PETER

He claimed he was the pope.

“I am Peter” he told them.

“On me the church was built.”

Winter and summer he wandered

Skin and bone in a heavy old coat

His eyes glossy with whiskey

With tongue in jowl wagging

He spouted claptrap as gospel truth.

“I keep the devil in a bell jar

On the Sea of Galilee”

To their amusement he told them.

One evening after the pubs let out

They found him drunk and fallen.

“I’d hardly a drop” he cried out.

“Leave this bloody rock as it is!”

They let him be but stole the shoes

Off the fisherman in the alley.

SHELF LIFE

After growing up on a farm with battery chickens, the lonely scientist grew babies as basket

cases. He kept them on shelves from crib to coffin, sang to them lullabies, fed them tinned fish,

the very best plums with whitish bloom, and gave them wine to drink. They were seen by none

but his eyes full of cataracts, lived a dissipated time, and died content knowing life on a shelf.

THE RESURRECTION

Jimmy came out of his sarcophagus today in Anatolia. He used a crowbar. His skin had turned a

sepia color which he saw by two beams of light coming from his head which were horns like

Moses had. Peacocks rushed to greet him and fanned their feathers when he tried to speak.

His words were languid and hallow and came out hollow. All the peacocks nodded as evidence

they understood him. Jimmy was the ancestor of their ancestor and had come back to them

today. An ancient tortoise bearing bluebells came to view the new born. Finally, the ancestor of

his ancestor had come today.