Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Friday, January 13, 2012

60 Second Theology

The executioner with the short attention span
Sometimes fails to finish his work.

The feathers on a lady's hat
Send him off into the crowd, and then into the fields,
Looking for a warbler
Or a milliner.

A certain condemned aristocrat, thus semi-reprieved,
Was left stumbling in circles, a broken clock,
Holding one hand to the bloody side of his neck,
The other still unblemished as a girl's.

The distracted executioner is called on the carpet.
He is censured by the king himself,
Though it comes down from corporate.
Still,
Five minutes later,
He has forgotten it all and is riding a tiny tricycle through the stone-cobbled streets,
Trailed by a snotty, wailing child.

Say hello to the distracted executioner.
Lay your head here, please,
Just so.
If it helps, pretend you are at the salon for a shampoo;
Many have pleaded for mercy,
While others have spat and cursed as you do.

Will you be saved by a passing minstrel's tune,
Pardoned by a colorful butterfly?
Or will your head roll like a bowling ball,
Blinking in sudden surprise?

Your fate rests, it seems to me,
With the shifting vagaries,
The chance inanity,
Of a buffoon elevated to deity.
_______

11 comments:

  1. What in the hell do you drink at night to come up with these poems?

    As soon as you give me the name of the stuff, I'm buying myself a case.

    Wonderful, one-of-a-kind poem. But that's what all your poems are...

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  2. I know. I feel the same way. She is totally amazing. Every. Single. Poem.

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  3. I like the distracted executioner, for some reason...he's a daydreamer, huh? This poem is full of surprises and strangeness.

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  4. O M G

    Seriously, GREAT amazing opening (as oft).

    A lovely, perfect whole, pleasurable in it's play yet containing a nourishing absurdist center that goes DEEP!

    GOTTTTTA get this published somewhere. Seriously. PLEASE submit it 101 times if need.
    Shay- you good




    Aloha from Waikiki
    Comfort Spiral

    > < } } ( ° >

    ><}}(°>

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  5. as long as he does not get distracted half way through my neck we are good...i would hate to compete for attention just to get him to kill me...

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  6. One of your gifts is to find the ordinary and the sublime, simultaneously, in everyday situations and to elevate them the art through your fine sense of humour and humanity.

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  7. Another delicious work of art, Ms. Thang. This stanze just slayed me:

    "Lay your head here, please,
    Just so.
    If it helps, pretend you are at the salon for a shampoo;..."

    Thank you, Shay, for sharing your amazing masterpieces with us lowly underlings. You have a ravishingly, beautiful mind. xoxo

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  8. This reminds me of the Hardy poem we talked about, totally twisted into Fireblossom surreal, and humanized a bit, and it resonates with every non-theological bone in my commie atheist body. I've always thought of the lack of concern as sadism, but I'm not sure whimsicality is not far far worse. Not just cruelty, but madness. Fine, exceptional writing here, Shay.

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  9. What Hedge said. This is both hilarious and deeply disturbing because of its truth.

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  10. a buffoon elevated to diety. aren't they all?

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Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?