Poem

This is one of the first poems I got published in a magazine or journal.

Facade

a local group take turns to thank a man

for the chance to read at a former altar,

each giving a sermon – the ex-army officer

remembering when a gun was pressed

against his face by a former schoolmate

and how he thought he was going to die

but was rescued by a fluke detection

of his lazy eye. Is that you Andy?

the final line of a twenty minute saga

before the next guy traipses up

to bless me with an ornate ode to a tulip

in the former Yugoslavia. I stare

at stained-glass, the ceiling facade,

the remnants of a chancel leading up

to another boring remembrance and I wish

for a priest to take to the stage. At least

with Mass you knew when it would end.