Parable by Patrick T. Reardon

Parable The bleeding woman hem-touched; the barren womb garment-grabbed. Ten thousand thighs strained up the slope. Ten thousand eyes gaped. She stole cleanness; purity, she snatched. Spread bread and fishes to holy hillside stomachs. Blest are the fed. She didn’t Continue reading Parable by Patrick T. Reardon

Mary by Patrick T. Reardon

Mary Mary carried her son’s death on her shoulders a lamb to the slaughter, a smoke-blind uncle on a fireman’s back, a rolled ragged rug, a clutch of tendons, muscles and bones, the weight of a brother’s suicide, a cross Continue reading Mary by Patrick T. Reardon

Gethsemane by Patrick T. Reardon

Gethsemane Forget the cross. I’m already crying like a baby. Why must I drink this fatal medicine? Why endure and then give up the ghost? Why, then, the scholars in the Temple? Why those fishes and loaves? Why Elijah and Continue reading Gethsemane by Patrick T. Reardon

Guilt by Patrick T. Reardon

Guilt We shall go to Heaven. They shall go to Hell. Rejoice! Patrick T. Reardon is the author of eight books, including Requiem for David, a poetry collection published in 2017 by Silver Birch Press, and Faith Stripped to Its Continue reading Guilt by Patrick T. Reardon

Bones by Patrick T. Reardon

Bones From my shiny curved plastic seat of this booth in the sun-sanctified McDonalds on Western Avenue in Chicago, Illinois, on a Friday morning, I watch the black-hair boy of three, full of his blood and eyes alive with the Continue reading Bones by Patrick T. Reardon

Able to choose by Patrick T. Reardon

Able to choose Let me honor your courage to take your life. Oh, David, why could you not find the bravery to break out of your prison before that, the penitentiary Dad and Mom erected to keep them safe from Continue reading Able to choose by Patrick T. Reardon

1952… galvanized by Patrick T. Reardon

1952… galvanized I don’t want to think of you at 18 months, chewing on the metal end of a garden hose with a look of close concentration while I stand behind you in a galvanized iron tub, our swimming pool. Continue reading 1952… galvanized by Patrick T. Reardon

Better hope by Patrick T. Reardon

Better hope (1) Madam George is on the run for selling better hope than the Pope from her neon-sign storefront on Cicero Avenue. It’s a business. I need an advisor to go through the files of my sorrows and soaring Continue reading Better hope by Patrick T. Reardon