the church is my reliquary,
a temenos of bronze and glass--
the old men preserved me,
separated my head from my body
then suspended it in the wall--
they don their vestments
in the old sacristy
and sing in the great hall,
bearing the heart of Our Lord
as they pass by my window
of all the secrets
I hold most dear:
the martyrs were perfect
only in death--
each passing was unique,
contrived by their executioners
and made palatable
by the faithful--
even now my fellow saints
peer out from their canvases
and tapestries
with a passivity
that belies their pain
chant
the acolytes stooped over
the smooth ornamental carafes
on the low table
a succoring child blessed my lips,
poured the choice wine
and chanted, sotto voce:
hair of the dog, hair of the dog, hosanna
epiphany
five toilet paper rolls
on the plunger handle,
a primitive stupa,
a lingam and yoni,
the ithyphallic Siva
sits cross-legged
like me, reading a magazine,
looking at five toilet paper rolls
on the plunger handle
the first coming
Laocon is still looking up sadly
before his own devouring,
wondering if this immense snake
fell from an emasculated god.
Before antiquity, gods shook
the columns of their temples,
the marble cracking through the clouds
like thunder, a dress rehearsal
before the buggering of Ganymede.
With indolent grins
they allowed the snake to writhe
in a leafy copse,
a tendril rising with the moon
licking at its canopy
until the first woman
could be born.
ipsissima verba
the rough beast does not slouch,
he walks erect while speaking
at small rotary club luncheons
or on late-night public access channels,
expounding on man's dominion over man
he's pudgy and unassuming,
hardly a feral child brimming
with preternatural powers--
yet he's been cultivating his charm
since the advent of sin,
he moves incognito, a grass roots antichrist,
the man behind the man
who never reads Yeats
the world won't end with a whimper,
but with a conference call--
he'll pull over at a rest stop outside Albuquerque
with his wireless remote
to organize the endgame from a bathroom stall