Delightfully Deranged Lover

When cancer warnings on gas pumps
read like erotica—
love notes left by
a delightfully deranged lover
determined to ravage us
into an out-of-body experience—

Ah, now that’s praying.

When dumb dog lust
tips over
our Cracker Jack box of desires
and we spot
in the midst of these sickening kernels
a toy surprise:
the fullness of being—

Ah, now that’s praying.

When meditation feels sneaky,
adulterous,
like some ethereal offshoot
of the sex industry
in which practitioners
take kissing lessons
from impermanence,
and we sheepishly confess
we’re all tooth and no tongue—

Ah, now that’s praying.

When Autumn nights
wrap their chilly hands
around the necks of tree leaves
until every roadside
is flushed
into sexy shades of submission
and our inner “paint-chip poet”
finally cries “uncle,”
falling into a horny silence,

Ah, now that’s praying.

When the libido of our soul
gets so pent-up
it doesn’t care if we get caught
ogling
at x-rated organs
that shamelessly satisfy
their lust for the void
with endless carnal quickies
called blinking—

Ah… now that’s praying.

When the dead space
between stars
feels far more superstitious
than any black-skinned Shiva,
and “the Milky Way”—
that spiraling band of solar systems
that wrap their luminous legs
around His torso—
finally convinces us:

Existence has scripted us
into a sex scene
of galactic proportions—

Ah, now that’s praying.