Super callous fragile mystic evangelistic hope chest

 

Today's sermon is up on its hind legs, begging.

Today's sermon is gonna cut you while you're singing.

Today's sermon is demanding, like an overdue bill.

Today's sermon wheedles through its nose--

today's sermon sleeps with your husband

giving him (and you) a raging dose. 

Today's sermon stands astride mighty mountains

and tunnels underneath your secret sins.

Today's sermon may be placed in a vase of water

or morph into a chia pet that ends as it begins.

Today's sermon don't care.

Today's sermon is always there,

watching you fuck up from thin air.

Today's sermon was born in a humble stable.

Today's sermon jacks the roast right off your table.

Today's sermon cracks wise and has glitter-ball eyes.

Today's sermon can bust a move and run a real dope enterprise.

Come close for the sermon I speak.

Come quickly--I ain't got all week.

Come in, douse the lights, go ahead and wet your beak.

Today's sermon can be delivered right to your door.

Use the easy autopayments that continue evermore.

Today's sermon comes on quick to raise the dead.

Today's sermon comes factory-sealed like I said.

Today's sermon can rhyme if it so choose.

Today's sermon says heads I win, tails you lose.

Eat today's sermon in big chunks until you're dead.

Today's sermon means nobody any harm--

is safe as milk, sweet as candy, warm as toast.

Today's sermon wraps itself around your heart

and leaves its mark on every motherfuckin' part.

Today's sermon is lit

Today's sermon is it.

Today's sermon isn't over--you'd damn well better sit.

__________________

for What's Going On? "Today's Sermon"

Music: Concrete Blonde Jonestown

The Realtor

Just a little sprucing up
is all this place needs.
Just some spray cleaner and big black bible to wave around,
and everything here could be restored to its original middling banality.

Come in, come stagger down the staircase clutching your left arm.
We'll throw a party, 
invite the mayor,
the cognoscenti,
and EMS.

Feel free to collapse on the piano bench.
Just blow that dust right off the keys and play!
I've always liked Percy Grainger's Country Gardens,
but if you don't know it, just bang away at the keys with your elbows
and we'll manage a dance.

Peach, I can see by the look on your face
that you think this is wasted effort.
Trust me. Just spit on the sleeve of your dress
and use it to wipe a circle of clarity on one of these lovely old windows.
Let the half-light and fog in,
as you fall to the floor in one of your fits.

I've been at this business for a while,
and I always bring spare keys and smelling salts.
Look at the ad!
"Motivated seller, no reasonable offer refused".
Let me call their agent.
We can be at her office in half an hour--
me at my professional best,
and you giddy and rambling in light restraints.

Then, in a week or two,
after the fire, but before the funeral,
I will breeze in with a housewarming gift especially for the new mistress--
Beelzebub on a chain,
ringing a bicycle bell and
asking, despite his slight speech impediment, which room is to be his.
_________

A deficient effort for the Sunday mini-challenge at Real Toads, -- " This apparent deficiency is purposely used by the poet to produce an intended effect—the reader's uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty and harshness that corresponds to the tormented attitude of the lyrical voice and to the passionate character of the poet's worldview.--and a comment on empire-building, given the current state of events around the world.