You exuded confidence

like one of Zeus’s thunderbolts

and beauty, oh greatness,

beauty that rivaled the cause

of the Trojan War—

Helen of Sparta’s passionate revolt.

how quickly we forget,

laying down palm branches

to casting stones a week later,

breaking stained glass windows

to our mansions,

crucifying our Creator.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.

Light bends, as we know, when it passes through substances of different densities. And, in this case, light passed through the glass ornaments, hanging on my evergreen, extrapolating a symphony of numbers that danced all around me.

This poem was inspired by Cornelius Plantinga’s book Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be and the lyrics to Cake’s song “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle.”   Bellyful.   Passive-aggressive bomb Or self-medicated napalm?   The neglect of this rhyme Revives the justification of your dime   Spent on supersized fries While kids in the Congo…

My superhero alarm clock

Double-dares me to suit-up

For PE’s mile hike

Up life’s strange coming-of-age,

A call to braces, acne, and puberty.

I look outside my window

And wonder why others’

Faces aren’t melting,

Feeling the nuclear devastation

Of your leaving

I felt like Icarus, whose hubris led him to fly too close to sun, which melted wax on his shoulders, causing feathers to unfasten, and thus his hope of freedom to come crashing down like one of Zeus’s lightning bolts.

“Redeem and restore
What the locusts have eaten—
O Lord—
The schemes Satan’s woven,
Our innocence … stolen.”

True happiness is biblical, moral, pleasurable, historical, and necessary for Christian character.