What Would Chaucer’s Pardoner Say?

Someone has opened a McDonald’s there
Around the corner from Saint Peter’s Square

And this has distressed a cardinal or three -
Yankee capitalism, don’t you see

But Big Mac pays thirty thousand in rent
Each month to the Vatican (Heaven-sent?)

Which owns the building, a profitable touch
Thus paying the water and light bills and such

So bring on the sodas, ‘burgers, and fries
Through golden arches under Roman skies!

Catholic Calisthenics

(Stations of the Cross)

Make the sign of the cross stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand

Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand
Turn stand kneel sit stand turn stand kneel sit stand

V: This is rather rough on my creaky old bones
R: Remember, old man, it’s not about you

The Secret That THEY Don’t Want You to Know

The secret that your banker, car dealer
Doctor, insurance agent, mechanic
Dentist, electrician, wireless service
Neighborhood Russian spy, travel agent

Hairdresser, ophthalmologist, plumber
Lawyer, barber, grocer, parole officer
Pharmacist, barista, pedicurist
Watchmaker, stockbroker, cable installer

Or county agricultural agent
Doesn’t want you to know:
                                                   wait…what was it…?

STEMinists

That women must be as shallow as men
And thus surrender all their high estate:
Art, music, government, medicine, law
Science, literature, administration

To be programmed, obedient to machines
That turn, tilt, twist, light up and make noises
Measure this, adjust that, obey, obey
Functionaries in a factory – why?

To bow before gadgets, just like the men -
The old Eden thing, all over again

Ash Wednesday in Libya, 2012

For Anthony Germain

The wisdom of the desert is dispersed
Among the industrial monuments
To mechanized ******, wireless chaos,
And war-**** for touch-screen degenerates.
On this Ash Wednesday night while smoky flares
Obscure, with false, flickering fumes, the stars
God sent to dance above those ancient lands.
You choke and weep among the ashes of
More victims of pale Herod’s shopping trips.
So of your kindness grant that we, your friends,
May wear your ashes for you on this night,
And for the weary innocents who flee
The ashes of their burnt and blasted world.

Not the Most Boring American Legion Meeting Ever

The coffee was good, the stories were old
Of days when we mumbling men were bold
And young and trim, slender of waist
Leaping to our duties all in haste

And now we sit in the parish hall
Our waists are large, our muscles small
But “with advantages”1 we dare think back
To when the word was not “reflect,” but “Attack!”

The coffee is good, even when we are old
And our memories warm, tho’ the nights are cold


1*Henry V

A Laughing Springtime Child

Her locker was just outside the classroom door
And sometimes during class change I called out
Confusing numbers as she worked and turned
The combination lock: “12...32...”

Ashley indulged her teacher’s feeble attempts
At humor, twirled the dial exactly right,
Popped open the locker, and laughed:
“Ya can’t fool me, Mr. Hall; I am good!”

And indeed you were, and are, and will be forever,
Forever our happy, laughing springtime child

“And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
-- Hamlet, V.ii.371