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
Today's sermon packs a wallop and makes you sit up straight. It makes you smile in wry appreciation of the poet's outlook. I loved this. Big grin on my face.
ReplyDeleteAnd Today's Sermon begs to be read aloud, when it really shines! Some priceless lines, and the ending makes me smile!
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing, Shay! Love the whole thing but especially:
ReplyDelete"Today's sermon cracks wise and has glitter-ball eyes."
And the whole of the final stanza! 🙂
Today's sermon is powerful full of truth and grit.
ReplyDeleteToday's sermon means nobody any harm-- but, somehow the knife is felt no matter how deep.
The repetition of the words 'today's sermon' certainly packed a punch. It made me squirm. Suzanne - Wayfaring - Wordpress blog.
ReplyDelete"Today's sermon can be delivered right to your door.
ReplyDeleteUse the easy autopayments that continue evermore." Ha!
This is good on so many levels! Love the rhyme and all.
"Jonestown" is a strong choice of song--God!
The title of your poem made me smile, Shay, and I love the way you packed in so many poetic techniques without them being obvious. I think I might hide from today’s sermon, it’s scary.
ReplyDeleteEvery line is a poem here, including the title. Love this line specially : Today's sermon is gonna cut you while you're singing.
ReplyDeleteWhat an indictment. Not a lot of bloviating buzzwords, but dozens of phrases and images that cut deep into the Xtian myth and expose its shriveled black heart of hypocrisy, violence and primitive tribalism made manifest. Unfortunately, no one is preaching this sermon save perhaps Jesus himself, and if he were, no one would be listening. One hell of a poem, Shay.
ReplyDeleteI think I sat through this sermon, but it was prettied up by hymns, and flower vases so I couldn't see or smell the rot in the plot.
ReplyDeleteLove this, can't get enough of the "Today's sermon" lede.
ReplyDeleteAbsent the gee-gaw and the shamanistic diction and the soap box of the televangelists and maybe we can cut through the crap to hear what we need to hear even in the muck of our lives. Maybe. By God's grace. The tone, the language of your poem says so much from so many points of view, from being fed up to being demanding, the rhymes and soliloquizing running on its own internal polemical steam. It kinda reminded me of the beat poets. They would have loved this. Burroughs included.
ReplyDeleteAh, the Beats, my first loves. I didn't see their flaws when I was young, I just grooved on their defiance and manic energy. I still have a soft spot for the cantankerous old truth-tellers, but can only read them now in measured doses.
Delete*sits* Yes, ma'am. This poem made my jaw drop. I read it through several times as I kept wanting it to give me another thrashing.
ReplyDelete