Good Friday

I have failed at Lent except to name my failings
have drunken reeled and stumbled blind to facts
and fallen down

Prayed with bishops, and lusted even as I prayed
"Simul iustus et Peccator"
the smoke and mirrors long since broken, blown


Brought up to go it alone

And now they tell me, sin is the failure to trust
in God; we're to assume the manna rain, fulfillment
and release

When all along I thought sin was to say too much,
to take too much; to murder and
disturb the peace.

Even if you make the right choice, you're forgiven
so why not yearn, why not want, to hunger
for the dangling fruit upon the tree?

Somehow the apple branch becomes the Cross,
and I the man who kneels to steady the spike;
the bludgeon wield

And all my heart that hungers blindly bleeds
into the hollow soundless void of ages,
upon the gilded pages