belz

He said that he would join the dead
that we humans no more may die.
I believed him! But then he said
that I myself would three times lie

when asked point blank if I knew him.
“No, no, no!” insisted I;
“If the whole Dead Sea I must swim,
you, my Lord, I’ll never deny.”

He looked at me, sort of grinned:
“I know you’re perfect, Peter; ‘Rock.’
I know you’ve never even sinned!
But think twice when you hear the cock.”

He knew me, how I’d prove myself a liar.
They took him (apparently the plan?),
and then night fell. Folks made a fire.
This girl came up and was like “Man,

I saw you with him. Am I right?”
Unthinkingly I just said “Nah.” I mean,
the air was cold, the fire was bright.
I needed to be chill, not “seen”

by some servant girl without a name.
A hubbub broke out—just a small one.
By the light of growing flames
I was accosted by a centurion.

“You’re his disciple?” asked this guy
wearing a helmet with a transverse crest.
He looked me dead in the eye
and cocked his head a bit to the west,

seemed a wee bit cock-a-doodle-doo,
like he’d been hitting the vino
for some time already. “I am a Jew,”
said I, “But a disciple? Me? No.”

He wagged his red crest back and forth
like he didn’t believe me at all.
Unsettled, I left the common hearth,
into the dark, tiptoed along the temple wall.

And though there was no light or noise
and though I never felt my heart harden,
ex nihilo a very sober, earnest voice
said to me, “You were with him in the garden.”

And then I snapped and shouted “No!”
I was heading down a darker road.
“I’ve said it already: I’ve never met the fellow!”
And just like that, a rooster crowed.

• • •
 

Jog like you’ve never been kneecapped.
Jump like you don’t live in shame.
Traipse like you’re not made of feathers,
and nap like you’re already dead.
Win like you’re not tired of losing,
and lose like you still want to play.
Sing like your dad isn’t drinking.
Shop like you’ve never been dumped.
Dance like your exes are watching.
Shriek like you’re not getting stabbed.
Barf like a toilet’s nearby, lease
billboards like yesterday’s here,
and let the peppers sauté like nobody’s
coming for dinner, like nobody’s
ever passed by this way—nor will they.
Tweet like you aren’t abandoned.
And live like you’ve never been loved.

• • •
 

What galls
me about Gallic
art is the balls
  it took to make
it all so phallic.
  I mean, apart
from O’Keefe’s flowers
everything is—
basically towers.

• • •
  

I do not think that I could drill

So many holes I could not fill

Them with the sand from every beach.

That, and my name’s not “Stacy Keach.”

• • •

From one point of view, now is twenty years ago.
That point is, of course, twenty years from now,
Standing perhaps where you’re standing, eating
The prune you’re eating as we watch this show.
I’ll suggest changing the channel: “I’m so bored.”
As prune juice and seeds spill down your arm
You remind me to do something I’d been
Putting off for decades. Let’s say, for the sake
Of argument, that something is planting a prune tree.
I might plant an entire grove today, but
That won’t have moved our constabulary
Any closer to the sea. Oceans between you and me,
Jefferson. I want you the way I want myself:
Somewhere buried in the remote if magical past.

• • •
 

Ayy, b! See the effigy?
A chai jay kale. Amen, Opie.
Cure Estée UV. Double UX,
Why? NZ.

Now I know my
ABCs. Next time won’t
using with me.

• • •

The wounds of a friend are hot, fiery kisses.
The reprimands of an enemy border
on flattery, perhaps even side-hugs.

A burning kiss, delivered by a dear friend,
plants deep into the middle of the mouth,
and the fruit thereof is being less of a jerk.

So much more unintriguing are the passing
compliments of those with whom one
is connected socially—and vaguely, at that.

For baubles and trinkets passed from
bored hand to bored hand are not even
returnable to Target: they are vapor.

They honestly remind me of surface rust
on the fender of a newer Kia. Who knows
how it got there? Polish it off, and roll on.

• • •
 

Before I tell you what happened,
Let me give you some context.
Many years ago I won a lifetime
supply of marshmallows. I know.
Sounds great until you consider
the amount of care that goes
into keeping endless marshmallows
fresh: Letting them out for air
and sun, “turning” them regularly
in their boxes. Verged on a full
time job until I met Bernie, a
woman in my neighborhood who had
a “soft spot” for marshmallows.
Well one day, and I’d say quite
recently, but that isn’t true—
it was a long time ago now, several
decades at least—one day Bernie
set them all out for a moment
of sun when just out of nowhere
one of those devil beating his wife
popup sunshowers came and went
and so did my fortune in marsh-
mallows, and so eventually did
Bernie, into a sticky, whitish mass.

•••
 

Hello. My name is Peter Jordanson,
and I am a cynical clichologist
at Tunaversity of Youronto.

You probably know me better
as a biter of rooks, and not just any
rooks: extremely popular ones.

So what has made me cynical?
I’m glad you axe. More like what
hasn’t made me cynical at this point.

Clichology, as a field, continues
to wane, even as I myself wax.
And no rook compares to the first.

I guess it’s just the feathers on you
that bring out the man in me.
And I know I can’t help myself

as you soar over land and sea.
Tastes like the first rook,
tastes like the very first rook.

• • •
 

I do, sometimes, wonder
about you. Not where you are,
particularly, or what you’re
doing — but why you are.
Why, indeed! Answers one
lobe of my brain to another
while the other two sit
whispering godless gossip
between them, like when was
Melanie kicked out of the
Strobes? Who lit Max’s pad
on fire till it dwindled into
its own white-hot acorn shell?
Even if the lobes know,
they’ll never tell, of course.
They’re too busy designing
sunlight made entirely out
of an end-times horse freshly
emerged from the bowels
of my own personal hell.
Which brings us back to why.
I don’t know your purpose,
Issachar Gravestone McFly;
but I’m 90% sure u have herpes.

• • •