Let Your Light So Shine

“We are all worms—”

Most people

Are earthworms.

Some

Are cuter,

Or pinker,

Or slimier,

Or scalier,

Or wigglier

Than others;

But they all still

Eat dirt

To help the plants grow.

I know a few tapeworms:

They make me sick,

But

They’re really hard to get rid of.

Lastly,

There’re the ones

Like Winston Churchill

And me.

I—

“But I do believe I am a glowworm.”

The Fourth Fury

Hope is the thing with a whip
That's always there at my back
Shoving me on to tomorrow--
Crack! Crack! Crack!

It drags me through the days,
And scrapes me up real bad;
Or grabs me by the scruff of my neck
And shakes when I feel sad.

Hope is the thing from Hell,
I bolt whenever I see
It clamoring up from its sulfurous hole--
I hope it's not coming for me.

The Wanderer

I'll make it up! I don't care!

He may laugh, and she may glare.

I'll tell them that I went to Maine

And kissed an Aussie in the rain;

Or once a rajah sent me pearls

And sneered at all the other girls;

I dated several football teams

And started having crazy dreams;

One night a hotshot movie star

Proposed to me in a crowded bar;

A whole boy-band once sent me flowers

Then serenaded me for hours.

Yes, (I'll lie) I love to roam...

Although,

Last weekend,

I stayed home.

Throughout These Otherwise Gloomy Centuries

Throughout these otherwise gloomy centuries

Songs and tales were passed,

Like jasper and amethyst in paper cups,

From the mouths of parents to the hearts of children.

Orally, now, we take things;

Then, they were given.

I write this in a panicked scrabbling of

Flurried fingers and nails

Clicking against keys.

The Visitatio Sepulchri was

Kept sacredly,

Covered heads bowing

Reverently before an awed angel.

Smooth, the continuation of tradition;

Holy, the preservation of revelation;

Sweet as manna, gold as flax, rich as a Jew.