The Gospel According to B. / Poems
Published by Unsolicited Press (July 2024).
Purchase the book here.
Read some poems from this collection here, here, here, and here.
The Gospel According to B. is a queer and mystical autobiography in narrative verse of Jesus of Nazareth's coming of age. Like all gospels, this collection is a work of the sacred imagination. No gospel writer, whether canonical or non-canonical, knew Yeshua ben Yosef personally, or wrote in his native Aramaic. Unlike other gospels, this one pauses with Jesus's childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, infusing familiar biblical scenes with mystical perspectives and queer characters. The poems also add new moments -- from Jesus reading The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Iliad to his kiss with a handsome stranger from Sodom and the impact of street artists and women mystics on his unconventional ideas about sex, mysticism, and the divine. The Gospel According to B. joins other gospel writers in inviting you to write the gospel according to you.
The Canaanite Woman / Poems
-Published by Wipf and Stock Publishers / Resource Publications (2022).
-Order the book through Wipf and Stock Publishers, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop, or your local bookseller.
-Read some poems from this collection here.
The Canaanite Woman in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark asks Jesus to heal her daughter's suffering from so-called demon possession, what today some readers might understand as a complicated distress or disorder. Matthew and Mark give the Canaanite Woman only a handful of verses before moving on to Jesus's next encounter. The present book pauses with her for considerably longer. The Canaanite Woman emerges as a prophet when we notice both her inborn and hard-won wisdom, her strength and resilience as she raises a child with complicated behaviors in a culture of conformity.
The Canaanite Woman is not an ancient visionary from an outdated story. She is your neighbor. Your business partner. She is the woman you pass in the grocery store aisle. Your daughter, wife, or friend. She might be a man, for men, too, are often primary caretakers of children with complicated behaviors and disorders. Maybe you are the Canaanite Woman. Or will be. The Canaanite Woman has much to teach us about the mystery of love. Let's follow her. She'll lead us to other quiet visionaries along the way, including ones we often pass by: the visionary within the marginalized; the visionary within ourselves.
Work in Progress
Water or Flood / Poems
Read some poems from this collection here, here, and here.
Water always finds the deepest place. When we want to live with greater depth and freedom, we must follow the water. Water or Flood revisits sacred figures -- from Poseidon to Jonah, Moses, Noah, Lot's wife Edith, and Merpeople -- to hear what they have to share with us about the plunge into darkness and living under oceanic pressures as a way of life. What senses delight in the wavery light? Why is the ocean so rough in its intent to soften everything it touches? Is Poseidon a yogi, coaching us to breathe when drowning? Differently from the gospel writer Matthew who wants mystical figures to walk on water, this collection of poems sinks into the Deep and tumbles in the waves of heaven's darkness.