I drink so I stop thinking.

I think I should stop drinking.

I sure don’t need no savior

to turn my wine to water.

No one can see my impotence.

No ear to hear the discordance,

so slice it off with a razor

and spurn me to take in another.

Alone I stand as I please

inside all these empty days

that paralyze me like a taser

while I yearn to lean on a lover.

We’re slime on a rock in the sky,

selected to feed, breed and die,

but my works will win holy favor

and earn salvation forever.

I raise my temple to heaven,

upheld by rage and sarcasm,

incised with a black light laser

that burns thru stone like butter.

In a halo of sodium vapor

I search for a key on the paper.

If I look out in the umbra

it churns my gut and I shudder.

The key that nobody needed

rings sound and fury repeated.

Don’t need no help from our father

to learn to talk with a stutter.

Temple, 2009, acrylic on panel, 7x10”