Archive

Face blank as absolution,              from this back rowshe stares straight ahead              to the small raised stageof touring...

This second circle—coming back againto the coming back—the sweeping dial of days; where all time’s whats and whys and whens click clockwise on your face, or mine. Beginagain the...

“Virtue! a fig! ’tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our willsare gardeners.” —Othello, William Shakespeare “Virtue! A fig!” We...

“The ordinary acts we practice every dayat home are of more importance to the soulthan their simplicity might suggest.” —St. Thomas More Shake out doubt.Sliced mustard seedsgather in creases...

Let us nail ourselves to him, resistingthe temptation to stand apart or to joinothers in mocking him.” —Pope Benedict XVI Let us nail ourselves to him and resisttemptation’s lure...

           Here God gums up in the mouth, won’t spit itself out with every easy expletive, leaving the discussion free for disagreement.            Harder to digest than politically correct sex, shit,...

After the years of tear-drying and tissue-passing, the closed-door conferences above reproach and beyond remembrance, he packs files of sermons, reread books, thank-you notes and complaints, receipts from now-broken...

Waiting behind burned-out jack-o’-lanterns for day to come, the saints clap their stigmata hands. They are the sun’s halo, shimmering the November air with celestial simplicity; the sky, their...

We stack the dead names of the faithful high in the incensed air, light prayers beneath them till the altar burns with words. The nave knows their smoke, remembers...

At church, the man touches his lover’s hand: two crisscrossed in the cross, signing symbols in unison. They are unhappy with Worship, the servings up of Christ: too scattered...

We beg you, mend the ways of pretend mendicants, imposters who pose pious and pitiful on our staked-out streets. Uncover the shades of the blind who really see, the...

No cutie-pie cupid wings fluttering rings about the heart or head, no fancy frilly two-way arrows, or rose-colored alphabets shaped into vows; just a pretty trick of history, an...

Maundy Thursday Daily dust over the jaggedstair steps of toes, between the crackedskin; heels bruised by heat,small toes stoned by cobblestone. The wrong one is kneeling,sprinkling water over the...

Out of the mouths of Holy Innocents the wailings of our weakness, our Herod knees bent now the better to swallow the words we’ve wallowed in, the tug-and-pull of...

by which we pacify with euphemism our planned transgressions, boundaries shifting convenience into correct countries is the language by which we pun on pleasure, pour into our mouths the...