Here are two poems several of you helped me write and edit, which have been published here:

Entropy Warrior

The second law of thermodynamics states that life gets worse and worse and then we die.

I pummel the black-skinned back of the treadmill
with the pounding paces of my feet,
running away
from the flab and fat
that clings and jiggles and dimples and rolls,
etching into my skin clean lines
of muscle and tendon and bone,
like a monk flaying himself
for drinking too much beer.

When I can’t take it anymore,
I hit the red button ‘stop,’
red digits reading five miles.
I’ve fought the fight.
I’ve run the race.
I’ve beat back entropy one more day.
But having pumped only 450 calories
of heat into the cooling body of the universe,
I wonder at the legend of the Lord Jesus Christ
who once ran on this very treadmill
so hard that he broke it.

---

Late Night Agnostic

Are you awake,
aching to fill your heart
with the perfect tv show?

Are you so hungry
you eat all the cookies
to see if God is in the chocolate chips?

Do you pray
to the Internet,
each ‘click’ a little plea
for just a pittance of distraction?

Does your only relief from the pain
come when your vigil fails
and you fall asleep?