by Steve Norwood

Steve Norwood is a poet living in Lewisville, Texas. Born in Manchester, Tennessee in 1964, he has spent his entire life below the Mason-Dixon Line. His distinctive style of writing does not fit neatly into any category: he tends to feel very old in coffeehouses, very restless at literary events and very slow at slams; therefore, he doesn’t get out much.

Norwood’s work can be found in various e-zines and journals, including smog.net, Kim Holzer-Leeds’ LID (www.lionessden.com) and poetrysuperhighway.com (where he placed third in the PSH 2000 poetry contest), as well as Atom Mind, (this) poetry site, and the 1998 Austin International Poetry Festival’s anthology, di-verse-city, too.

He also two self-published collections, helen could waste away and because I love you so damn much I’d wait for you, as well as two e-chaps, subtle rear-view glances and portrait of the artist as a young man in a ditch.

He can be contacted at scn64@hotmail.com.

flawed nature

she told me
that man was inherently flawed
self-serving
self-preserving
destructive to self and
others
she told me that
if man does not aspire
to be like the god
that made him
and desire to return
to the truest state
in which man was made
before the introduction
of sin
into mankind
-thereby tainting all-
that if he doesn't aspire
to emulate goodness
he is then left to his own
devices
and stirs up more
self-involved
destruction
she told me
our only hope
is to acknowledge
our flawed nature
and ask god to
restore us
to our better selves
the self he wanted for us
and that the only way
to restore ourselves
is to allow jesus
to be the
deified-human
bridge
that makes it possible
for humans to be
redeemed
in the end
and she added
of course
during our human lives
we can never be perfect
but to god
the striving is all
there is
and then she asked me
if it all made sense
and I nodded
a really good song came on
I asked her if she wanted another drink
but she wanted
to dance.

origin of the species or a taste for it