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Monday, February 22, 2010

Man, a rag

Lucifer's Cardinals are blowing pink smoke
again. They've picked their ping-pong pontiff,
to the joy of throngs watching patient brick stacks
remotely on brightly monitored feeds.

The Chosen One, festooned in a make-shift,
milk-carton miter plastered with photos
of never-lost souls, climbs atop His Coke-can
throne to declare, "I'm likable law made flesh!"

Then, this dystopic pope, turning to His scroll
wailer, sotto voce warns, "I am a weakish
speller, but read it as best you can,"
and hands her a paper-clipped parchment.

Catty smile petting her with purrs of "nice
smug me," the tonsil-crowned crier takes it
and leaps to heroes glide down where His nonsense
cannon of ten misrules is to be revealed.

Meanwhile, back up on Earth, Man — a rag
doll in hand and aching from the expert prick
of voodoo-dabbling God's exactingly pinned
scraps, all wincing "Who do you think you are?" —

Approaches the coaxial saint who sits in
a simulated wood-grain box and beams
beacons of haloed pixels phishing for fools
in search of non-queasy forgiveness.

Man fits to a T-S-A that anesthetic
profile. He pulls from his pocket prescriptions
slipped to him by back-alley preachers
with promises of a tidier healing.

For a few coins, he gets his video-dispensed
penance: the rosary of disposable beads
he'll rub once, toss, then return to that life
perpetually stuck on truancy.

3 comments:

Cooper said...

religion and cats. ;)

i think you are very dedicated to be writing still after all this time, thank goodness.

Francis Scudellari said...

Next I'll attempt one about religious cats :). I'm only persistent because I have such a great community of bloggers and writers putting up with me.

rallentanda said...

The rosary of disposable beads and quick fix prescritions from back alley preachers...love these religious references in the poem
Religion and cats would be good:)
Good one Francis!