GORDON MASSMAN

V1n3
Summer 03

 

1315

 

POETRY

 

Religion breaks out like a cholera epidemic: singing, killing, filled
sanctuaries, phylacteries, prayer shawls, crawling censers; God blasts
out hearts like Batman; Billy kneels bedside; Shelly begs forgiveness;
Mahatma, spirit struck, refuses further masturbation; believer-tides
sweep Jerusalem, Fatmas hack mainframes, logon passwords like
lambblood, blasphemy, 2coming; the revolution in psyche shoes;
mama pierces babyears and foreskins fly like potato peels; neck-
lace of automatic hangs off boy, but biggest believer wields phan-
tom imbued with Word; soldier of protesting hoard, cutaneous,
subcutaneous, meaty cells, and bone, busy terminal and seed fac-
tory, an organismic world to wall-splatter or pearl; columnar in-
finity. Innocents inhale airborne spirillum, illuminate, cry, vision
of two floating sticks, bloody moon, empathy beyond contain-
ment, some pour into Africa contagion, complete with nail guns
and ingenuity; others head for urbaniforousness, arrow into city,
spread like silverfish; abortionists die and fetuses kick like Carne-
gie's Rockettes; fields covered in monolithic species: bluebon-
nets, Susans, chamomile: militarized Christianity; God blows cor-
puscles into our blood and we whirl, gather, refuse, knit im-
penetrable as The Rock. Infidels inject an antidote, a black mirth-
less bacilli lead-heavy casting them into a pod of immunity which
vacuums zygotes and boils scripture into consume-literature,
flaunt Amalfi and ball each other's mates, sulphurous impunity;
Patrick and Dana camcorde Ginger grinding Constantine, then
unpeel the X and exit oppositely flipping off the apocalypse.
Conglomerates begin the games, blocks collide against blocks
which edge-chip — a sea of needles — then, eaten, crumble, and
finally granulate into confused mayhemic scrambling; lance
pierces noble heart of horse, dogs lick, gulls outpeck glittering
eyefleck; the games, the games, the salmon-emerald rules spawn-
ing resurrectable winners and losers flambee, coliseum fact-
ion-crackling, wave felling millions. Heavy bone vault cannot
control its three pound grey matter pushing through goofy
grotesquerie of Buddhas, turtles, yapping foliage, staggs, floods,
fireflies, fish, cosmic eggs, monkeys, goldeneye ducks, kidney
beans, bananas, mole, Papatuanokus, horsemen, and eye-
rimmed wheels, like mallet and frying pan springing out Daf-
fy; cranium explodes, populations expire of diarrhea, anuria,
acidosis, and shock — too much God. Mother outpushes neo-
nate finger-shooting lightrays, awe-striking the infidels, magne-
tizing the malevolent, and motile by means of a polar flagella.

 

Gordon Massman has published in numerous journals across the US, Canada, and the UK (Harvard Review, Antioch Review, Prism International, Windsor Review, Fire, Georgia Review); his third small press book, The Numbers, was recently published by Pavement Saw Press.