LUNCH WITH JESUS
by Belinda Subraman Lunch With JesusWe held hands around the table
at Applebee’s and prayed before eating.
Fox Network was there and low self-esteem.
“The white cops were right,” they chanted.
“More people need beating,
We need more guns.
Too many getting rich off welfare
too lazy to work.”
“Christians have no rights,” one claimed.
“What about the Christians?”
I kept quiet. Dogs were howling for meat.
Jesus turned his head away.
Bibles slept in their cars. Memory Is a Woodpecker TreeWe snuggle down for the cold
joyous greed and mercy
in carols of nebulous infinite love
and slaughter
where Biblical Yin-Yang
produce branding codes
tethered to12 layers of selves
half of them lovers
half of them trees
unnaturally used for torture
and cartoon sweetness.Zen
gelatinous cauliflower magic
constructs reality as a river,
illusion with no legs
where everything is wet
and not one drop matters more
than another.Trees with holes
leak sap eaten
and recycled by birds
who nourish life underground,
life that eats our death
when the coffins rot
and what we thought we were becomes
feces from thousands of worms. The Unlikely Professoris a serious poet
playing at teaching
what he believes
cannot be taught.He’s a sexy sexagenarian,
keeps a centerfold layout
in his open book
as he teaches,
gets hot on the subject
(sizes up the girls
in class
imagines them
spread out,
stapled).
The students admire
his smile, his lines,
his enthusiasm
and his strong, tall
podium
which hides his firm
disbelief. Date RapeFirst date,
he swings the car off the road,
says he has something for her,
the movie can wait.Like a bank
hoping to earn interest,
he offers her money.
She withdraws.Then he tries inserting himself
like a coin
into a vending machine,
want to bang impatiently
for the candy.In the end
he prises her open
like a plumber
unclogging his pipes…
then asks her
if she loves him. About the Author: Belinda Subraman has been writing poetry since the 6th grade and publishing since college. She had a ten-year run editing and publishing Gypsy Literary Magazine (last century). Six of those ten years were from Germany where she was a Bohemian outcast among officer wives. She edited books by Vergin’ Press, among them: Henry Miller and My Big Sur Days by Judson Crews. Forthcoming from Unlikely Books: Left Hand Dharma: New and Selected Poems. |
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