"Memorial"

On the first day of the week

we gather together to commemorate

the crucifixion of our minds

the piercing of the hands of compassion

the burial of our collective will,

wrapped in white bandages and buried

in the hollow cave of religious ecstasy

Nod and bow and mourn,

for the innocence of youth has been slain,

your humanity reduced to bleached bones from too much fasting.

Nothing now can save you from your God:

a jealous tyrant hungry for your flesh

What becomes of a man

who gains the whole of God? heaven

but forfeits his fleeting soul,

dying with a desperate hope for glory

and fear of hell

his entire life unlived

I believe I posted this one already, but I figured I'd put them all into one thread.

"To a Saint"

Do not deny me this body -

expression of fire divine

and carnal,

heated with the yearning

of grains toward sun

and waves pulled inexplicably

by the white moon

I will not wear this hair shirt

which you offer in fellowship

I do not desire sainthood

or the denial that cleans the spirit

of its muscles, skin, that wetness on the lips

from loving C

and yet you would become a dusty bone,

flesh and wanting

all martyred to a dying cause.

I Am this form, all of it:

blood, sweat, hunger, pleasure, pain

I Am not to be cleft

my nature inseparable from my soul

your thorns not my thorns

your flesh like a dead man's:

ashen

consumed by an all-consuming fire.

I claim this Body:

it is mine

and you cannot take it from me.

Your poems are brilliant! Keep up the good work