Forgone Conclusion

It’s a wonder 

that they didn’t deem it 

collusion

when Satan and God made the

decision 

to give one man 

as much fire 

as he could take 

in an effort to prove

that his will wouldn’t shake.

Creativity is an 

effervescent heartbreak. 

Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” 

an embodiment 

of the immaculate conception 

of an idea. 

Blessed by divinity 

to give birth 

to an articulate thought 

without the acknowledgment 

of how 

it came 

to be.

“It’s like problem solving.”

“At its core 

must be discomfort 

or why would someone 

go through the grief?” 

“It seems painful to me.” 

“It is,

it’s like stepping out 

when it’s 0°

and trying to breathe.” 

Between you and me

I think the character Job ( /JOE-beh/ )

is to serve only as 

an understudy 

to the lead. 

You say, “It seems depressing.” 

But it’s that summation 

that doesn’t take into account 

the honest questioning 

of Him who is charge 

by a man who says, 

“Let Him weigh me, 

and He will know the quality 

of my belief in the dreams 

that He gave me.”

Human beings just like me,

stand, sit, walk, and pee. 

Men and women capable

of unbelievable things, 

people that are meant for imitating, 

but we build them a golden calf instead

and say, “Let thou exalt thee.”

It’s like we never listened to the words of David Bowie,  

“We can be heroes”, 

you and me. 

Good food kept too long 

in a Tupperware container

that under normal daily circumstances 

begins to stink, 

Langston Hughes 

and his deferred dream,

Martin Luther, 

not the Civil Rights Activist, 

but the priest. 

The decentralization of salvation 

swapping the lead 

of an Executive Branch 

for the individual's responsibility. 

When the champion fighter 

lost in the ring. 

“Do you go out on top,

or is a man supposed to 

keep trying until one day

the dragon he attempts to slay

not only kills him 

but cooks his body long enough 

that its needs basting 

like cheap barbecued meat. 

Charlton Heston’s speech,

“cold, dead hands” 

and the humanizing of a man 

who died from Alzheimer’s disease. 

Like the perfect ending of movie, 

when it’s done right right

you’ll walk out of the theater 

and hardly be able to speak. 

1998, the Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri. 

Jim Carrey, The Truman Show,  

my Dad, my step-mom, my sister, and me. 

The possibility that life our is a movie 

in which we are not only writing, 

but acting, directing, and director of photography. 

Stretching ourselves until our intentions 

are just beyond the reach of our ability, 

belief, faith, a mustard seed, 

reality shifting like seismic activity, 

a chance to see 

who’s side of the bet we’ll be redeeming.