Jesus pious thirty feet tall
striding a citys crackled tardrizzled
street
anointing
with a gesture of His hand
one hundred meters up
and behind him two hundred
with a slight turn of His hips
the streetlights smile benevolently curling their lips
the parked cars along the curbs sigh
their colours bleaching when His shadow crosses them
and the children old and young who
have bought His line
kneel crossing themselves on their front porch stoops and in doorways
thats what I walked outdoors into
inhaling a remembrance of pungent
censers wafting on stainglass coloured lights
a chilly tremble in a cistern filled
with holy water gobbled at by arthritic hands
covered in skin tissuethin and marbled
with liverspots and lesions
at their old splayed rusted hips small children restrained by the hooks of
their parents patient hands as they are desirous to fill their Communion vials
to clutch to their breasts as the Latin Mass descends from the marble pulpit
under
His torturous pleading crucified eyes
the wrap of thorns around His skull
His tears mixing with His Blood
His Body becoming the Bread of the New
and Everlasting Covenant
I blew nose ferociously into a coloured
handkerchief to rid it of the smell
I shook my head as hard to slip the
slimy crab of memory picking at my brain
Jesus pious
in my boyhood
not taking Hold
the black and white habited nuns
attempting to enforce The Word
the black and white collared priests
peering outraged over their barren shoulders
their colourless sterility and the stories and threats which offended my Sense
and
Nature
Jesus pious
thirty feet tall
throws His shadow along the street
the neighborhood hoodwinked
not for the first time
nor the last
the sound the chink of rosary beads
cold like coins in the collection
baskets passed between pews
the chink in the Churchs armour
the thief of tithe of people trying to
buy their way into something that does not exist
while common thugs extort protection
money and deliver what Jesus pious cannot
yet with a Magicians whiff of smoke
a sparkling relic
an icon dangled
before their willful eyes
they pay for nothing
Jesus pious approaches me like a
benign collector
a gold toothpick working between His
teeth at a lunch He did not buy
unimpressed I let him come
His sandals smudge the unkept road the
borough is too poor to fix
He stops and rests one foot atop the
hood of a car held together with wire and a prayer
I dont look up to him I look up Whats up big man
Who are you to address me
I got a perfect dress for you if ya
give me time to alter it
Benevolence evidently
has its limits
so did the big guy
He snapped out His anointing hand but
not before telegraphing His intent
I stepped inside it and made like a
bug and rolled
I rolled into the side panel of the
spit-and-wire car He stepped on
and before he could recoil and take
His weight off that foot
with two hands I slashed His Achilles
with a straight razor
the Almighty has an Almighty throat
and from it He bellowed deeply
goblets and goblets of Blood spattered
wounded He tittered
and with no control over His foot He
fell
and fallen
now no taller than I
no plead in His Throat to His Father
no room in it beside His groan
with two hands I slashed His throat
not with malice or vindictive
offered only with what I possess
a humane death
sparing Him
this time
this time
terror and pain
0154, Sunday,
30 12. 12
1944, Sunday,
30 12. 12
