Deus Ex Machina

~ qbit 
You know how it is when you stand in front of 7-Eleven 
in New Jersey, scarfing a jalapeño hot dog for breakfast,
ketchup and relish dripping between your fingers

Don’t you “Eeeew!” me! The Eighth 
Day of Creation was the Lord’s Jalapeño Hot Dog Day
along with Slim Jim and a Mountain Dew Day

I think which comes after Things That Crawl Day, 
which is maybe after Fish, I forget my Bible,
I forget too, how to count pennies with my remaining hand

The one left after my Old Testament punishment – whack! –
for my theft of this beautiful morning, for living by the sword,
for my heresy denying Da Word 

And we don’t really do pennies anymore, do we? Has anyone
told Charon? Is there an App for that? "Go to RiverStyx.com
book your crossing now." SMS charges may apply –

Please respond "Y" if we are all dying, "N" to Opt out.
Instead, I rant like a monk at Matins or Lauds 
in the holy early hours of an ExxonMobil Tiger Mart parking lot –

Cash register bells ringing, incense smell of fuel, 
transubstantiation’s promise in donuts and coffee: 
eat, this is my body, drink, this is my blood

Overdosed on haunted Latin from the Vulgate, St. Jerome 382 A.D.
cruising into the Lincoln Tunnel's cathedral maw before dawn, 
a cop high up in his glass box the celebrant Pope blessing cars,

Healing traffic by laying on of horns –
All together now, under the river, we deprive Charon his due
but pay the toll nonetheless,

Tarmac lifts us back up into the world, we are risen, 
Manhattan split down 42nd street, dripping light,
cross streets hung with thieves.

For Shay’s Word Garden

14 thoughts on “Deus Ex Machina”

  1. Ohhhhh, this is fantastic!! There are simply too many classic lines to quote them all. But the “I forget my bible” and the donut transubstantiation are just too too diveen, dahling. I love this! You made my Sunday. I’ll leave it up to you what you made it into. Bringing in the shakes, bringing in the shakes, we come from McDonald’s, bringing in the shakes. 🙂 Who wants sheaves anyway? (does a thumbs down with my mechanical hand.)

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  4. Oh for Siskel and Ebert to tell me if I should spend for a ticket. Is the plot believable, the characters worth getting to know. What about the score? What’s the score? The score is tied heading into the bottom of the ninth.

    Irreverence, irrelevance…. and here I am, old hat me, looking for a point. What are you saying about your topic (irreverence)? What is your theme, Randall? Is Manhattan the savior, the sacrifice, or the bloody Romans?

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    1. Ooooh! Manhattan as the Romans, that could make a good part two! Hmm… I’m not sure of the point either. Maybe it is like “Ride of the Valkyries” by Wagner. No idea why they are riding or where, who understands German anyway, but sounds really cool. Definitely lacks an emotional center, or arc. Maybe I could write some whole Hudson River Beowulf thing, and this would be part of that.

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  6. I love the wryness in your poem, here especially:

    “And we don’t really do pennies anymore, do we? Has anyone
    told Charon? Is there an App for that? “Go to RiverStyx.com
    book your crossing now.” SMS charges may apply –”

    So many wonderful images throughout 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

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