Nights

Eight bottles of wine in a week,
Dry and white to
Pass the night
Alone.

I feel as though someone
Is watching.
Watching me watch television.
Watching me sleep.

I pace with a cigarette
Dangling from my lips,
Countering the cold
With drink.
Listening to the distant hum
Of traffic,
Wondering where they go
At such a time.

Where would I go
At such a time?

Heaven Demands

Blessed and wretched;
God loves
And damns us all.

Whose hands placed
The first stone
Of the tower of Babel?

Mine and yours.

Heaven demands
We be weak
But, the world
Demands our strength.

As I see it--
There is no need of forgiveness
And there is no sin
In living.
I am not marked
And I am not damned.

I never tasted the sweetness
Of forbidden fruit.

I am not ashamed of my
Nakedness.