five poems
by Drew Pissara
The Gates of Hell
Today I’ll do something I might regret.
Today I’ll make history.
Today I’ll make dessert.
Today I’ll take the day off.
Today I’ll say I’m sick.
I’ll say I’m sick.
Today I’ll do something extravagant.
I’ll have the dog put to sleep.
I’ll do as I’ve always done.
I’ll try to enjoy my job.
Today I’ll quit.
I’ll buy tomatoes, tobacco, butter.
Today I’ll use a fine tooth comb.
Today I’ll clean this room.
I’ll cover my tracks.
Today I’ll tell him it’s over.
I’ll comprehend nothing and hope for the best.
I’ll weed the garden.
I’ll fight too and nail.
I’ll cough.
I’ll smile.
I’ll swallow.
I’ll spit.
Today I’ll use the finest china.
Today I’ll be lucky.
Today I’ll pray for a change.
I’ll change.
Angels
The angels are lounging.
The thinnest veneer of sweat
makes their bodies glisten.
They’re promising salvation
to those who dare to listen,
to siren songs created to tantalize.
Here is a heavenly feast for the eyes.
Angels have faces like pugilists
with flattened noses and swelling lips.
Angels have bodies like adolescent
wrestlers with broad shoulders
and girlish hips.
The pendulous swings between their thighs
as if to mock eternal time
with its swinging.
Listen! the angels are singing.
What starts as a vocal caress
becomes molestation,
as angelic hands and feet engage
in a circular, cyclic motion,
designed to fire the basest emotions.
What once was the strongest desire
begins to scare
as resistance in all its forms
is severed and burned.
The parts that acquiesce are reborn.
The angels nail with pelvic thrusts
as if this were the pain of Christ to bear,
this kiss of the heavenly host.
The rapture maddens, joy crosses
the threshold of pain when the most
of everything wanted is everything gained.
Blood runs nowhere, everything is aflame.
God’s Second
In nineteen-hundred-and-sixty-six A.D.,
God died. His death graced the cover of
Time magazine, which posed the question:
Is he alive, thus signifying the end
of a reign. Since then, no one has taken
his place. A vacancy remains. Resumes
rise in the applicant pool. A mountain
of busy work distracts the haloed clerks
who ought to be weeding out the fools,
for a position as lofty as this deserves
the best there is to offer. We’ve
a nation of high-flyers here, we shoot
for the top, what’s stopping us now.
These interviews necessitate inquisition.
Suffering is the people’s choice
when sovereignty must be restored.
In the meantime, an acting officer should
be selected or, better yet, a deity-elect.
Is it so hard to hire for celestial posts?
I’m as good as any for a heavenly job. Can God be
deceptive, distrustful, unclean. If
he is all, then this as well. My campaign
starts today. On the ballot, I place my name
below where none of the above usually goes.
God is more than love. I’m running for
omniscience, omnipotence, omnivorous.
I’m ambidextrous and ambiguous. My slogan
is “Vengeful and All-forgiving.” In short,
I’m running for my living. I’m kissing
babies. I’m shaking hands. I’m changing
like weather upon demand. I’m blighting
the unbelieving lands. I’m flying
and learning to soar, to bellow, to curse.
I’m destined to decree. I am me with
my flowing beard, my billowing robes,
my metallic wings, my six full breasts,
a tune of woe. I wait for your applause
that’s bound to come. I know. Now bow.
Kiss my god-awful boot. I’ve arrived.
I’m in charge, and I’m one of you.
Purgatory
You actually have to pay to stay
and most of the folks arrive at night.
You have to strip down to the bare
essentials, wrap a clean if off-white
towel around your waist or chest
then passively lean against a wall,
the jamb of a door, or fall
bare bottomed on your single bed –
not searching but hoping to be found
by others who prowl these congested halls.
They say, some people leave this place
and move to a higher plane. They say,
there’s someplace worse than this
from which there is no escape. But we
here know there’s nothing better.
We paid with our debit cards and paper
money. We financed this building:
its mirrored walls, its brick red floors,
its plastic plants. We breathe the recycled
air composed of all our final breaths
which reek of sacrificial wine. We enter,
roam around, and sit at best. Drunk
and doped, we slowly turn the hours of time,
and urge the funereal dirge that’s faintly
heard behind this boring bacchanal
to lull us finally, eternally to rest.
Saint Sebastian
I couldn’t renounce the little faith
I had and so I was a target
for arrows of derision sprung
by those who knew better, and
proved it by the accuracy
of their barbs. I couldn’t
say no. I’d lost that ability
to fight off my persecutors
and let the pain take me
to an ecstatic state.
I reveled in the slaying
that I knew I would survive.
In the end I lost my head.
I did nothing to ward off the pain.
I had a vision of God
without salvation.
Photo of Drew Pissara
BIO: Drew Pisarra is the author of two sonnet collections, "Periodic Boyfriends" and "Infinity Standing Up." His third poetry collection "Fassbinder: His Movies My Poems" hasn't a single sonnet in it.