20150618 (contrition)

I’m ambivalent about all my sins

Must have wanted to commit them at the time

Then regretted when I finally realized

They were stupid or hurtful or hateful

The hateful ones I’ve tried to root out

They’re the ones burrowed deepest in

The hurtful I came by more quickly

Responding to some lame complaint

Fault-finding that cut too close

The stupid ones are truly mine

Unexamined whimsical fashion-driven

Confession may be good for the soul

It is hell on the ego. That’s the one

I think no one confesses even in the dark

Phonebooth of faith when a window slides open

And a gauzy image appears. A priest you know

Will never hear the deepest thought

Those you save for the stranger priest

At another church where he cannot possibly

Remember the voice or the breath or the fidgeting 

Or they’re never made known. That’s the flaw

Of confessing to men I don’t just mean males

However authentic we try to be who

Tells even a friend everything? The shrink

Has to guess the negative message

What’s he not telling me

Those are the ones that lie next to you

Like a corpse in your bed the vision

Only you and God share

And nervously you ask 

God is that really me

It takes getting used to but for a while 

You can actually sleep next to that corpse

When you’ve finally decided

You’re done sharing your bed

You and God haul it out

Defenestrate I love that word

Its sorry ass once and for all

Shake God’s hand say Thanks

And start over again

c. J.S.Manista, 2015