The Scatterbrain's Prayer

Thank you for the new-found recent stability.

Thank you for the blessing of continuing prosperity.

Please help me to appreciate kindness and favors.

Please help me to be less dismissive of my neighbors.

Please help me calm and unclutter my mind

So that maybe I can say a real prayer this time.

Please help me pray for others, and not just myself.

Please do your best looking after my grandmother's health.

A player of healing for my friend Calvin's back,

and for all of the important things I just forget to ask.

Affirmation of Belief

I do not believe in the Father and Son.

I believe in the Spirit of Ultimate Inspiration.

I believe in human weakness.

I believe in human potential.

I believe that life is just something that passes through water.

I believe that meaning is a human artifice;

To find the meaning of life,

Create the meaning in your own.

I believe that this delicious, burning, brilliant universe

Is but a lively machine.

I believe I am more than wordy enough;

It is somebody else's turn.

The Loser's Prayer

Defeat can leave you winded,

So take the jeers of the fair-weather fans,

Those who dare not play,

and breathe them all in.

Defeat can leave you exhausted,

So take all of those hateful words,

and swallow them down inside of you.

Defeat is thirsty work indeed,

So drink in the sickening feel of it.

Defeat can leave you cold,

So wrap yourself in the hate of it.

If you lost this week,

It is time to rebuild.

It is time to reload,

Because the only one on the field this week

Who can stop you again next week

Is you.

A Prayer's Prayer

Some prayers are for wants and some prayers are for needs.

Prayers might be for gratitude, new strength, or screeds.

Some people's prayers are all put together,

Room temperature, cloudless, no matter the weather.

Some people pray from a prism of tears,

Though I haven't done so in over ten years.

All sorts of people pray all sorts of ways.

I'm the only one I know who uses road rage.

The Nobody's Prayer, Pt. 2

Dust is invisible,
Trodden and forgotten,
But enough dust together,
Sufficiently agitated
Can destroy the world,
Or at least blind it.

I thought everyone needed to be reminded.

The Nobody's Prayer

I am but dust.
Dust carries no burdens
and yet it chafes.

I pray for smoothness.
Missing that, I pray for isolation.
Failing that, I pray to gain
The will not to chafe.

The Pessimist's Prayer, Pt. 3

Aid me as I fight expectations,
and let me not be ambushed by anticipation,
As they are the assassins of satisfaction.

The Pessimist's Prayer, Pt. 2

Aid my struggle, blocking expectations.
and let me not be blindsided by anticipation,
For they would sack satisfaction.

The Procrastinator's Prayer

Out of sight, out of mind.
Inspired by deadlines,
I have plenty of time.
Due tomorrow means do tomorrow.
There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called "later."
Why put off 'til tomorrow what you can put off 'til the day after?

Please let it turn out that I could.

The Freshman's Prayer

Release me, show me the world or its corner

Where the grasses are greener, acquaintances warmer,

and one finds the connections and action one seeks

and the school only lasts fifteen hours a week.

Help me connect, both for fun and career,

Connect in ways different than my first eighteen years,

Connect for the night, or 'til after I'm done

With the next eight semesters, four trips 'round the sun.

Keep me caught up with my classes, my buddies

and my hobby field, Applied Ethanol Studies.

Above all, forgive me the things that I do

Under glow of my new freedom's first harvest moon.

The Asshole's Prayer

Hit it and quit it.
Pump her and dump her.
Bed her and forget her.
Bone her, don't phone her.
Fuck her, then chuck her.
Do her and eschew her.
Screw her and adieu her.
The FFF, the ol' slam-n-scram,
Wham, bam, thank you m'am.
Now please don't leave me in a jam.

The Pessimist's Prayer

I will not plan ahead what makes my day.

I will not look forward too anxiously.

I will temper my expectations.

I will not be impatient.

Anticipation is the father of disappointment.

The Teenager's Prayer

Dear Lord, please make life easier,

and people and teachers nicer,

and me taller and cooler and less spotty

and please please please dear God

Help me not to freak out in front of everyone

At my embarrassing parents

For embarrassing me in front of everyone

K thanx bye amen.

Why I Write, Part x+110: Writer's Prayer

Give me courage, muse, I pray.
Don't let me wriggle, slip away
From rhymes to write and words to play,
But make me write my peace this day.
Give me the words I need to write
Before I lay me down this night,
and let me struggle, let me squirm,
But most of all, leave me to learn,
So once my pen from paper's parted,
The words are different than when started.

Pacifying Prayer (re-write of Psalm 23)

Spirit of Ultimate Inspiration,
You are generous in all things.
You bring me refreshment and comfort.
You restore calm to my life.
You recreate me repeatedly, relentlessly, rewardingly.
You guide me to be better than I am
In accordance with your plan.
You keep me from the temptations of my own soul,
So I may not destroy myself or others.
Your power and mercy and faithfulness
Fill me with awesome, peaceful relief.
You enrich me with growing wisdom and a family
That safely anchors me in this culture, stormy and unsavory.
Lead me to a greater faith in you, God,
So that I may be part of your family.

Not a Faith

There are no atheists in foxholes,
Nor believers among the walking dead.
I want to know the Spirit of God,
Not a faith to get me ahead.