Peter Schwartz

Faith

“Faith lives through three stages:
summoning, testing, and thankfulness”

1. summoning

there’s medicine in repetition; I
puppet myself to build a presence
the presence of God

a hundred pseudonyms slip from my hands
from my hard fortress of little names
to name the ordinary

a hundred more to soften my reservations
like an old love letter.

2.

I test the strength of my resolve
that repetition will be my medicine

I place a silver locket in my
foothold and invite storms of birds
to punish the picture inside
with daylight

it remains; another faithful phoenix reveals her
working reflexes under the needle
of midnight

I watch her migrate past the quicksand of shadow
on shadow and thank God for that part
of the sky.

3. thankfulness

repetition, repetition; you’re the roof
I lost at twelve, the ransom I hallucinated
at twenty

the signature I walked away from at
twenty-seven then the trigger that woke
me at thirty

but now I’m old enough to know
that the lightning of loneliness ends
at my window.

Peter Schwartz has been practicing the craft of poetry for over 20 years. His work has appeared in over 100 print and online journals. Those journals include: Asheville Poetry Review, Epicenter, and VOX to name a few. He’s an art editor for the literary sites Mad Hatters’ Review and Dogzplot; his own artwork can be seen at: www.sitrahahra.com.