Poets and Prophets

that awful man
made good art
and lots of it

it wasn’t beautiful
but is was an honest ugly
you could see
shit-stained truth
on the edges

when God told the prophet
to chew up and choke down
the word of the Lord
one wonders what it smelt like
when it finally came out

Oompa Loompa

the woman who made my iced coffee
was practically glowing orange

there was a cheerleader at my high school
who had the same complexion

we called her Oompa Loompa
behind her back
because she was a cheerleader
and thus any cruelty towards her
was excused

later someone told us
she had some type of skin disease

this was a few years after high school
and suddenly our cruelty was unexcused

but what could we do?
it’s not as though she knew who we were
and what we called her
behind her back
what good could an apology do?

I tipped my barista a dollar
on a 1.65 bill
and hoped that God was watching

Our House

My house shakes
like my cat used to
right before she started to purr
before we put her to sleep
for puking blood all over everything

My house has ferns growing out of the roof
squirrels living in the walls
and single pane windows

Last month a giant back-hoe
knocked down the house across the street
my roommates and I watched from our porch
shouting like it was a football game

the landlord will probably do the same
when the back-hoe comes for this house.