John Amen

This Story


I dragged it along like an interminable scab,

toilet paper stuck to the sole of my shoe.


Geometry became sacred,

the fried food

of lines and right angles.


God paced between Earth and Venus

like a homeless man, pushing a wheelbarrow

full of broken clocks.  I saw the teeth of the sky.



Here in Sodom


A witch doctor raps in monosyllables

while the flame heats the spoon

and a disgraced soprano shatters glass.


In fallout shelters, we celebrate

abnegations and abdications;

each day we go bankrupt and make a fortune.


Light has to be imported;

death is exiled; in the metal sky,

gods lean forward, broken but curious.




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