Poem on a Bathroom Wall

Poem on a Bathroom Wall
(a brief lectionary reflection by Steve Orr)

One of my favorite restaurants, Algiers, is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts in Brattle Square. Delicious food; and some truly fine coffee. Plus, Algiers was the site of a monthly meeting of friends who enjoy books as much as I do. In other words, a place I visited often. And, every time I was at Algiers, I went to the bathroom before starting the long series of subway rides home.

That’s where I first saw the poem.


home had took me
to where too much time
had locke me in
in my wrong ways
and the fumbles of
a memory, and left me
where I first began
begging: "Christ let loose
these ghosts from my bones."


Men see a lot of things written on bathroom walls; mostly things not repeatable in polite company. And believe me, after a while, guys just stop seeing them. But this caught my attention the very first time I entered that bathroom. Eventually, months later I am sad to report, it finally occurred to me to write it down.

I’ve thought a lot about that poem over the years; wondering what the author meant for the reader to get from it. Eventually, I came to the conclusion the author probably cared not one whit about what the reader would get from the poem. It’s too raw. It was scrawled on a bathroom wall, not published in the New England Journal of Poetry. This guy was hurting. Deeply.

What has been the most puzzling is why the poem kept drawing my attention. I don’t think of myself as having the kind of life that would lead to penning my pain to a bathroom wall. It took a while, but eventually I realized what the draw was: it reads like one of David’s psalms, a lot like the two psalms (42 and 43) in this week’s lectionary readings. When the Psalmist writes, “Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me,” I really feel his exhaustion; his being overwhelmed by the deep waters of life. Like the bathroom poet, David wanted a relief only God could provide.

Sometimes we get into deep water; really deep, deep water. We’re in so deep, the only way we can ever get out is to call on God to cleanse us of even the memories of what led us there.

It has been several years since I finally realized I needed to write down that poem, and almost as long since I came to understand why I needed to write it down. And despite diligent searches, I’ve never been able to locate the author. If I could find him, I would thank him for his reminder that God can be called on in all circumstances, even when, perhaps most especially when, things seem to be at their worst.

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If you find yourself in Waco on a Friday, join the group at the Olive Branch for breakfast and Bible at 8:00 a.m. This week’s other readings are: 1 Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a; Isaiah 65:1-9; Psalm 22:19-28; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39.