by David Lee
the divisions being first malicious
and then those designed to prolong one’s life, sacrosanct idleness
marriage or commerce with teenage progeny
which should be automatically forgiven
but not so the malicious
which are lies designed to inflate the self like a toad
or tear down another person like a glow worm
deliberately crushed beneath a miscreant’s heel
in order to take away or mar what is rightfully his
or in some instances hers
Brother Klogphorne, then what is sin?
the ones they say you can go to Hell for?
Well sir young believer
while Brother Dante Alighieri who well may
have preached a revival service at this edifice some time in the past
did a remarkable job of stratifying hell-bound sin
I will offer the following as my personally updated
Texas-based additional considerations
The only sins you can go to Hell for from any god I could believe in
are murder of one who did not need killing
stealing something of value or precious memory from someone who
needed it, fraud on the part of politicians and currency manipulators
provocations of any war without the intent
of taking an active role in the actual combat effort
that being overt cravenness
and then the ones you’re familiar with from this training
designed to produce the next generational crop of deacons
and elders including not being a tithing member
of whoever’s church you’re talking to
having sex with children
dancing for Baptists and Campbellites
the latter for which it is the Unforgivable Sin
not putting enough money in the collection plate
and malicious and political lying
all others are recreational and forgiveable
or just bad manners
which is why we have wives
to affect and inflict punishment
You don’t think adultery
and fornication are sins
then?
I believe I have covered that topic
as well as I am able
the remainder is the parental responsibility
based on familial more’ and obfuscation
What else can I do for you young potential missionaries?
Mr Klogphorne
can I ask you a personal question?
Of course you may
I am all rimed ears
so you fire away
Did yall have sex
when you were alive back then?
Young man
this being inside a churchhouse
I am bound by oath, covenant, and custom
to tell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth
so here it is complete and intact
We invented sex
It did not exist prior to our discovery
the world being dystopic and non-functional
My generation gave our youth wholeheartedly
to the definition, methodology and perfection of the practice
up to the point that it exists today
which is the legacy of trust we pass on to you
for final realization and fulfillment
If any of you have doubts whatsoever
as to the veracity of that statement
ask your parents or grandmothers
and I promise you this
Your parents will look you directly in the eye
and lie to you about the subject
as a matter of sacred protection of our mutual trust secrecy
regarding divine inspiration and creation
and your grandmothers will blush and deny that sex exists at all
then go sit somewhere in the cool shade
with a purloined Baby Jesus fan
wondering whatever possessed you to ask such a thing
and that will be your unimpeachable proof
mark my words
Brother Klogphorne
do you remember when you learned about it?
Young fellow sir neophyte
I most certainly do
every one of you in this room should know Maxine Durrant
and if you have not been in her Woman’s Store
to buy your mother a birthday present
I am ashamed of, with, by and for you
as she was the most beautiful young creature
in the world since Eve when we were going
about the business of inventing sex
I coveted her as not one of but The pearl of great price
much to my avail as she had little libidinous interest in me
to my great wonder and misfortune
I will divulge this as my incidental role
in the Creation of Sex for the first time in public
She could have read me
the Tale of the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
or the genealogical begettings of the antediluvian patriarchs
and I would have got a hard on
Now as a result of your silence
I assume you have no further questions this morning
Mister Klogphorne
is that where the story my daddy tells
about your stob came from?
Young reverend
I did not know that event had trickled down
like the understanding of federal taxes
to the ears of Garza County Republican youth
I am embarrassed it has come to you
in a potentially contaminated form
therefore I will tell you the entire veracious rendition
of that epic tale complete and unembellished
I was in Maxine Durrant’s store purchasing a transparent negligee
for my wife’s recurrent twenty-ninth birthday
with expectations of forthcoming exhibition and rejoinder
when Miss Durrant made a comment upon the low riding condition
of my trousers saying I believe verbatim, Billy
one of these days your britches are going to fall down to your knees
I can’t imagine what holds them up
whereupon I in Biblical language divinely inspired saith unto her
Maxine, of all people on earth
I would have thought you would know
I have a stob that holds them up
since you are the one who made me aware of it
What happened then
Mister Klogphorne?
Why of course
without further ado she took my money, gift wrapped the package
in a manner harbingering pomp and circumstance
and upon my leaving locked the door, pulled down the shades
and I would fervently wish declared first call
then poured herself a libation before Aphrodite
At least I have faith and hope that is factual
Is there anything else?
Brother Klogphorne
who was Lamech?
Who was Lamech?
Young Master Ivins of the whiplash Epimethian focus
you will need to ask your grandparents
as those legendary citizens from these parts
probably knew him
since he lived over to Justiceburg
as they might say in unspoiled Texanese
Lamech lived at Justiceburg?
Texas?
Young fellers
Acolytes Nutt and Newberry I believe
who do you think wrote the Bible?
Haven’t you heard of Eden
and Palestine, Texas? Titus, Trinity and Godley counties?
The Bible was written by, for and about people
not just made up nonsense dictated out of thin air
&nbs
p; Of course Lamech Johnston lived out south of Justiceburg
married Rayola Owens and then
Pearl Rae Higgins of the substantial bosoms
after her mama threw her out of the house for stealing
the secret of her daddy’s almost perfected perpetual motion machine
and pouring out his bootleg intended home brew,
a moral and conspicious crime which earned for them the reward
of all consequent affliction and reprobation
upon which they moved to the sanctuary of Utah
somewhere west of Eden near a town originally called Hurry Cain
named after his grandfather of preceding generations
who had to rush all the way there to escape
Texas Rangers’ vengeance after killing his brother
for stealing a sheep he loved in the custom they knew unto then
you can read about it
in an early edition of the Garza Dispatch
if you follow the scriptures and search out
matters of truth with fear and trembling
in a plain manner of allusionary speaking
But now I see our allotted time is up
so you gentlemen will be needing to depart
and hear words of wisdom
from our beloved pastor the Right Reverend Strayhorn
As my conclusion I fervently hope I have given you young elders
something to ponder over this morning
Brother Klogphorne
we always end our class with a prayer
would you offer it?
Well Lord up there wherever
to say it delicately and in trochaic synesthesia
I certainly hope it was larded odoriferous
with the septical fragrance of churchhouse proselytization
that will linger in these boys’ memory for up to nine seconds
then flow down to this community
unadulterated and abridged for time immemorial
and if that is the resultant actuality
I will leave this earth a delighted and thankful man
Amen
Now you boys have yourselves a real nice Sunday
endeavoring to persevere in the effort
not to squirm or squiggle in your pews
but give your devoted attention to matters
of behavioral hegemony and high consequence
* * *
Did you understand that? said Roy Don Staples
I didn’t understand nothing
but that part after Sodom and Gomorrah said Jarvis Griggs
It’s Sunday School, you’re not posta understand it yet said Bobby Hudman
I don’t think it was pure scriptural said Charles Ivins
How do you know? said Walter Bloodworth
I know it in my heart said Charles Ivins
You don’t know Jack Shit said Monroe Newberry
You caint say that in the churchhouse said Roy Don Staples
Nah uh said Monroe Newberry
Yes I do said Charles Ivins
* * *
Billy Klogphorne strode
from classroom to apse to
aisle to mispronounced foyer
through the church house front door
drove home without an acknowledgment
of sermon or scripture or hymnsinging or prayers
or communion or mandatory collection plate passage
his job as substitute Sunday School mentor and Professor
completed indubitably terse, thorough and Texas true
his lesson to the male youth of Garza County taught
his etched inscription into the permanent memory
of our community established satisfactorily
finally, indelibly, permanently
once and by god for all
amen
Lost in Translation a monologue from the pickup cab
That year I’m thinking about
the popular bubblegum set-in-Italy
movie of the season had Troy Donahue
having overthrown and tossed away
Sandra Dee with the summer’s morning garbage
a venal and moral sin of an unforgivable nature
to the unsophisticated and uninitiated
post-pubescent likes of moi, in which he,
courting unabashedly Suzanne Pleshette
I believe, and whilst so doing
used the term al di la Troy-translated
as beyond the beyond that being I suppose
a Swahili or Reformed Egyptian term of endearment
certainly not Italian or technical Romantic
upon finding the current operable
teenage love of a lifetime
with such linguistic power it secured
an immediate and for some Young Republicans
lifetime addiction to the expression
so that:
every Texas girls’ 1962 high school annual
was signed All de Lah by the current
or aspiring suitor to which there was a clamor
of tearstruck emotional overthrow
at any female suitee gathering of the clavern
for purposes of stratification alignment
of eternal phylogynous commitment with an expiration warranty
of 1 June, some assembly required
by all those both signed and unsigned in that manner
which:
directly leads me to the matter
of contemporary reflective personal poignancy
ergo my undeclared adoration that very season
for the senorita bonita Eva Saenz
to and for whom I refused usage of al di la
already in my self-proclaimed maturity
deemed trite to the shaven rimrock of cliché
whereupon I cast about for an appropriate
foreign, exotic and to the 10th power romantic
term of endearment
but
having poor personal macaronics in my equipage
I by force of choice turned to a source
of higher wisdom upon which and whence
I trundled to my friend and her brother Gabriel Saenz
who suspected my infatuation with the lovely Eva
and queried him for the exact Spanish or Mexican
poetic maxim I should use to win
her undying love for a lifetime
upon which
he told me not te quiero as that profession
must come much later after I had secured her heart
but that the te and familiar tense would certainly
create an atmosphere of reciprocity
therefore
after a long eight seconds spent in heavy ponderation
he opined
I will give you an amorous expression
steeped in the art of courtly love
Andreas Cappelanus notwithstanding
guaranteed to create Love’s flight straight to her soul
but
you understand these words must never
be spoken in daylight and always
whispered
sotto voce softly and distinctly into her ear
as I recall
and I said Fine, give it to me right now, I’m primed
and he said
In a loving voice gently murmur
tu eres una pendeja and your words
will strike her heart like St Teresa’s
flaming arrow of lightning
perhaps
the truest statement uttered on this planet
since the Sermon on the Mount
as Eva
upon hearing my love psalm
turned directly and with her soft hand
folded into a love knot like she held
a roll of dimes for tithing
smat me a lick
whose smiting resounded as thunder
to shake Mr. Milton’s throne of heaven
it w
as two years before she spoke
to me again and a year after that
before I found out what her sonofabitching brother
invoked upon me, an event perhaps seminal
in the focus of our lives, perhaps all for the better
as we were doomed at best to be star crossed lovers
between eras of acceptability
and now with Marvell’s winged chariot at my back
I can only turn to the marvelous Mr. Nims
for solace
It was love lost
And a year lost of the few years we
Account most
truly beyond the beyond in the language of recuerdos
and adoration, a mental hiatal hernia
that being pretty much all I have to say
on that subject for the time at hand
so I’ll ask you not to bring up the tragic matter again
just drive the hell on, paisano, see
if you can find us a back road
where we can stop to bleed our lizards
and then carry on toward the coming of the night
Second Visitation
You won’t sell it to me
can I come look at it?
Anytime
Any?
Yep
All right then
Prelude to the World’s Greatest Meatloaf Sandwich
Billy on a loquacious backroad beatup Dodge pickup day proclaimed:
the current mode of intellectual meandering
evidently modeled upon the trilogy or triptych
that being the full much ado length and breadth
of the average politician’s remembrance
or number of words he can clearly inscribe
upon the indigent palm of his left hand
or write on a note card with crayon
therefore I shall appropriate the format of favor
in order to introduce my current universe trembling
trinity of fears and speculations without development
or undue and unnecessary political commentary
followed by the day’s overwhelming question
hence I shall proceed with a postulation:
behold my nominations for the two greatest
potential evils our society faces today
those being the threats of anorexia and
exercise addiction against which I daily strive
to arm myself and fight the good fight
a battle in which I am proud to claim temporary victory
followed by my greatest personal psychological fear
namely acrophobia, an advanced paranoia
that preoccupies me daily as I watch
Willy John climb his sculpture like a fucking
derrick monkey and no matter how I turn
he seems a half slip from plunging oblivion
to the point that my terror has become my nemesis
having chosen my dreams in which to live
