Blackouts

It's done.

They'll be waking up and in a few hours

Their batteries will run out;

They won't know what to do with themselves

Without the digital static to fudge the spaces
Between them.

They'll be angry, frustrated, lonely,

And

Human again.

Tinsel and Lights

Stomach twists London tears

Hauptbahnhof good-byes shouldered

The time that you weren't here.

We mark time with tinsel and lights

The time you came, the time it snowed in Sasebo,

The train to Reno.

The Brigantine alone.

Sick in Bishkek.

Sick in Mexico.

Tinfoil mouth.

The time you left us and went home.

Black Fridays

Black Fridays

Sticks.

Wood frame.

Icon.

Oil burning anointing lamp

Recession cave upheavals.

1869, 1929, 1989,

Yellow sticky note on a calendar

Inserts

Momentary illumination between

Two black Fridays

A red day, a blood day, a sticky day,

A day for cutting ribbons

And umbilicals

A baby born Athena-wise

A spurt of blood from the president's skull

The market is avalanching.

Someone was stabbed over a parking space.

We probably spend it all ’cause the pain ain’t cheap.

How deep is your greed?

Target

God is dead...we have killed him...

-Ed ads data mining roaring 20s

A big push.

Best Buy smartphone subprime mortgage lending.

Amniotic bubble bursts

Toys R Us bailouts for big wigs

Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Peasantry. a cry of protest.

For shame, Jerusalem,

No human family.

Someone was stabbed over a parking space.

The prodigal swipes credit card messiah

Freedom ain't cheap

Crossed staves on a skull.

Three stabs in a grassy knoll.

Shadows on a baby's soft wet cranium.

Seven Bolsheviks burst through the door...

The loss of a kingdom.

Shepherd-song.

The loss of the innocents.

...bullets slam pillows and diamonds

Elder brother poison priest

Hunts down the prodigal God

Only one is good.

The princeling groans.

The blood on the hay.

Divine right of rule.

Ask not what your country can do for you...

How deep is your greed?

Every boom must bust

Every bone be dust.

Two parallel railroad ties outside Yekaterinberg.

But oh the ride.

When things were new.

When the president was a sweet little boy

And I held him in my arms,

And he was mine at my breast

But now he belongs to the mob roar

The media throngs and the political trends

What is truth?
They are money laundering the rough edges off the

Universe's seams

Bankrupt in bullshit righteousness,

Reductionism.  What's a King to a mob?

On giving Tuesday I attempt to bribe the judge.

The star-reds marker X ma(rk)s

The spot on Dealey Plaza.

50% off, casting roulette

(whiteblackwhiteblackyingyangbrotherbrotherclatterclack)

On a white robe.

Resolutions

More

Or less

This year

I hope.

To do

More

and less.

Keep the Christ in Christmas

*THIS POEM CONTAINS ADULT LANGUAGE*  
(because that's what the scene would sound like)

Tom Leonard has this poem where the thief on the cross talks about missing the game. 

Rob Bell talks about hearing the breath of God even in the voices of people who don't believe. 

Christians say "keep the Christ in Christmas." I don't like it.

So I imagine you might hear these things at a homeless shelter.  Maybe a manger is a 1st Century homeless shelter.  Maybe the church is a homeless shelter.

Keep the Christ in Christmas

"Jesus, it's cold."

"Christ, you gonna bring me some cookies or you just gonna sit there preaching all night?"
"God, where do these hypocrites get off?"

"Son, I appreciate you trying but you have no idea what I've been through to get here."

"Jesus, what the fuck, Joe, you're wasted."

"Christ, did you see the look on their faces!"

"OH MY GOD, did you see the new dress Mary was wearing on the Ave?"

"Son-of-a-bitch took my cookies!"

"Jesus fuckin Christ, I ain't waiting around here with these fools I'm going to get me a loosey."

"Christ, you see those legs?  I like that.  Baby, you can take me to church anyday woo!"

"God told me I got I got I got a bright future, this is my fourth time, this time I'm really gonna quit."

"My SON, I just want to call MY SON  for five minutes!"

"Jesus, it's cold."

"Christ, you think they would've been able to find some fuckin space for  a chick who's pregnant."

"God, it hurts."

"Son-of-a-bitch!  Baby's comin."

Advent

There were no four hundred years of silence.

I don't think the birds were singing their songs any differently,

And 82-year-old prophetesses don't become prophetesses

Without receiving a word.

I'm afraid I'm out of Magnificats,

I'm not surprised when you speak.

I already prayed that you wouldn't--

You came anyway,

And I'm so glad you did.

Laying out evidences alongside

Some caramel chocolate pies.

Beauty, conviction, and Pascal's dice.

You're asking me if I really believe through a "what if"

What you're really asking is, what if I could

Do whatever I wanted.

And you're saying you don't see a thing.

Wise men seeing stars

Black holes and revelations

Two sides of the same spiral galaxy

Evolutions and big bangs non sequitor into

Absolute statements on existence or non-existence

YHWH breathing sounds/"there is no God"

Light and dark playing in your deep eyes

And a wince.

We are either conjurers and quacks

Or enlightened hacks

Or paranoid kings slaughtering babies

And possibilities.

You decided to speak through an infant's cry?

And Thomas got to poke a finger in your side

You've been showing up all my life.

A God that doesn't hide.

So what's with the night?

What's the word? 

How long must I wait? 

I don't need another miracle today

But I think my friends might. 

Written on my Heart

While others write in ink and stone

Or carve into a weathered trunk

You've been gnawing at my bones

And have written on my heart.

A word and worship song inside

A language I don't know.

A litany of unknowns.

An aimless ache for home.

I wish I had let myself love you

A little while.

It's going to take a lot of writing out

Reductionism begs for a ribbon-cutting

And oh, the easy road

I'm no chaser, but I want to be

A pursuer, I want to at least say

I tried.

Hope-deferred dry

I wish I could make any sense of

Of the things I feel in my mind.

While others write upon their arms

Or tattoo 'beloved' on their wrist

I wanted to save the excess ink

And let you know from the start.

While others speak in chocolate and flowers

I hope a T-shirt will do.

I wish I could say I was an author

But I'm terrified the poem

Might not exactly meet expectations.

We've both been running from the start

You've been tugging at my elbows

You have written on my heart.