Our good books tell us
Christ walked on the water
but that God was brought
to the New World on galleons,
so I ask you, wise ones, teachers
and preachers of History,
how it came to be that the Son
didn't require a boat like the Father,
and how the hell you managed
afterall to get things so backwards
when the soldiers and priests
kissed the the ground and walked
on God's children around them.

Some days I feel less than I am.
Most days I feel less than I could be.
Everyday I'm never as I should be.

There's this pain deep in me that's unrelenting;
Never can I **** it off all the way.
I do find ways to dull it... to take the edge off:
Video games
Baseball
History
Poetry
Friends


But it's never enough.
The pain comes from that gap, that separation, between my soul and You.

I know our relationship isn't as it should be... that terrible gap in it... I know Your Son bridges it and Your Spirit holds it eternally.
But I have fled from You. I'm not asking for forgiveness from You. Not yet, I'm still unrepentant.
I'm asking for You to break through my solid walls; nobody else can.

You are God, I am but flesh and dust.
Hear me.

arching my back
the sparks fly
like shaved metal
off of my sternum
as something
like happiness
flecks through
in metal firebuds
that screech coming
over me as a
wave washes
through my
molecular structure,
inside the libations
held up to the
small goddesses
running through
the rush of
the chainsaw shrieks
of bloodstream
now a fomenting river
of tiny waves
cresting made up
of my tears
shed all through
the mineral-encrusted
night
Now those tiny deities
with singing plumpness
of breast and thigh
indigo radiating
from their third eye
are dancing
inside my being
as I strive to catch
the shadows that
only just surrounded
me in that last hour
of plague
of chasm-patched torment
tears insulating me
until I could not see
for the steam
just on the edge
of inability to
contain my
filtered out
pre-injected rage
Here I now sit
a few inches above
the grasslands
lotus in each palm
pumped
with manifestation
in my very fingers
                       of life

I used to look into her eyes and see
someone beautiful and intelligent and magnificent.
I'd look at her face, smooth pale skin
and red-gold hair, and see a spark within her.
She never thought her fire would go out,
being because she was such a fiery young girl.

But then she got older.

I used to look into her eyes and see
a flicker of the flame that used to be.
I looked into her face,
fierce and hard with years of emotional abuse
and I thought to myself that the fire was still there,
though it was just a flicker.

But then, one day, it went out.

I'm staring into her eyes now,
wondering who the hell she is;
Wondering what happened to the flame of a girl.
She is unrecognizable to me.
But I think.... I think somewhere
underneath this stone cold face..
I think this stranger....

**Is me.

If i give you
A reason
For loving
I give  me
A reason
For living