Lord
I am becoming a dangerous man...
I cannot breathe your light,
I do not know where I stand.
It is not like I needed to ask permission
to live or believe in your religion;
the one I was raised with.

Lord
I betrayed myself with a weary prayer.
I yearned for remission.
I was haunted by a guilty conscience, filled with monsters;
was not ever warned that it was all just nonsense!

Lord I am confident.
I cannot include you with the decisions I make,
By myself I will learn from my own mistakes.
No longer can I pray that my wishes come true,
I believe in myself more than I believe in you.
Amen.

My ribs are not a cage
Built to contain
This fluttering beat of wings
A captive could never sing
Anything
Like I’m hearing

Your ribs are not a cage
Not like bars to contain
But a xylophone
Of your bones
To play along
With my birdsong

Distance
Does not have to be
Division
I keep striving toward you
Like a moth to the moon
Like every winged thing
Refusing to be imprisoned
When gravity clings

The wings within my chest beat on
Propelling me to flight and song
Run my hand over the memory of your bones
So like and so unlike my own
And though our bones are not light
Enough for us to take flight
Wings within me
Sings within me
To fly in the face of gravity
To defy what captures me

But my limbs are not made
To fly away
My heartwings beat over and over
And the bone white moon never gets closer
Now knowing what a caged bird sings
Flight needs freedom, not just wings

Scalade skyward pile,
Of defensible tile,
Bituminous seams mossy gaps.

Board aloft to defray,
Fletched missiles array,
Groomed on as lethal a trap.

Scalade meet the stone,
Long from our home,
As generals command the intrusion.

To Kings do we kneel,
Ere slay with cold steel,
Pass lightning and bring this conclusion.

Trod darkest parade,
Woods endless scalade,
Blistering gleams of the pitch.

One knight in Queen’s arms,
Keen maid’s airy balms,
Do graces scar memory per stitch.

My acute dementia
Seems to precipitate the need for immediate euthanasia
A hurried departure
Through the aperture
Deep set in the hollowness of time
Because essentially life’s been a lackluster mime
Imbibing flawlessly flawed ideas
That inform my capricious
Nature to various stimuli
It’s a life story based on a true lie
Frivolities interspersed with grave concerns
The myriad adjourns
Futile attempts at mitigating
A self-imposed galling.