The rain dilutes the sins of  the land,
pandemic baptism and resurrection.
This Earth that once housed Noah
and his Ark, a covenant of life,
the buoyant spring,
cycles like the cylinder of a
revolver, a hedged roulette bet.

When we are cleansed, we achieve
grounding under water, in over
our heads, digging in the mud
for pearls in the scallop and
oyster beds.

The receding of the waters
is our delta moment, fighting
for absolution;  a
mammal under water or a
fish out of water,
there is no difference:

only a burning in our chests,
a yearning for return
to the elements we once knew.

If God has a plan for us all,
then the wise make God the boss.

If the wages of sin is death,
and God gave us free will,
as we were created in his image,
to accomplish his plan as we
see fit, then i am forced
to conclude God doesn't pay
very well.  He is not a
particularly good employer.

Working conditions are terrible.

In point of fact, God is not
our employer, because he doesn't
pay at all.  Is he waiting for
bitcoins to catch on?
Or is he more into
spiritual slavery?

Is it wrong to question this?

It would seem self-evident
that if God gave us free will,
surely he expected us to use
it, even to question him.
If not, maybe God didn't
think it through first.

If our rewards are in the afterlife,
how can we be sure we will
get paid?  No one has
verified any of this.

Is that what faith is, God?

Crossing our fingers?

Depending on you, the God
with a plan, the same plan
that takes from us all that
we love and cherish, just
as he gives us those same
things?

God is an Indian-giver.

We are each his image,
and we broke all of our
treaties with Indians.
Excuse me, Native Americans.
i don't want to offend
anybody,

least of all God.

Watching the student of hate
become the teacher of fear
is only one variable in the equation.
Not all students sit at the
front of the class, some view
the world from behind the
couch, pulling a blanket
over the eyes to ward off
extermination.

It all comes down to
reading the word problem,
insofar as words matter
and how you read them.

Classrooms are so very much
the same as rollercoasters,
multiple rows for
multiple views.

On the porch roof, in the pitch of it,
the scuttling claws of autumn leaves

               fa
                                              ll
             ­                     g
                  in
          d
                                         o
                         wn.

(the sky is falling)

Battling cigarette smoke prayers for passage
       to the great beyond,

i feel them both tingling my spine,
unfiltered.

Exhaustion is the price of vigilance.
My cats sleep all the time now,
it seems.  It hurts
                but i understand.

The road has a hypnotic effect
as it gazes back into us all.
The void consumes everything
but becomes nothing,
compressed infinitely smaller,
enslaving particles, photons,
feelings, planets, systems, and
processes.

Feeling isn't saying, and
meaning isn't doing.
Impressions are sculpted into
the granite of our mountains
by the expressions of the
winds.

When the eagles soar overhead
they must all pass through
the wormhole to hunt,
to ****** victory from defeat,
a sustained life from a
final death,
but it is all perspective.

Roadkill live life in the fastlane,
if life is indeed a highway.
Woodland creatures brave existence
only by darting to the other side
of the killzone, timing the gaps,
patiently judging the distance.

If we were in Hawaii,
we would be on an island.

If i fell off the boat en route,
i would be an island,
floating in the ocean of my life,
carried by the currents, winds,
and storms, unable to bend
the universe to my will,
treading water, fearing
sharks, scanning the horizon
for help.

When i leave my house
and venture out into the
crowds, i always wonder
how so many islands can
exist and there still be
room for the ocean, or is
it just an ocean of islands?

Navigation becomes difficult,
the islands cease movement,
there are fewer ports on
which to call.

Scan the horizon, tread water,
look for help, but
above all else,
watch out for sharks.