Disfigured Souls

Disfigured Souls

Disfigured souls
damaged in spiritual transit
are claimed by divine insurance
and shoved in a flesh box
to be sold as is.

Gods on a budget
buy us up without a warranty
(the expectation for failure
is overwhelming)
hoping to get their money's worth
before the inevitable breaking...

and when the 'pending shattered'
finally falter and burst,
we are scolded and beaten
before being cast down to earth
as human debris.

Here we live in a junkyard
of misfits and factory rejects
fumbling failures begging
a second chance from cheap gods
even as we revel in our own
inadequacies just to spite
our creator.

De-Generation

This picture is entitled De-Generation.

De-Generation

And the greatest minds of my generation
are masturbating to Lara Croft
--and she isn't even real. But
you got to have faith. At least
that's what the preacher says,
so, get the Vaseline and the KY Jelly.

"For the fool has said
in his (or her) heart there is no God."

So do I believe in God because of
prideful pricks of not wanting
to be a fool...

wait,

Croft is raiding another
Tomb. Puff on a smoke and pause...
look at those digitized inner thighs
hmmmmm, pixel perfection.

Toilet bowl wombs with water running
all night. The anti-depressants work,
at least they do at the prayer meetings
with Lord Calvert.

Conservative backlash...
"Damn Hippie! Long hair!"
Apologies were issued once they found out
it was actually Christ.

So why do we want to know?
Because of hell, that's why.

That's where the Coke machines
steal your money and there are scratches
on your CDs and McDonalds closes
at 5:00pm and they issue you a
cable bill twice a month.
Where obsolete serotonin seraphim sing
praises to Freud while lewdly
dancing around my brain stem
like nymphs around a maypole in
a fertility rite and to my dismay the only entry
in my little black book is a picture of my
right hand with a note that states
that my video game rental for
Tomb Raider is four years past due.

And after all this, what is real?
Cracked heels, irregularity, tampons, yeast infections,
and pre-paid phone cards to call
the 1-900 suicide hot line where
menu options offer blow jobs, church donations,
psychic readings, and psychiatric help.

And nobility is defined by the amount
of sexual harassment grievances, DUI
charges, and Microsoft stigmatas we wear.
(Pixels bleed from our fingertips
and are quickly gathered for DNA testing
to prove our lack of faith.)

Trippin' on espresso, we perceive reality
in frame by frame 3D rendering and wonder
why God hasn't upgraded our CPU.

And Heaven is further away than a max'd
out credit card and God is still safe from mortal's view
under the guise of trickle down economics and
earned income tax credits.

God sips margaritas with crucifix tropical drink toppers
and smiles until He inevitably
pierces His lip and all humor is lost --except for a slight
giggle echoing from Galapagos where
Darwin cleans the Vaseline from the Playstation,
and Freud licks his cigar.
But God's lip is still bleeding;
the droplets forming words plagued with conjecture
and multiple interpretations.

Between the lot, no one had a condom.

And is this how we got here?
Are we spinning in the porcelain
choking on cigar smoke and Vaseline residue
with Tomb Raider theme music playing in the
background?
Was Lara Croft the inspiration for our existence?
Did He have to hurry because the Pizza Man
was pounding on the door, already swearing
damnations because he tripped over a pair of roller blades
and slipped in the remains of the last beer run?

Generation Next falters from the game,
mumbles incoherently and says why am I
reading this? Lara's on the tube and there's
no one in the bathroom.

God's bleeding may have stopped, but
the stains remain. Scarlet Rorschach inkblots
in which we once guided our lives and in which we
gained our ideas of morality are now spectacles
for the Inquirer and Jerry Springer.


Author's Note: Inspiration from "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg.

Lip Service (Cracked Sun Gods)

This picture is entitled Cracked Sun Gods.

Lip Service

Kiss tripping
on cheek and neck
as lips warm
passion's path
and wisps
of smoky flesh
wrap around bare thighs.

(Breathing on embers
make them glow.)

My tongue
catches you on fire
and too soon
turns you to ash.
Consumed, you crumble
and are gone.

Embracing ash,
soot powders
my body
and I wear you
as a sacrament.

(God never tasted so good.)

You mix with
tears and sweat
becoming blackened streaks
leading to thirsty eyes
that will never
drink you again.

Chasing Halos

This image is entitled Neon Angel 13.

Chasing Halos

She spent most of her youth
chasing her halo
as it rolled away from God.

By the time she realized
it was gone,
she had two children
and the memory
of the man that fathered them.

She spent her days
sealing her fate
never quite cognizant
that her daughters
were chasing halos
of their own.

Wagers of the Dead

This picture is entitled "Demon Within".

Wagers of the Dead

She slips between the sheets
of the dead.

Hung with the draperies
of mansions in disrepair,
she carries the moon
on a silver curtain rod,
opening herself when the
sun trips over
the horizon and
falls into her lap.

Pale breasts and red lips
give the illusion of pink flesh
when she's shaken hard enough
and her face blurs
into the background
of carved mahogany
and old canvas.

Warm breath on a
cold night intoxicates
the demons in angry men
who wager her like
ancient currency
in games of chance;

and though divine writ
states souls cannot be bought,
they most surely may be won
and lost.

Feathers in the Fog

Feathers in the Fog

The old bat kept ordering
insecticide off the television.

She said, "Angels keep
nesting in my hair."

I said, "I don't know
if it works on angels."

(What I should have said
was that you should
leave the house
when using an insecticide fogger
--and, if for some reason you stay,
don't smoke.)

When they found her
she was on her back,
singed bunny slippers in the air,
surrounded by the carcasses
of a thousand dead angels.