Modern Savings

Out and about
on a pilgrimage
to the retail cathedral
for eternal bargains I seek

I take the escalator
to the top floor
and find God marked down
on the clearance rack
desperately trying to be sold
to indifferent pilgrims
for a ridiculous price

Down by the food court
I see his boy Jesus
hanging with Allah
working the kiosk scene
offering up major savings
to harried consumers
who ain’t buying
cause neither accepts credit

Out in the multi level parking lot
I buy a full length mirror
from a grungy vendor clad red
peddling product illegally
with his off the books mentality

As a special bonus
for my valued patronage
the slick salesman
throws in a bag of apples
free of charge
or any moral obligations

Show and Tell

We’ve reached
the crucial point
where the pain
of commencing
a truthful discourse
could not possibly be worse
than the hurt
from our current
slowly corrosive
silent denials
that are eroding
the foundation
of this relationship

So let’s put aside
these pointless reservations

Lay our cards on the table
and play them out
as best we may

Gimme A Break

I often despise me
for all I’ll never be
or never was
for that matter
but I must confess
I’m ain’t the worst either

So I think today
I’ll cut my sorry ass some slack

For in the end
I am who I am
and in this way too finite life
that should be enough

Paper Mache Royalty

Buried deep in the abyss
of her ravenous
insatiable self esteem

I descend through layers
of festering past failures

Once a foothold is established
in the core of her self confidence
I commence to blast out
those embedded doubts
with a cliche barrage
of my best insincere bs
drawn from my well stocked supply
of innocuous bogus lines

Now that her ego
is boosted properly
she will realize finally
that she is way too good
for a lowly guy like me

So the current truth
liberated by my stroking lies
put the princess beyond my reach
though this patient minstrel
will be there to catch her
when she becomes a pauper again