In My Godless Household, Poems Were The

If Dysfunction Means That A Family Doesn't Work, Then Every Family Ambles Into Some Arena In Which That Happens, Where Relationships Get Strained Or Even Break Down Entirely. We Fail Each Other Or Disappoint Each Other. That Goes For Parents, Siblings, Kids, Marriage Partners - The Whole Enchilada.

The Lesson You've Got To Learn Is The Someday You'll Someday Stagger To, Blinking In Cold Light, All Tears Shed, Ready To Poke Your Bovine Head In The Yoke They've Shaped. Everyone Learns This. Born, Everyone Breathes, Pays Tax, Plants Dead And Hurts Galore. There's Grief Enough For Each. My Mother Learned By Moving Man To Man, Outlived Them All. The Parched Earth's Bare (once She Leaves It) Of Any Who Watched The Instants I Trod It. Other Than Myself, Of Course. I've Made A Study Of Bearing And Forbearance. Everyone Does, It Turns Out, And Note Those Faces Passing By: Not One's A God.

I Get About Five Memoirs Per Week In My Mailbox, And Few Of Them Inspire Anything But A Desire To Pick Up The Channel Changer.

Ninety Percent Of What's Wrong With You Could Be Cured With A Hot Bath, Says God From The Bowels Of The Subway. But We Want Magic, To Win The Lottery We Never Bought A Ticket For.

Poetry Is For Me Eucharistic. You Take Someone Else's Suffering Into Your Body, Their Passion Comes Into Your Body, And In Doing That You Commune, You Take Communion, You Make A Community With Others.