"instantly" doesn't apply
though we use the word to describe
an eternity that passes
before one’s eyes

in the flash flesh takes
to surrender, when a bullet passes
through a heart, a skull is crushed
in a head-on collision  

let me pause a hand an "instant,"
to make the car key turn, or the foot fall
from the curb a momentous moment,
later

altering all destiny, by chance,
if I had the chance, to be master of a tiny cogwheel,
of one machine--I don't need omnipotence,
only the reins of time

we clock in, out
every one of us--that has ALWAYS
been the contract

the Tyrant has us all working
at minimum wage; some complain
others don't think about it

though at one time
or another, we are all grateful,
and terrified, we have a job

beggars, billionaires both
servants to the hours, His strange
circular command

but I will be dead ******
if I'll give Him a minute more than necessary
watching the hands spin on a timepiece,
eternally there to remind us, we are
temporal slaves, every minion
under His reign

he crawled from the slime
of the swamps, like a creature formed
before god made light

coated solid with the muck of the earth,
the blood of those they slaughtered, and that
of his own brethren--though the feverish foam
in these ancient paddies had wedded forever
the sanguine sap of them all

the sole survivor
to tell the old tale--the fable of light
giving way so eagerly to dark

who was he to tell the story
spared the wrath of the flesh
what of those who lay behind him
now forever silenced--had not they earned
the right to be permanent patrons of light

who was he to speak of these things
but it must be, for in the beginning someone
had to utter, with thunderous certainty, the
greatest promise ever broken:
let there be light

in the sky, I don’t see him, the Big Guy,
the “G” man, but I found someone who did,  
posing the query, “What is God?”  

he answered his own question
with twenty words, plus one--no mention of the sun,
the stars, or how HE ignited the Big Bang  

but many
wispy words about love, glory
justice and joy  

I can't claim to comprehend you,
wedded to agnosticism I seem to be
though I truly would like to see:

something behind the
sunken eyes, bloated bellies of babies
covered with impatient flies    

something in the blood trails
of San Bernardino, Paris, Beirut
Khe Sanh, Iwo Jima, the Marne  
Antietam, ad infinitum  

who can read those red riddles  
and help me understand--maybe more
than 21 words are required  

though I am hardly inspired  
when the words to describe HIM/HER/IT  
don’t mention milk except as human kindness
or do nothing to explain our blissful blindness
to blood dripping from stakes driven
so long after Calvary’s crosses

I began with verse about Wyeth's Christina
but I couldn't see her face, and I've never been to Maine
though her twisted body pains me

then I flew to the opposite coast
summoned by the memory of a ghost:
my best friend at Bodega Bay, one fine day
forty Augusts gone

he threw a Frisbee to his Airedale
and we ate sprout sandwiches, avoiding the foul
karma from the slaughter of beeves,
hogs, he said

I would like to relive that day,
with its blue dusk, but the clock can't be rewound
and he is not to be found on the great Pacific

kin who barely knew his face
chose his final space--a hot hole on Oklahoma
prairies, not far from his drunken father
and others who never saw him watch
the sun sink gold into the sea

in my head I'll exhume him,
maybe return him to the waves
that reclaim all things

or introduce him to Christina
a continent away--he could help me know her
though her eyes face another world