Postscript(ure)

Twelve

I could number my regrets in
the light-stained faces of
those who believed
in me.
Their faith was my optiate
Their hopes, my delusions.
I can still taste it, the honey
From the corpse of the lion
It’s only now that
I taste the maggots as well

Ten

I could number my sins
in the hearts of
those who’ve loved me
An idol, wrought of stone
Incapable of love
(like God)
A snake, with
three legs and a silver and forked tongue

Three

No matter
I will pay the wages of my sin
I will render unto Ceasar
that which belongs to Rome, and
To Christ that which belongs to God
I will render poverty unto myself!
They say the poor are blessed, but…

Forty

I could number my lapses of faith
in the years I’ve wasted
climbing ladders instead of crosses
I would gladly sell my soul
to gain the world, only problem is
There is no Devil to purchase it

Seven

I could number my attempts at redemption
in sacreligious lines, scribbled hastily
on diner napkins
in the dead of sleepless nights
where lightbulbs shade me from the stars,
and cigarettes and coffee are my Eucharist,
only, there is no Communion here.

Six

I could number my attempts at amnesia
in burned money purchased with
the time of my life
In empty bottles and filled condoms
both heaped upon phone numbers
without names, scrawled on scraps of
torn paper lining my trash can like
palm fronds at Jersualem’s gate,
as though I, too, could enter
that holy city
on an ass

One

But there is something innumerable, and
that is Holy
I am the intersection of forces
I could never comprehend
I am their slave, and
that knowledge is my only freedom

But freedom isn’t free, and
it might be overrated.

MENE [God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it]

I have razed the Kingdom of Heaven and rejected all kingdoms on Earth, and I am poorer for it,
drawing only from my own reserves
with no one left to take from.
And I know that this final, and
most precious Kingdom of Life
will someday collapse of its own excess.

MENE [God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it]

Because I have woken up
from all my dreams
I no longer want to sleep.
But the sun is setting, as I speak
the autumn air is turning the colors of
the molten blood of the earth, and
the lukewarm blood of men

TEKEL [You have been weighted on the scales and found deficient]

Look on, ye proud, and see
I have lost all my first loves

Eve, flesh of my flesh
Your desires became my desires, because
I desired you.
And thus it was that sin was born.
The cheribum have since laid down
their burning swords, and
abandoned their posts.
We can return now to the Garden, and
It’s just how I remembered, except for
one tree, now uprooted.
And I bury myself in the soil there, but
I cannot become clay again
I hold the earth in my hands, but
It slips through my fingers.
I remain forever seperate from it, just as
I am forever seperate from you
No matter how hard I thrust,
I cannot be unborn
So we weave coverings out of fig leaves
and our shame, and
we leave the garden for the city
This time, forever.

Mary, though the stone was rolled away
and my garments lay empty in the tomb,
you would not believe that I was raised.
You knew my father, just as
you knew yourself
to be no virgin.
So I denied you, in turn.
The pomegranate became my mother
And my father, the Sun
The Holy Ghost that dwells
within me screams “Eternity!”
And I laugh. And I cry. And I try not to listen

Martha, I created a storm and
walked onn the oceans to show you that
I possessed nothing, not even fear.
I called you to me and you nearly drowned
in your doubts.
But this was your baptism.
I conquered your flesh, and
you prepared for me a feast, and
you washed my feet wiith
your hair and fine perfumes, and
as you knelt, I stepped on you
to reach sweltering roads,
paved with gold and good intentions.

Upsharin [Your kingrom has been divided and handed over to your enemies]

My innocence has been chocked off by
the thorned vine that grows
forbidden fruits.
I close my eyes, sink down to my knees, and
open my mourh, but
no matter how hard I scream, I cannot
purge myself of these poisoned seeds.
I am thr tree that grows on rocky soil.
I am no longer a man,
just a mirror, reflecting
an indifferent and inhuman universe.
And I will die.
And it will not.
The writing is on the wall, inscribed
by disembodied hands.
What is there left to say?

“So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was greivous to me because everything is futility and striving after the wind.”
Ecclesiastes 2:17.

I.

As fearful as it may be
to fall into the hands of a Living God,
so much worse to be trapped in
the postmortem clutch of a dead One, and the postmodern world
that is His tomb.

On my mirror,
the prophecy “Eris quod sum,”
But there is nothing left to reflect upon
Darkness smiles back at me
I smile black to it.

An Icurian moth or
A Promethian cat,
I’ve been through Hell, and
Sarte was right (it’s other people).

II.

I exchanged the Sephirot
for 10 Commandments, but
even those, I could not keep:
An idle idolator,
a childish adulterer.
But what’s the point
of confessing my sins?
When I tell people I’m a liar,
they believe me
in this and in everything else.

III.

For forty days and forty nights,
I have wondered
through the desert, erasing
my sins in the sand, eating
Manna from heaven until
I was parched,
kicking rocks that held no rivers
until I was sweating crimson.

In the puruit of Truth, by which to
purchase my freedom.
But it turns out that
Holiness and sin pay the same wage (death)
So I leave the martyrs
to bury their own.

I’m still under the hill and
above the ground.
Though the funeral isn’t over yet,
it’s alight to laugh.
I’ll teach this flesh puppet how to dance
on graves.

In the name of the Deadbeat
the Orphan, and
the Zeigeist:

Amen.

The Father

I saw the face of God
between bursts of a strobe light
behind a fog of manufactured smoke.
A generous host,
alone at His own party,
watching His guests abanodon themselves
in music, sex and drugs.

He sits in a corner,
in miserable sobriety
nodding to those who acknowledge Him,
while fantasizing about fucking a virgin
and then killing himself.

The Son

I saw the face of God
staring blankly at a television screen:
a murderer,
condemned by the State,
spending His final moments
flipping through the channels:

TV Land is playing the opening to
The Beverly Hillbillies:
“Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas Tea.”
On Fox News, pundits justify
the war in what was once Mesopatamia.
On Cartoon Network, a French skunk
forces himself upon a mislabeled cat.
On TNT, a serial rapist is pursued
by detectives
On MTV, a mostly-naked teenage girl
sings a pop song about love betrayed
as five men fall to their knees before her.
On TBN, Pat Robertson explains that
we were made in the image of the Divine
On Discovery, a biologist explains how
men are descedent
from monkeys.
On ESPN, a car crashes into a wall
during a NASCAR race, bursting into flames.
On Food Network, a grilled piece of pork is
sliced and plated, seeping blood and broth.

A priest walks into the room,
eyes full of sympathy.
“It’s time,” he declares.
“About time” the imprisoned man replies.

Ths convict is guided into a chamber.
His victims’ families look down
in somber satisfaction.
He meets their gaze,
but offers no resistance,
as they puncture Him.

The Spirit

I saw the face of God
in an alley where
mosquitos breed in muddy puddles, while
pigeons brood
above power lines that connect
each building to the rest of the world,
raising shit on the city below.

Litter gathers in abandoned corners and
rats can find solace from the elements there
while cockroaches draw sustenance from
the refuse of humanity.

And that is where I found Him.
Naked, amongst broken bottles and
cigarette butts.
He sleeps as though dead
although He cannot truly die.
And at his side, a cardboard sign,
now limp from the rain.
its message blurred.
Once it read,
“The End is Near!”