comatose is a church with no plans to kneel and other poems by Angel Zapata | #thesideshow

comatose is a church with no plans to kneel

not nearly as boring as opera,
I gargle a four-verse hymn,
turn and spit into an aisle
splintered by the birdseed
or rice of some stranger’s wedding

the preacher jackknives an eyelid,
has the congregants’ children
storm the altar, perch beside him,
coughs up a parable on the fly,
something about fishers of men

he scans the young faces for a pulse,
chooses a boy with sunburnt lips:
pretend you’re at the beach,
he says, tell me one thing
you’d see beneath the water

the boy’s response is miraculous:
knees, he says, a whole lot of knees

pub prayer

drunk, drunk
who’d’ve thunk

jesus is a potato, a cloud, an oil slick

1.
take these plastic ears
and insert them
into a potato head god

they say his children
hear him
when he calls

take my ears, jesus
and let me become another
set of eyes on your dark skin

2.
a cloud
a clod
a cod

this time
he walks on
water in reverse

3.
as if someone formed
his faux-anglican features
in a crude oil spill

his long, black hair
and gleaming beard
coat the white wings

of a pelican—in its mouth,
a fish; on the sleeve
of its artist, a stain

prayer is a constellation in an alternate universe

all unfiltered power is
an act of creation
as moon craters are bowls
without fruit and the archer’s
arrow is a paintbrush

gravity is not
akin to the weight
upon your shoulders
nor is its futile resistance
the voyage of angels

the universe is a sacrament
swallowed by saints, yet,
not all of it is star slant
or planet slope, some
of it is like hitting a wall

About the Author:

Angel Zapata calls Augusta, Georgia his home. Born and raised in New York City, his award-winning fiction and poetry is a conglomeration of street smarts and Southern charm. His micro-poetry chapbook, “Pearl Street,” was recently published by Rinky Dink Press.