KYRIE FOR PHILOMENA

Bless me! so this is my old church.

It’s been ten years since I last came.

It seems that all the outward signs are different

but the substance is the same.

Nobody knows me here,

except this old virgin, where

I used to sit for hours, as if praying.

Lord, have mercy.

Foggy-eyed altar boy

gazed deeply into the stained glass.

Me and my holy ghost

dreamed of the worlds we’d bring to pass.

And now I’ve gone so far

I don’t know what the answers are,

don’t even know what questions I could ask.

Lord, have mercy.

Kyrie eleison.

My soul can’t come home here.

These days my head’s too clear to grieve

over the displaced saints,

or the dreams that I could not achieve.

And I know myself too well;

I have seen my own ways fail

again and again, and yet I still believe.

Lord have mercy.

Kyrie eleison.