lipogram submission, '09

A lipogram (from Greek lipagrammatos, "missing letter") is a kind of constrained writing or word game consisting of writing paragraphs or longer works in which a particular letter or group of letters is omitted, usually a common vowel, the most common in English being e. A lipogram author avoiding e then only uses the 25 remaining letters of the alphabet.
(source: wikipedia entry "lipogram")

2009 Submission
The tethers of theology

I want you to know I found that kindling folio
of postnatal thoughts you cast off,
that book with markings in margins and jottings on
our vicars and parsons and cardinals.
I’m not apt to blind faith in man or God but
pious saliva won your most doubting Thomas; now stooping,
having paid your customary cost, match hanging midair,
I pray you first confirm that a sinuous wick,
(so muscular and thirsty, awaiting a tiny spark—for roaring ignition)
is not in fact winding its way tightly around your own gluttonous waist.



Lipogram '08
*first prize winner of 2008 Montreal Blue Metropolis Foundation Lipogram Competition
Nocturnal vigil

And a crash and a smash and a big bad boom!
In four parts a man is born: of fibs and spirits,
Of vacant days brimming with dusty sky, of bold gut,
Of illicit thoughts. Vim and vigour: tools of a rival in this
Instant, and stop! With a gun in tow, you wait with
All that's sworn to you, through will and birthright,
Lying low for a familiar burglar who'll approach
Surfing a conduit of sin, lust, and viral cicadas
To pinch it all away in this hungry cosmos of night.