The Handshake of Peace

We shake hands at church,
Proud to make a connection.
On the street we see each other as jerks,
Look in a different direction.

Early Sunday Morning

Almost empty church.
Piano playing full blast.
Got on my nerves.
No wonder no one comes back.

St. Blaise Day

Got my throat blessed
To speak what’s true
With the time I have left.

The Connection

Somewhere in Midtown
Tobacco loving sinner
Smokes in the dark.
A zen moment.
Inhaling.
Exhaling.
Like the breaking and retreating of a wave,
The rise and fall of the tide.
Smoke rising like incense.
Cigarette glowing like a beacon.

The Price of Victory

All the men in prison,
Feminists laugh We won.
All the slobs on the street,
Can’t wait for somebody to beat.

The Rebuke

Guy didn’t look right leaving the stately house.
What’s wrong with him?
Then she bounded down the steps,
panties and t-shirt.
Great legs,
screaming as she confronted him at the curb.
He didn’t respond.
You could tell he felt naked.

Before the Fall

Boomers remember sleeping in the yard,
on the porch,
Before midtown became infested with their
drugs,
their cheap thrills,
the creeps that go with them,
the fear that haunts us today.

Exiled

Imagine somebody from a country where God is taken seriously,
Coming here.
Carrying trust in his heart in God’s infinite mercy.
Trying to hang on in America, in Sacto, in Midtown.
Terrified of our infinite nothingness, our pseudo spirituality,
Our hatred of Christianity, our founders, our government, each other,
of everything Western.
For the first time in his life,
He needs God’s infinite mercy for himself.

Lose Lose

Women fear to walk the streets.
Men are afraid too.
The future belongs to women.
That terrifies men.
Nowhere to go. Nothin’ to do.
They take it out on you.

State of the City

Men gather under freeways,
Women at coffee shops.
One group lamenting the past,
The other amped for the future.