I.

O Lord, I know the things I done was wrong:

the fumbling in the vestry, the warm under-age

whiff of resistance, then a father’s rage

and the whole damn redneck town come along

to run me out right-naked in my skin.

But surely I done done my penance now,

these lonesome years adrift, guitar in tow,

holed up with the dank awareness of my sin.

But Lord, your people need instruction still.

Give me storefront, street corner, burnt-out shack

from which to call your wayward servants back,

back to the straight and narrow. O Lord, fill

this empty cup and Glory! I will bring them

singing into the Holy City of Jerusalem.

II.

Yes, I know he’s somewhere out there in the night,

a-pacing like a panther just outside

some yellow arc of parking-lot light.

But as for me, no longer will I hide.

I’ll face the will of Him by whom I’m bound.

So shake the tambourines and pound the drums

and let this guitar make a raucous sound.

I’ll stand and take the Devil as he comes.

And if one sweaty evening, having felt

the Spirit move, I give the altar call,

and HE comes striding down the center aisle,

that silver pistol flashing from his belt,

then O forgiven! let me end my days

in a trembling song of joy and a stance of praise.

 Last Room in the Vieux Carre

O neon trumpet town, O grinning

hoodoo haunt, O endless bright parades!

The fanfare never flags or fades.

We burn the tonic daylight spinning

from place to rollicking place, pin-balling

from cab to clattering track to street,

all antique glitz to a shuffling beat.

We push it all to the point of falling.

A room at last. White curtains blow

across the bed in the pale lamp-light.

We fall in utter done-ness, utter

grace, while the sirens down below

wail in the damn disastrous night

and the street punks scrap in the gutter.

 Intimation of Mortality at the County Fair

The peeling Ferris wheel’s

clatter-banging tremolo

swings and shudders and reels,

defying the crowds below.

White gulls flock the sky

just past our proximate touch.

You squeal with the brakes, and I

am kinged by your fearful clutch.

My son, if I could stop

this wicked thing from turning,

I would stay with you here,

forever throned at the top

of this dying world, the burning