They Always Get Jesus In Prison

 

I see where David Berkowitz got Jesus in prison

like they always do.

Now he runs a ministry, adept as he always was

at delivering

succinct

sermonettes

delivering people to God.

He was a postal clerk, always involved

with the Message.

Such converts always have a carnival of explanations--

the Devil

the neighbor's dog

and other invented booshwah.

Susan Atkins got Jesus in prison too

and wrote a memoir

about her redemption, her will turned over

from Charlie

to Christ

but it could have been Moonies or Ekankar.

There is a rat who lives in my garage.

He hasn't heard the Good News

but he never

hurts anyone.

He has published no book, leads no prayers.

He likes to hang out behind a shovel

that has never dug a grave.

The authorities let Leslie Van Houton, Caril Ann Fugate,

and Nathan Leopold out.

Karla Homolka changed her name and might be anywhere,

at services maybe,

holding a bible and smiling.

________

Conspicuous Christians

 

The conspicuous Christians

fill 4 booths and keep the waitress hopping.

12 adults

5 young children needing highchairs in the aisle

17 orders, all different

5 special requests

2 plates sent back

1 spilled coffee

separate checks. please.

After an hour, they leave

dishes, napkins, crayons, sticky syrup spots,

and

1 tract

with

2 crisp 1 dollar bills tucked neatly inside. 

_____

"Flat Earthers Unite" a masterpiece by Q. Benighted Shamanyan, Flat Earth Society Grand Dragon

 Flat Earthers Unite 'neath the sweet umbrella of idiocy

and raise your voice in the cretin's version of Innisfree.

Pose and posit with simpleton's logic that what you see is all

there is to Heaven and Earth, Horacio you libtard tool.

Keep expanding on fake moon landings where static flags still flutter

and that the shadow IRA killed JFK with microchips in peanut butter.

In the devil's pizza parlor Hillary harbors tykes who are made to swap genders

to offend Jesus Christ who stays in most nights raising the rates on His renters.

The War On Christmas is serious business if the libs cancel Santa outright

and then ever after the horrible factor of a Santa who's black as the night

blown up in the yards of the BLM crowd who combine with the immigrant scaries

who jig hand in hand with the dregs of the land like POC's, atheists and fairies.

Flat Earthers unite to destroy all Bud Lite and the lamestream media too

who lie and tell us conservative fellas that slaves on plantations were blue

and other such whoppers, O Walmart Shoppers led by Commander Kid Rock

who collect Trump cards and various canards while for birthdays the kiddies get Glocks.

_________

for Desperate Poets "desperate satires." 

Good Friday

 

In 1978, I found a man crouched inside of my borrowed tv,

building an engine that resembled Dick Cavett.

I accused him of stealing my off-hours, asked him if he

was my father or my child and he said, "No, I am just here

to eat my way out of you from within."

I turned the channel knob and he appeared in tails,

then drag, then a Broadway production of "An American In Paris"

and finally in a ridiculous purple wig that kept sliding off.

I told him he had to leave before Easter, which was

expected presently, but he clung to his mechanical Cavett

and broke for commercial before my mother arrived, complaining.

"What have you done to my tv, it has a dent in it 

and the Jesus is gone." Before she could stab me, I moved away

to a flat in Chelsea where Sappho knits booties for monsters

and I lie on the table like a place mat, serving six and howling.

_______

a second poem for the Corso word list. 

Good-Girl Dandy

It gave her pain

to part with anything

as if piss were wine

and pennies perfect

tears from Jesus' eyes;

as if fun were debit and deduction

from the piggy bank of Good-Girl Dandy.

It gave her pain

not to ledger the world

and if nails were dear

and the wood too fine

she would purse her lips

at the Sufferer on the tower, and

serve Him vinegar and year-old candy.

_______

for dverse poetics "Halloweeny Humans."

Armageddon Lullaby

Birds flew high above a world on fire.
Around my neck a river worn as below my body burned.
In my hair a water-garland where water birds turned.
All around, the black-robed dead, on legion ashen pyres.

I called to the birds above a world on fire.
Called and sang to the birds from my disintegrating throat.
The birds spun from glass and the heavens entire
were turned by my song first to whispers, then to smoke.

Around my neck I wore a childhood stream.
In my hair a feather garland made of swans and steam.
The world turned red, then orange, then white
and the birds to choristers of anthracite.
________

for Sunday Muse #89. And for the world in flood and fire.

Something Smug In Penitence

Something smug in penitence
makes hollow any pardon--
shown in lack of reticence
the smirking, lazy warden

Bars of pretty filigree
with padlocks made from putty
make execution jubilee
and Justice weak and slutty

See your Jesus sacrificed
to make thin soup from bleeding--
you, the puny antichrist
true penitence demeaning.

_______

for Real Toads mini-challenge