violence

talk about the age
of burning witches as if it’s
a thing of the past

remember
the confidence of youth

hold your ground

the coldest days
are the brightest

squint into the overwhelming
roar of distant massacres

talk about both time and space

these men with their faces
painted white, black smudged
around their eyes, mouths &
teeth smeared with the blood
of other people’s children

the gun is invented,
and then the bomb

killing one martyr at a time
is inconvenient, inefficient

picture the face of god
as an explosion at
ground zero

blinding

overwhelming

you will know it only
once before you die

in the palace of exiles

walk to the far edge of the
field and shoot yourself

would this be considered lost
or would it be considered
found?

believe in christ
as a fever dream

scream at the hills

throw the baby in the river

no one offers you hope
without wanting something
in return

responding to the critics

and sometimes
they write to talk about
discipline
and sometimes to lecture
about the need for
hope

sometimes
i send them pictures
of nuns hanging raped and
murdered from the trees
of central america

we all need to
believe in something

Grace

What it is, after everything, is that his wife
feels cheated, and so she leaves.

There is silence, and then there are
all of the sounds that help define it.

There are the dead and the dying,
and he is one or he is the other.

He is counting the days.

He is walking backwards.

The sunlight feels good on
his useless hands.

lazarus, reinvented

and you and i in
the brutal light of
empty prayers, and
you and i in the
relentless shadow
of sorrow

thought the words
were what mattered

thought the truth
would be enough

jesus christ,
what a fool i was

borderland

faces painted dark and bright and
all of them hidden at
the edges of february fields

men of power
grown fat on lies

the women they have come to own

piles of skulls left to
mark where one country ends and
another begins

ASH WILDERNESS

I added a link for this collection over in
my BOOKS section. My email is in my
Profile, if yr interested in ordering a copy.