--YOU SHOULD BE VERY PLEASED

…Happy New Week.  What do you say we make it fantastic.

…Here are some of the most memorable comments from Facebook friends of late:

-A bunch of people from high school found me on here and sent me friend requests. I did the only decent thing I could think of, which was ignore them for a week and then block them one by one.

-Just commissioned a bird outside my window to be my eyes and ears over the kingdom.

-Had to shut off a porno because the woman in it looked too much like me.

-Me: Hey, Bud, how was school?
Ryan: I have 7 words to describe P.E. today. Penis, pubes, boobs, vaginas, depression, puberty and sperm

-I take the stairs 2 by 2 up seven flights at least twice a day every day. I hate sitting in an office for 8 hours, but I now have a great ass.

-I wanna buy a bunch of hermit crabs and make them live together.

-Got a crazy nice rental car (for free) and can't figure out how to get the gas cap open because fancy things are complicated. Now I'm out of fuel and on the side of the road, walking into the darkened trees, smearing mud on myself. I live in the forest now, I'll make a weapon from a simple rock and prosper.

…And here’s a poem I wrote yesterday:

  

How The Light Gets In

My mother believed in shutters

and all our young days were spent in solitary confinement

us tethered by our ankles like toddler cellmates

too weak and neutered to fight for freedom.

In summer we got dizzy staring at crevices in split wood,

the tiny burps of glowing sunlight peeking through

and so I made up a story for my siblings that such radiance

was nothing more than a distress signal from the outside world,

where everything beyond our walls and boarded windows

was a vast infirmary

for those scalded by the sun.

At night while our mother snored

we passed each other imaginary Christmas gifts--

a bb gun, a basketball, a polka dot dress.

We prayed the kind of prayers that are only understood

by those whose single defense  is hope,

and because not believing meant the end of everything.

The day God finally showed up--

wearing a holster and badge--

we were too stunned to speak,

not because we’d expected The Messiah to look different

but because we had never seen anyone defeat Mother.

Now, all these years later,

my wife tells me to draw the blinds,

to close the drapes.

She says the glare can be bad for the eyes and

asks me why I’m smiling like that.