Christmas Prayer

Where, Christ Child,
can you lay your head
and where will be your rest
when the human heart is made of lead
locked in an iron breast?

When, Christ Child,
will you rule this land
and where will be your throne
when each man's Promised Land
lays captive under Rome?

How, Christ Child,
can I offer you
a gift that meets your worth
when all I have is broken fear
and the crippled dust of earth?

Here, my Lord,
take my thoughts, deeds, time
Be crowned King once again
of weeds, and dust, and worthless grime.
Transform them all, Amen.

Curtain Down

Young fancy often
propelled me to create
as a whimsied child
countless events,
final curtains,
resting places for imagined
love affairs
the reasons innumerable:
he was gay...
he'd been unfaitful...
he was dead...


but this one was new.
I had not
conjured up
this scenario
in my youth
so you shouldn't wonder
that I got the script
wrong
and told you I would wait for you
to understand me
and to want me more
than you do now.

And I am eating
at my desk
those little pretzels
with the taste we hated
and vowed never to eat
because they are here
and available...

which is more than I can say
about you.

Don't Use That Word

I can't hear that word today
without a quick blow to the intestines
seeming to happen:
'Love, you love me.'
I can be loved by a madman, too,
but it doesn't bring me comfort.

Where is love? I ask myself,
In the giving
or in the receiving?
Where does love happen? When is it truly born?
Is love really love if it is unrequited?
If one side does not return it, is it really love?

I am showing love for you
to the pain,
till it hurts,
till I'm numb,
just to prove how loyal I can be.
I have not refused
anything you have asked
again, again, again,
I go,
I see,
I speak,
I listen,
trying to make people who will
not love me, love me...

This group effort of unrequited love
which you endorse with your wavering heart,
and promote with your silence.
I only want their love
because it seems to stand in the way
of yours.
Is this truly love you have for me then?
Or is it my own version of the madman?

...I am dying inside today.

Pleas don't use that word.