Satan and Scripture

Obediance.
I must recognize that I am God's child,
and like a drunkard
after days on a binge
with no idea where he should go,
I rely on God,
placid, head down,
apathetic and desperate.

And Satan says:
but what if you are not
God's child but God's
pet? He says:

If you ask for bread,
you will not be given a stone,
but perhaps feed whose
first ingredient reads
'byproduct meal'
made from beaks and skin,
splines and spines, ground
together, pressed into a pellet.

No, you won't be given snake.
But you may undergo
minor medical procedures
without the anesthetic
that would be used
on a human being.

The Things That Make Sense in Dreams

Even then we may have a few questions. . .



What is this?
A cold potato brought from the icebox.
Blow on it
next to the fire alarm to keep things cool.

Why do you
sing karaoke when I'm trying to pack
up before
the fire alarm heats up? It would be good
elsewhere but

here it grates.
Will we be arrested? Not if we keep
blowing on this cold icebox potato.

Photo inspiration and execution by JH

Light is sufficient to itself--
If Others want to see
It can be had on Window Panes
Some Hours in the Day.

But not for Compensation--
It holds as large a Glow
To Squirrel in the Himmaleh
Precisely, as to you.

Emily Dickinson
photos from the Chicago Tribune

John Donne for your delectation

O might those sighes and teares returne againe
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent
Mourne with some fruit, as I have mourn'd in vaine;
In mine Idolatry what showres of raine
Mine eyes did waste? what griefs my heart did rent?
That sufferance was my sinne I now repent,
'Cause I did suffer I must suffer paine.
Th'hydroptique drunkard, and night-scouting thiefe,
The itchy Lecher, and selfe tickling proud
Have the remembrance of past joyes, for reliefe
Of comming ills. To (poore) me is allow'd
No ease; for, long, yet vehement griefe hath beene
Th'effect and cause, the punishment and sinne.

Pigs in the Ditches, Hummus in the Jam

I've hardly slept in days
so when asked
if I want sandwiches before
we hit the road
I say
Why not?

His house is as it should be
according to his stories
of politics at the county level.

An eleven year old boy
in the backseat
in the twilight
of the Minnesota summer
and in the ditches
are pigs and pigs,
piles of pigs
because the bottom has dropped out
of the pork market
and it is cheaper to shoot a pig
and throw it in a ditch

than to do anything else.

The old retarded couple
who live on five dollar payments
for the privilege of dumping
industrial waste in their
yard. The runoff is toxic.
But what can be done
about it? When there is

so much else to do?

Why not?
So he carries trays stacked high
with condiments through the cool
yard and in through the bug net
and we dine with parents.
The sickly pink traces in the hummus
are not signs of infection
but contamination by way of
a hummus and jelly sandwich.
Grilled cheese, burnt and squealed about,
and tomato soup, supplement
the talk of the decline of Sesame
Street. These days too much Elmo,
too much green screen.
Has it become
decadent? His mother wants to know.
Yes, yes, it is definitely decadent.
We laugh.

They've been watching an HBO series
and in the gilded maroon, crackley spined
history book find out
what will happen,
what has happened,
in Rome.