Good Word

Good Word

I put away
My bastard 101 textbook
Bukowski reader

Grew warm
And soft in Jesus
Became a bleeder

Heart bleeds from pain
Tongue bleeds from too many nonsense words
Spoken as directed
By my misdirected brain

Now, here I am
Damned
Damned for all the “do’s” and “doesn’ts”
I never did anyway

Traded street poets
For Old Testament prophets
Cigarettes and sipping dregs
For sacramental wine and plagues
Scribbling every dirty thought
For who begat whom and whose only begotten

Self-inflicted wounds and addiction needs
For the blood and body and rosary beads

Whosoever is writing
And whatever mouth speaks
It’s all scripture to me

Falling off your barstool
Like sacrificial lambs
The slaughter may be slower
But it’s the same kind of damned

Offering whiskey advice
Off a slow-numb tongue
Does about as much good
As offering up your first born son
When all you had to do
Was paint with a little blood

Cohen isn’t Christ
But he speaks just as nice

Between a line and a verse
A psalm and a proverb
What’s the last good book you read
Or the last good word you heard?

Poets and prophets
Get a disciples’ funeral
Salvation in God
Spares from death eternal
And a million in print
Can make you immortal



Sonny Giordano, Valentine Media(c), 2010