Imitation of Prose of the World Order by Jean Day
a crown of thorns
is not cliché
2000 years ago
just painful
like the pottery bits
tied in the leather
whip that moves
faster than the speed
of sound even though
they don’t know
sound has a speed
and a cross is not
a tired icon
but a symbol of torture
caked in the blood
of thieves and traitors
and dicing for clothes
is not an expression
but a morbid game
a ritual wrought by Roman
soldiers numb to
pain and cruelty
unconcerned with innocence
and untimely darkness is
not a cogent metaphor
but black reality
as perfection is
rent apart top
to bottom like the
temple veil to
restore the broken and
the spear piercing
his side is not
the death blow or
another hit but
the very last assurance
blood and water pouring
mingled out of a
cardiac sac that has
been speared after
a death already
assured many
times over and
an empty tomb is
not a Sunday school story but
what have they done with him
what have they done with him and
appearing inside locked
doors is not a
magic trick but the
Creator closing
His own loopholes
quantum leaping proving
once and for all
death is not the
master of this house