

disdained though they’re the Record of us all

internalized with bread and beer and salt and cries

in the depths of loss?

a last supper for

shrunken starving bellies abject in fear & loathing

seeking, always craving Love & Light

who would willingly quaff this drink

only to be driven out to the edges of the void

no honour?

break bread! drink the iniquities of this gone life

imbibed with draughts of beer

washed down so he or she can rest, but never you!

the poetry of their billion seconds now the songs for your tongue

and for all the world

                but who will hear or remember?

without the shadow, all is blindness; without the truth, everything is a lie

when night winds brush the veils aside

divine insomniacs sit with dead heroes and avatars

and listen

tell us again why we do this

tell us again why we’re here

echoes and echoes in firmament, no answer

no sound save the sin-eater’s timeless wail

                benediction of a broken heart

© 2015 pamela twining