Zen monks sit quietly on
stern pillows of effervescent soul.
I do not,
My patchwork pillow is filled with
styrofoam-- artificial.

Hasidic Rabbis rub their tired pious books
adding more wear marks from years worrying
which appear like a foreign tongue on the cover.
My book is full of yellowed, empty pages
sitting, dust-ridden on a abandoned shelf.

The head of the Shiite rests against solid stone
The penitent countenance like a mirror of Mecca.
My forehead bears only the reddened mark of my forearm
from the vibrant narcolepsy of life.  

The Atheist sits in the coffee house
lecturing the disinterested Baristas
about the tomfoolery of religion.  
I sit alone,
nodding sagely,
sipping wine that tastes
flat against my tongue.

What does a depth of spiritual belief offer?
There is an unwritten, unquantifiable,
essence that belief gives the human.
A depth of meaning, like
a shot of penicillin to a case of chlamydia.