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there is a gospel of mary
on a fifth-century papyrus
that is not canon
& an infancy gospel of thomas
where the child Jesus
rolled 12 sparrows from clay & spit.
they flew away, singing.  not everything old
is true, & not everything true
is comfortable.  or relevant.  or gospel,
even if that word is in the title
glyphed in aramaic or greek

we who sing through mouths
lit holy know salvation does not fly
with a tale of 12 sparrows
or a celibate Christ, or a married one;
but the divine breathing, bridging & dying
a way for us to God through flesh
& sacrifice. a scrap of papyrus
does not change the Christ i know
who walked through death.
the cross & the tomb are empty.
thomas the doubter
put his hands inside that body
before he believed.

it is not what is known
but what is risked that saves

without touching
we…

if i could stretch my spirit
to where you are, i would haunt you
through the door we call dreaming

but it is difficult to spin a strand of self
that far, so instead i will call you here
sculpted of shadow where i want skin

sometimes distance is distance
& sometimes longing feels a little bit like loss.
perhaps we will dream an us together,
want drawn by want to a place where desire
is answered by touch, tangible
& real as the weight of your mouth moving over mine,
the heat of your breathing.

By Raymond Bechard

Excerpted with permission from “How to Lose a Woman Forever” on The Good Men Project

Raymond Bechard summarizes Travis McGee’s views on women into 22 rules to losing the love of your life forever.

Only a woman of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love, and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. I love you can be said only two ways.

Travis McGee, The Deep Blue Good-By, 1964

1. Don’t protect her.

She’s a big girl. There’s no reason to help her feel safe in the way she needs to feel safe. There are no guarantees in life so it’s not rational to expect security in relationships. (And nothing…

Where have you gone so soon, friend?
Have your eyes burnt out like stars for the dawn?
We once laughed, drank, talked about
Eliot and his cats, Hemingway’s fascination with the phallus.
Now you’ve disappeared like the wind
On one of those warm summer nights
That seems to have sidled out of time.

When you return, will you remember
The dreams you carried like nitroglycerine?
Be what you were. Dance to a song not yet composed,
Moving for the sake of moving,
But not for the sake of movement.
No, friend, that’s where you differ.

Samuel Hovda is an undergraduate at Winona State University studying Literature and Creative Writing. He has been published in Poetry Quarterly, Midwest Literary Magazine, and the bad futurist. He was a finalist for the 2011 Rebecca Lard Award for Poetry.

seamless, I melt to ragas raining,
splitting transparency to silk,
fluid feet sketch unsung: ballet
of cochineal blush, bubbles cerulean
disperse: iridescence-

amateur ink scribbled,
trembling fingers hold
deliquescent joys, laughter
my purple saari drips, weaving
longings in folds, half-unwrapped.

oriental eyes sigh, kohled
with passion alluvial;
chiffon twilights twined in
endless rain, aqueous ecstasy
spreads plumes of peacock-glass –

My heart unchained, like the glitter of
forgotten fallen stars, dances unlessoned.

©Mohana Das

“This post has been published by me as a part of IBL; the Battle of Blogs, sponsored by WriteupCafe.com. Join us at our official website and facebook page.
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Here it is, in no particular order, although the list is numbered (keep in mind, this is all meant to be sarcastic):

1.  Listen to lots of music while writing.  The rhythm of your words should definitely come from an external source rather than from you.

2.  Drink alcohol, at least two glasses of wine and never less than one glass of scotch, because inspiration originates in a bottle.  Or can.  Or whatever.

3.  Read a multitude of bad writing so that you can feel invincible while also lowering your standards.

4.  Read tons of good writing, so that you can feel crushed under the weight of your literary heroes.

5.  Spend several hours determining the best place for you to write, because in the end, it’s the setting that makes the writer doesn’t it.

6.  Write when you’re most tired and are really dragging it, because tired…