PRAYER
Eddie Woods
Maybe I am stunning
Maybe I’m divine
Maybe all I stimulate
Commits a loving crime
Maybe I’m miraculous
Maybe I am slime
Wallowing in visions
Of wonderment and time
Maybe I’m the sinner
For whom all beauty prays
Enlivening the darkness
Through brutal winter days
Maybe I’m the savior
You never hoped to see
Daring you to hang me
Upon the gallows tree
Kali is my mother
Inspiring all I do
Maybe what I really am
Is the other side of you.
EDDIE WOODS was born to Italian-American parents in New York City on May 8th, 1940. At age 20, facing the draft and not wanting to get his fingernails dirty, he joined the US Air Force for a 4-year stint, spent mostly in Germany. He subsequently lived and traveled in divers parts of Europe, North Africa and both the near & farther East, additionally crisscrossing much of the United States twice. After residing for two decades in Amsterdam (where he edited an international features magazine, ran a small English-language literary press, and was a contributing editor for the London-based underground newspaper International Times), he moved to England, passing six years in a remote corner of the Devonshire countryside until returning to Holland in the autumn of 2004.
A poet & prose writer since his mid-teens, Eddie has variously worked as a short-order cook, computer programmer, encyclopedia salesman, restaurant manager, journalist (Bangkok Post, ABC Radio News, New York Times, Tehran Journal, etc.), and radio DJ. His work has appeared in numerous online and print periodicals. He has also written many books including Tsunami of Love, Smugglers Train, Tennessee Williams in Bangkok, and Sale of Return all which can be found through his website: http://eddiewoods.nl/
“That get-up is perfect for you. You’re the gangster poet, after all.”
Cover and inserted photo x Guido van Asselt
