Look at him,
paper-mache angel wings
stapled on an empty
toilet paper tube,
preacher of the gospel
of selective misanthropy,
mourned by shredding
secular holy books in
tiki-torch candlelight.

If you must remember him,
and pray, you needn't,
do so in truth,
as a simpleton's martyr,
no more, no more.

They are saying that now
the darkest times are upon us;

Brother, let me tell you,
I have seen planes fly into towers,
I have known people who say
the slaughter of children
is a fair price for their arms,
I have heard of privileged men
violating the young,
and watched as citizens
chose a privileged madman for king.

(and if I ask my elders,
they can tell me of horrors
that would make me ashamed,
just as their elders
could do for them,
and so on and so on and on)

My brothers and sisters,
if you think the dark times
are just now upon us,
let me welcome you to the world;
the light here has only ever been faint
and the candles we carry
are burnt to nubs.

Summer mornings, as I round out
the bend in the well-traversed road,
the new sun imposes itself
in the cloudy rearview mirror,
and, for a moment, I am blind,
the way ahead obscured by gnats
of light teasing my weary eyes
the yellow white of the desk lamp
I set atop the chest of drawers
and tilted at such an angle
that I glowed as I emoted
to a rapt crowd of stuffed creatures
enthralling tales penned in crayon
on snap fresh construction paper,
words I knew would only better
as I much too slowly matured
into my God-given talents,
for my life would not be wasted
swatting the blinding memories
every blasted summer morning
as I crawl across the bridge
to the work side of the river

From my gilded terrace,
I shoo away
shirtless children
who pluck coins
from the fountain.
"They are wishes!"  I yell.
"They are fish!"  They yell back.

I don't recall the first time
I did anything;
I didn't, one day,
pick up a pencil
and start drawing the sky.

I have always been
an expanding universe
of stars and galaxies
and dark spaces
revealing itself

When I was a child,
they buried chicken bones
in the backyard,
and when I dug them up,
they told me I had
discovered dinosaurs.

The spider web cracked mirror in my room
will never regain its clean, sheer surface,
but if I look from the proper angle,
or tilt my head to the side a tad bit,
I will see a face that once reflected
the promising light in my mother’s eye.