On the seventh day we crucify our
fathers again.
Whole landscapes of past generations
impaled and wasted,
left out to feed our carrion
overlords.
In the city and in the town all our
best known haunts are dismembered
and the attending memories subject
to excruciating mastication
with a sprinkle of Potter’s Field ash
and a dash of an orphaned grandson’s
tears for flavor.
This week’s prayers fell shy of
their projected outcomes.
The analysts in the front row sell
short and exit quickly after the benediction.
By noon we have beatified our
mothers –
especially during football season.
Fourth generation redacted
anti-feminists replace
mascara with face paint, while the
grandmatrons make sandwiches
and mutter sweet incantations
against the damnation of their granddaughters.
Commercial breaks sell the wonders
of a Central American vacation
while the ghost of Cortez nibbles on
what’s left of Zihuantanejo after the fall of Ixtapa.
Eight pesos and an American flag
will get you
your very own native bellboy to
teach English
and ritually savage in the name of civilization.
By five in the afternoon we seek resurrection
in eyes of our children.
Monday means the beginning of
Christmas Break
so we will have to continue the fertility
sacrifices in January
under the cover of snow and
darkness. New year. New tests. Fresh meat.
They show no interest in the old
bedtime stories
so we decree and mourn the world’s
decay.
Projections for Generation X were
high but fell shy.
School counselors retired quickly
and snuck out the back exit hidden
in the janitor’s closet
carrying bootlegged bottles of rum
and leftover empty promises.
A new prospectus on the up and
comers is circulating –
potentially high profit margin, but
not without considerable loss.
Oh well. Perverting a mother’s
common wisdom,
you can’t make a society without
breaking a couple of skulls.
Let them watch the news in case our
bedtime stories work better,
and pray we will not be forsaken
next Sunday.