Antipoem 2

AntiPoem 2 You know only one thing and that is: Dying is not on the agenda. Let us march now inside St. Mary’s, March reverently through these green repentant doors, These holy portals to grace and absolution, Into a stain-glassed sanctuary of sinners kneeling in disguise, These sullied souls coming in through the out door again, Figuring death is furloughed from the crucifixion business, Two thousand blurry years later. Let us still march forward now to the glassed tabernacle, Resting up there ensconced upon the marble altar, Beyond human touch; The host inside now transubstantiating as with earthen time, From dry crusty oatmeal, To omnipotent King of the Universe. The boy holds his new Sunday missal, As the family drives to ancient St. Joseph’s, Up the asphalt hill, there on Gold Street, Amidst the tentative Yuletide presentations, Of tinsel-lit trees and blinking avenue abodes. In the distance Lady Lassen wears a white bonnet, As the Redding Christmas Tree stands exuberant, Seventy-three feet into the icy air on Market Street, A rainbow-glowing giant with a thousand staring eyes. Brenda Lee is singing, Rocking Around the Christmas Tree, From blaring radios inside Oldsmobiles and Studebakers, Cruising Placer Street to the Cascade showing Butterfield 8. The boy is counting the neon cocktails, While riding in the backseat on blue polyurethane, His father is intently driving the blue ’58 impala, Into a gravelly hilltop parking lot. Blaring outward from the church there I heard voices, A bubbling sacramental bouillabaisse of silent Parishioners all genuflecting in pristine Latin confusion. The girls choir wearing skirts of curious plaid, is Singing loudly and softly their angelic vocal renderings: “Gloria in excelsis Deo" Father Elliot is extending his arms outward now, Bestowing the final expectant blessing; He is giving absolution to the captives driving Cadillacs. You know only one thing and that is: Dying is not on the agenda.