Man, a rag

Lucifer's cardinals are blowing pink smoke
again. They've picked their ping-pong pontiff,
to the joy of throngs watching patient brick stacks
remotely on brightly monitored feeds.

The Chosen One, festooned in a make-shift
milk-carton miter plastered with photos
of never-lost souls, climbs atop his Coke-can
throne to declare, "I'm likable law made flesh!"

Then, this dystopic pope, turning to his scroll
wailer, sotto voce warns, "I am a weakish
speller, but read it as best you can,"
and hands her paper-clipped parchment.

Catty smile petting her with purrs of "nice
smug me," the tonsil-crowned crier takes it
and leaps to heroes glide down where his nonsense
cannon of ten misrules is to be revealed.

Meanwhile, back up on Earth, Man, a rag
doll in hand and aching from the expert prick
of voodoo-dabbling God's exactingly pinned
scraps, all wincing "Who do you think you are?"

Approaches the coaxial saint who sits in
a simulated wood-grain box and beams
beacons of haloed pixels phishing for fools
in search of non-queasy forgiveness.

Man fits to a T-S-A that anesthetic
profile. He pulls from his pocket prescriptions
slipped to him by back-alley preachers
with promises of a tidier healing.

For few coins, he gets his video-dispensed
penance: a rosary of disposable beads
he'll rub once, toss, and return to that life
perpetually stuck on truancy.

— Francis Scudellari