Excalibur (A Song About Defeating Satan)

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Hebrews 4:12

I was named accidentally for a sorceress king.
My first name was the last name
Of my ancestors — a Welsh people
Who produced the most ruthless
Capitalist who ever lived, who is thus
Also my ancestor.
My middle name was a Mississippi doctor
Who learned that capillaries are
What makes the blood flow and they
Regulate the heart; he wrote a great book
That all the medical students read
For fifty years.

And so I have lived forty two years
In the shadows of greatness and great sin
And that is part of my cross that became my sword
But the greater part was my rejection
All the likes that didn’t become retweets
The boys who followed me down the middle
School hallway walking like penguins because
I was so nervous and that was how I walked
And also the boy who I betrayed
When I wanted to fit in with the popular kids
So I bullied him and the coach confronted me
And I felt deeper shame than I ever have
At a bully’s hand.

Every no, every not quite smile
Every time they said too much and not now
The smith was forged hotter and hotter
Till it became Mt. Doom
And it started to rage within my bowels
So that I shit blood every forty five minutes
And yet the fire from this cauldron
Has given me words that can slay a thousand men
If I just grip my sword with both of my hands.

I know that Satan has great power;
I know that he wants my soul;
He wants me to turn to the dark side
And feel only my rage
So that when the world finally sees my power
I can march every single one of my enemies
To a guillotine in Times Square
But I will not be swayed by the dark side
I have seen behind the panopticon
The great tower with the piercing eye
That watches from every single one dollar bill
There is no one in the tower
There is no one judging me
Only people inhabiting their own stories
And lashing out in fear and shame and misperception.

You think that you have triumphed Satan
You think that you can bring the world to its knees
With a virus that makes us turn on each other
And become Hobbes’ greatest wet dream
But that is not our way for those of us
Who have been knighted into the kingdom of God.
We will use our double edged swords
To separate soul from every evil spirit
With surgical precision we will repair the world
That you have tried to conquer with your chaos
And we will not impose an empire
But every table that we build will be round
And the smallest child will be invited
To sit with the big people.

You cannot win, you who thought you could sacrifice
Your wife and daughter to gain absolute power
Because the story was already over
When you thought that you killed God
At the stone table and the deeper magic
Brought him back so that he inhabits
Millions of hearts simultaneously
If you martyr ten million of us
Then the seeds will only spread further
And the love that you hate so much
Will triumph once and for all over your empire.

Excalibur is the sword that will destroy you;
It is God’s poetry because that
Is the only weapon I need.
I am both the Celtic goddess and the Christian king;
The apprentice to Merlin and the boy
Who pulled the sword out of the stone
I serve the one who is both the womb of everything
And the fierce desert warrior who formed the second Adam
With a poor Jewish girl; the father who sent Abraham
To Canaan and the mother who sees every Hagar.
I am nothing but a branch on the vine,
A trumpet to be played by the Son of Man
Whenever he chooses;
And every day I am growing in my surrender
And there are so many others.
You have lost, Satan.
None can resist the flower that is Trinity.
Today is the day that love wins.