The New York Times
ran an article
on Catholicism today.

I read it while
I was on the toilet.

My grandpa just
joined up.

He said they get him.

The **** Baptists
waste too much water
and they don't even
drink beer.

I knew a Catholic girl once
who was adamant in salvation.

Heaven's gates spread
as wide as her legs.

I am your headache,
gentle resentment
on a Friday evening.
I am four beers blunt
and two shots tired.
I am flirting with life
like a closeted man.
I am flailing my arms
hailing a ride home.
I am ready for sleep
but don't have dreams.
I am sorry I can't be
everything you want.

From my bed:
a sneeze-speckled mirror
reveals my eyes
and a window
that plays host
to a still-frame sky
and a power line.

I use this to plan my day.

For instance(s):
if it looks cold,
I wear a coat.
If it looks rainy,
I wear boots.
If it looks dark,
I wear nothing and
if the birds are out
I wear a hat.

I save my ghillie suit for the apocalypse.

your words were calm last night

so much so that it surprised me

you gently explained that the threat i perceived
was merely an effort to hug and to hold
because you could see the fear in my eyes

you watched my body start to shake and
you saw my mind flash back to before
and leave you standing there alone
while i was grabbed back into another night
a different fight

you rushed to me to hold me
not to hurt me

but the difference blurs in my eyes
and my mind can't seem to sort out
that night from the ones that came before

my eyes couldn't find yours
and my heart wouldn't slow

you did the right thing
but my past
betrayed me in a way that
betrayed you

and
for that
i am sorry

It's Saturday. We're running late for a wedding.

Scene:

**** body, loosely wrapped in a lime green towel
which, I'm sure, makes the paleness of my skin
downright floresce in the warm, bright sunlight
pouring too generously through the picture window.

A mound of life rises like the moon,
casting a glow all the way to my face.

On a Saturday. One in which we are currently running
quite late now for a wedding.

Contrast:

Against the softness of the sun, a backlight glows with
harshly lit updates from hundreds of people who,
to be honest, I keep up with to be kept up with
and I suppose that makes the glare harsher.

My hands curl softly around the glare, thumbing
gently through this distraction in an effort to abate
the sweltering heat of late April in the WV mountains.

It rests softly on my rising moon, the source
of this precious glow far outshining the scene around
me, although the burst of glorious sunlight coming
would prove me wrong again.

Then it happened.

On a random Saturday morning. We happen to be closing in
on being too late for the wedding.

And my hand jumps.

He kicked me.

And you ran to me.

And we watched in wonder
this life we made,
this man in the moon,
being everything but still,
until we ran out,
still dressing as we
frantically raced
our way to the wedding

(which we were not late for)

on Saturday.

Truly unruly.

It's profundity unravels
into the expanding universe

chasing it's own tail toward an
answer that won't be caught because
it's a question that moves too slow.

From time's beginning, or from the
paradoxical idea that we have invented
in a vain attempt to understand what a
beginning is, or could be, or was, or isn't.

Do you ever stop and think of these things? Of how
we have loved since "let there be" and have spent
all of eternity weaving into life from here and there
and everywhere in God and nature's beautiful dance
of unity and life which has caused us to be here, together.

that i've been reading your poetry
(on the new front page)
and,

I ******* love
your words; your worlds;
it's like i'm,
    there. right there,
with you.

you see, i didn't do what you do--
         write my story aloud
--when i was fifteen, or even twenty-two

just an inch off the ground
                        i confided in clouds
stayed lost (was a puff too proud)

that was then, sure, but even today
   (it's 11:11, now)
putting any of it down
committing to this word, not that
this sentiment,
      not that
this meaning
       (and not simultaneously that)
              is walking through fire

and so, for leading the way
           let me just say,
                       i love you

and please,
don't ever stop.

Feed her the scraps
of your being.
She will eat it up
without thinking twice.
But she will still be
hungry.

Feed her the lies
or whatever is convenient
She doesn't mind to pick out
the gristle
because every piece of it
is attached to a morsel
of sweet
delight.

Feed her the silence of
unspoken discontent
the empty eyes
the empty bed
the thrills that serve as
distraction
because you can't bear to hear
the voice
that rings inside
your skull.

Like a dog, she
waits
with pleading eyes
and an endless appetite
for you.

But even the most
unfortunate mutt
deserves more than
a full belly,
but also
a mind
at ease.