Like forests after a fire, reduced to char and ash,
yet teem with new life beneath glistening rain,
you too, my love, can be born again.

Like the silent canary that mourns a lost love,
yet resumes singing in Spring as hope replaces pain,
you too, my love, can be whole again.

So let the chains of your burdens dissolve into feathers,
feel the winds of change gently ruffle your wings,
and soar like a bluebird, free of your tethers
into a horizon of wonderful things.

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall
I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times."
                    - Matthew the Apostle

I
Seventy-seven bottles of gin
lie in the guts of sensuous men;
seventy-seven *I forgive you's dissolve
in a fanatical mind's resolve.

II
What offence occurred under Saint Constantine's priggish eye?
Was it specious as a Samian's thigh?
Or Sumerians receiving alien diplomats?
Maybe somewhere far under Moscow Putin's massing cloning vats...

III
Whatever discursive and belligerent milieu
church authority finds most tried and true
seems to be the most important decider
in the future of things like the Large Hadron Collider.
Perhaps, unfoundedly, they find it funny that Higgs
(though it seems much like calling the Liberal Party "Whigs")
is a name shared by a man and a theoretical particle
(though it be libelous in any journalist's article),
and thus label similar advancements as "blasphemous".
I guess that this is what it is: believing just because.

IV
Who can know blasphemy from piousness?
Maybe all Luther did was obfuscate a prior mess.

V
Seventy-seven palm-branch-adorned, donkey-riding kings:
an automatic-ring-making-machine beleaguering proselyte rings.

I've written enough poems
about broken promises
shattered resolve, empty chances and
regrets beating at the back of my brain
with a baseball bat...
but not often have I written a poem
about my ability to speak
my ability to not shatter,
but sway resolve
with both a pen and a sword.
I am human,
and while my voice may not be heard
by the whole
I'm running it up the flagpole
to see who salutes
and if nobody does then I'll climb
to the top of this **** building
and scream.

Come hither to see
What lies lie in our humanity
What dissonance
Carries us
Dissolving into confusion
Resolving all of our angers
And rage unbecoming
Misdirected
Undirected
Unperfected
Wounding strangers
As well as loved ones
Come forth and bare the brunt
Of our burning destruction
I have known ignorance’s lashes
By those unnamed *****
Who claim control of the masses
Come here to see me
Invested with all the potential of our species
With hope well met
Even when hope failed itself
I milked the moment
And beg thee to see me
With all and none of my humility
Naked