I can no longer count
The scars on my body,
This pain, that loss,
The second quickly gone
But not without leaving
A lingering memory,
A mark upon my flesh,
A cut across my soul
That only death
Will seal and scour
In the moment I lay dying.

It's disturbing to think of
Jesus's hairy male body,
The dark hairy legs,
The calloused strong hands
Of a working man.

He was not the esthetic preacher
Who walked on water
And multiplied bread and fishes,
But a well muscled, sweaty male
Who lived by his hand and wit.

Shed no tears for the baby Jesus,
He grew up to be an able-bodied man,
Steadfast in his heart, resolute in his spirit,
Who cherished the rugged companionship
Of both women and his men.

The snow reclaims the landscape,
Covering up both garden and road
As the echo of falling branches
Cracks through nature's silence.
Both bird and squirrel remain huddled
High in the trees as humans retreat
To their computers and televisions,
Only venturing out to eyeball the depth
Of the drift surrounding their autos.
The snow crashes tree to earth,
Gusts diagonally upon the wind;
Hours left before the blizzard ends,
The whole wide world has surrendered
To the bone shivering inevitability of winter.

We take what we can get,
Avoid what pain we can,
Gather friends and children,
And drift down through the years

Until we reach the shoals
Of the far distant shore
And we voyage no more
Beneath the starfilled skies.

The reflection in the mirror
Is that of a middle-aged woman
Whose hips are carrying
More than a few pounds too many;
A woman whose waist
Is a good argument for liposuction,
Whose small B minus breasts
Are somehow attempting to sag;
A woman whose lips remain full,
And suggest a still youthful abandon,
Whose brown eyes can still seduce you
With their inviting warmth and hunger;
All in all, a woman of a certain age,
Not yet ready for either the home or the grave.

Each day brings us all closer
To heaven or to hell,
Rebirth or non-existence.

You may pray to your gods,
Donate money to your ministers and your priests,
Spend your life doing good works for the poor,
Or rage war on your friends and next door nations;
In the end, all we know for certain
Is that we'll all be dead.

As to whatever happens after that,
I wouldn't bet my life
On any of the popular alternatives.

We have so little time,
The past is closer than you think;
Our weekend pass will soon expire,
The temple current torn and rent,
And the wizard revealed
In all his magnificent glory.
Nothing is what it's seems;
This life, which would be firm and real,
Is barely noticed by a planet
Whose own existence is unappreciated
By the Milky Way or the Universe;
Once we are gone, the Earth continues,
Our brief moments upon it little more than
An inconsequential disturbance in spacetime.

We have been aliens on this planet
From the moment we stood upright
To gaze across the savanna
   from the forest's edge,
Our eyes already fixed
   on the stars above us,
Unsistering us for all time
   from our tree-locked cousins.
  
When our brains were still little more than
An interesting variety of primate cunning,
Our bodies transformed us pod by pod,
   hunted to hunter, prey to poet,
Estranging us forever from the
   lush green world that gave us life.

Suppose you met Jesus
And he wanted to buy you a drink,
Would you stop with just one
Or would you agree to spend the night
Feeling his chest upon your heart,
And smelling his male scent on your flesh?

Would you try to find out what Jesus might do
If you asked him all nice and sweet,
Would you go down on him if he wanted you to
Or would he find you too righteous for that?

I shall set sail across the new year
Out from earth to the stars beyond,
One world, one universe, and a life to live,
And all galaxy before me.

I shall see what I shall see
And, when, at last, my body fails,
I shall see what follows, if anything,
This glorious moment of time.