ASH WEDNESDAY
The day of enormous hangovers.
A time to repent and atone,
give up all that we love
for forty days,
at the end of which
Peter Cottontail, with his
imitation straw basket, bearing
chocolate likenesses of Peter himself,
hops down the bunny trail to
roll away the stone, thus
freeing Jesus, son of God,
to remind us that we, too,
will be born again during
the rapture if only we
give up our slovenly, sinning
ways, at least for forty days.
Fuck the rapture. Pour me
into a bottle of warm spirits
to wait out the iron gray winter --
In forty days uncork me
so I can spill out across the
budding green landscape and
breathe in the sweet, warm
smell of renewal, and of course,
do what all bunnies do best.
Franz Douskey, a poet and writer, is President Emeritus of of IMPAC University, Punta Gorda, FL. He teaches creative writing at Gateway Community College in New Haven. Douskey has been published in more than 150 journals and magazines including the New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Yankee. A featured guest at New Haven's Festival of Arts &Ideas, Douskey's books include "Rowing Across The Dark" and "Indecent Exposure." He is a founding board member of the IMPAC-Connecticut State University System Young Writers Trust and has served as a judge every year of the competition. Douskey is also the author of the forthcoming biography, "The Unknown Sinatra."
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1 comment:
i LOVE that poem (ash wednesday). it captures MY thoughts exactly
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