Breathe in, breathe out, a gentle flow,
Shifts in posture, let the tension go.
Adjust the level, find your place,
Acceptance blooms in this sacred space.
Pain may linger, but here we stand,
With open hearts and open hands.
Acceptance goes a long, long way,
In this place, we find our stay.

www.firesermon.com
by Michael R. Burch

your gods have become e-vegetation;
your saints—pale thumbnail icons; to enlarge
their images, right-click; it isn’t hard
to populate your web-site; not to mention

cool sound effects are nice; Sound Blaster cards
can liven up dull sermons, [zing some fire];
your drives need added Zip; you must discard
your balky paternosters: ***!!! Desire!!!

these are the watchwords, catholic; you must
as Yahoo! did, employ a little lust :)
if you want great e-commerce; hire a bard
to spruce up ancient language, shed the dust

of centuries of sameness;
                                            lameness *****;
your gods grew blurred; go 3D; scale; adjust.

Published by Ironwood, Triplopia and Nisqually Delta Review. This poem pokes fun at several stages of "religion," all tied into Eliot's "Fire Sermon," albeit elliptically. (1) The Celts believed that the health of the land was tied to the health of its king. The Fisher King's land was in peril because he had an infirmity (lameness, infertility, it really didn't matter in those days). One bad harvest and it was the king's fault for displeasing the gods. A religious icon (the Grail) could somehow rescue him. Strange logic! (2) The next stage brings us the saints, the Catholic church, etc. Millions are slaughtered, tortured and enslaved in the name of religion. Strange logic! (3) The next stage brings us to Darwin, modernism and "The Waste Land.” Religion is dead. God is dead. Man is a glorified fungus! Long live Darwin! We'll evolve into something better adapted to life on Earth, someday (if we don’t destroy it first). But what do we have now, except a hangover? Strange logic! (4) The current stage of religion is perhaps summed up by this e-mail: the only way religion can compete today is as a form of flashy entertainment. ***** a website before it's too late!  Keywords/Tags: god, gods, religion, saints, icons, images, imagery, update, scale, adjust

“He is the ocean in my life while I am a single drop in his. He is the sun in my sky while I am the breeze that goes by unnoticed. He is the moon that guides me at night, while I am nothing but the darkness in his life. Excitement pulsates when he texts, but not a pulse more when I text. For I am just like the other girls he talks to; just one of them when he is the only one for me. Happiness rushes through my veins and nerves feel a gentle tickle in his presence. I feel everything deeply; pain and happiness when it comes to him, while he feels nothing. Sacrificing, asking, encouraging, adjusting and compromising when it’s never the same. He never runs when I slip away, but I stay when he walks away. I feel like I am chasing him; on a constant run for him to care. But he doesn’t care about me, as much as I care about him; and that hurts deeply than I ever thought it would.”

- excerpt from an open letter

The night came like to the woman in white like thunder, but it was unlike any dream she had ever seen before.

Nothing could compare to this. Nothing could compare to this scale, this intense freedom.
She kept running
She walked into a kind looking abyss

And still there was a new way of living that tore her away.
From her current reality

What a dream she thought, what a confusing, chaotic dream.

Losing and finding it all
at - once -

She looked up
Wiped the tears and sweat


A thought caught her by surprise,


This is magical beyond all desires.

i've worn glasses for as long as i can remember
i can't remember the day i got my first pair
hell i don't even remember what having normal vision is like
if i even had it
depression is a lot like that
once you have it
you don't really remember what its like to not have it
i may not have had it my whole life
yet it sure feels like forever
but thats a thing i've adjusted to
like my eyesight
with a new pair of lenses