De-titled

This one used to have a horrible title.  I kept reading the title in my file and I kept avoiding it.  Giving it a shot (I thought the situation similar enough to now to fit), but I won't include the previous title.  I do remember this time, this hilariously drunk time.  Now I hardly think about it and I'm hoping it's a pattern I'll be able to repeat.  Also, I think I thought of Heaven as some sort of once-nice company, a mom-and-pop deal that got taken over by a bunch of power-hungry Reaganauts.

 

Christ addicts purified in one

translation into the floating heaven clouds

like a group of lost cattle

eating the pagan farmer’s grass.

they believe that lightning bolts

are some old man’s way of disapproval.

they never saw a lightning bolt come

down for the sins they committed

in back alleys with women loose

and old with oil rag faces and lumpy

clay thighs and worn false smiles

and no hope of ever seeing their kids

maybe someday write a masterpiece,

because children born in the middle of

hot sex sweat and discarded semen

will never be able to live the right way

to breathe life into a hollow form

and make it dance with the beauty

of intelligent design.

the old boys club in heaven has a sign

above the door written in a dead language.

the saint with the keys reads it and hopes

that maybe the lost who found the

doorway will take to heart the message,

let it sift into their grainy sepia thoughts

so they will finally realize that they were

wrong, but lucky.

but Kensey, linguistics lady, it is a dead

language, right?

I was wrong and lucky, stumbling nervous

next to you as we talked colors and books

and I loaned you one from my shelf.

flash forward to final day

when I answered the door soaked

in an evening of light brown beer.

you handed over the book—

Maybe I will see you again, but you said

definitely after the stumble of words.

I got your message, but the sad sack

sect of bald-head business men

(they deal with the commodity of soul)

did not hear the immortal dead saint

for his words and instead enjoyed

the dense white fog scenery and admired

the gate for its finery and not for what

it represented.

Christ, they said, and patted each other

on their business suit backs.

I apologized for scaring you off, but I think

it was Hemingway and not the beer.