My bones were once tender for you.
It's a muddy road you're strolling down,
and I don't know if you know,
but your shoes are untied
(of course you ******* know).
Or are you wearing slip-ons?
I wouldn't recognize you anymore.
I considered taking the same road
to church this very Sunday
but I was stopped by the discomfort
I felt in the presence of a cross.
Faith cannot mean that my life is safe.
Though my bones were once tender for you,
it is unfair that we are both on a hook
but you hold the string
that tugs on guts
whenever I try to breathe.

Those who've lost, or who've been lost;
The people who have nothing left.
If what that red-brick shell provides

Soothes but one of these sufferers,
It serves a purpose to us all.
A purpose it should not overstep.

I've never been to a church with stained glass windows
I've never been to a church with pews
If I ever want to worship God
My church becomes my room

And pew by pew, they shuffle up
In stoic homage, cane in hand
Or awkward reverence, drudging forth
I dare not rise to join the train
Of human need, of appetites
That crave the air, that lust the sun
That knock on wood to trap a nymph
That find a god within a waif.

And others, likewise, stay as well
A few old-maids who cannot walk
Yet others more than capable
I think, “Maybe the night before…
They ****** their sister’s married friend
Perhaps they stole their neighbor’s TIMES
Or sabotaged their best-friend’s plan
Got drunk and cursed and fought their dad
Or maybe even killed a man…”

And yet they’re sober enough now
Beneath the stained-glassed reddened light
That slants before the multitudes
Sober enough to fear what’s done
To touch, to taste, the burning bread
With sweaty palms, or slobbering tongues

And all at once a feeling swells
A kinship for those left behind
Who gaze upon these rising rows
Yet still remain for all to see
Just how deprived they truly are
Now those who’ve fed and drunk return
Crossing themselves, they kneel to pray


The holy hymnal spreads its wings.

I sit upon my throne of a bench and drink my coffee,
All day long I play games or play the piano,
The smell of dark roasted black, strangely so sweet,
And just wait or watch the flowers and grass grow.

Just a moment, give me a second to explain my life,
Popcorn popped at the stove sits, I look like lurch,
It's just like that, things that we pay for Movie Time,
I wasn't the least bit interested in going to church.

So I ask myself where are we going from here?
Anyone else notice these rules seem quite austere?
I wonder if I'm the only one who wonders far or near
If I could get a job that matters in even 10 years?

But what does it matter, I guess this way of life's my fault,
I will just get fatter, such a noble way to excuse my waste line,
As each day grows longer, I'm just likely to somehow evolve
Into another one of those guys who is just a waste of time.

Why if I had my way-don't get me wrong-this wouldn't be,
I'd live like a wild man would, a Robinson Crusoe, oh dear me.
Why I have to feel so down all the time? Well it's all so free,
I live in the land of the free, free to become a casualty
Of corporate competition, whether I meant to be,
Wouldn't really matter, like that means anything.

And the answers always been that I'm alone with my dream,
We already "knew" you had a way out of everything,
You just happen to lack the needed ambition to leave son,
So get with it your life is none of our concern or anything.

Dear wounded, lost and powerless one, alone having "fun,"
Even in your darkest, most horrible despair,  consolations.