John Scalla remembers
plain–clothed white coiffed nuns
in sunday school classes
who were the sweetest things
you’ve ever seen with a razors edge
carried proudly from an emerald isle

John Scalla spent his sundays digging
through big soft Bibles discovering
a father who loved everyone
as equally as he was thorough
a son born to wear a crown of blood
but never lost his most sacred heart
and a universal spirit’s open-armed
quiet embrace of your trembling frame

John Scalla was born to hold a communion
with something far more complex or
precise then our poor sweaty coils
wondering how bread could be body
and blood so eagerly consumed

John Scalla stole from complex pages buried
deep beneath outdated expressions
and miscommunicated messages
a simple cypher that condenses
all the rhetoric down to it’s square root
love

John Scalla locked the cypher
in that secret spot between heart
and stomach holding it close
dreaming on distant playgrounds
where it was slowly worn away
by bullies still casting long shadows
like limestone sphinxes now noseless

John Scalla’s distant playground dreaming
of a personal relationship with God are gone
because if He was there then that makes him
a single string of an infinitely intricate
vast woven narrative where he is only aware
of adjacent pieces unable to take a firm grasp
of the situation continuing to grow

John Scalla weaves narratives through
his prayers sending them nowhere
because they wouldn’t know where to go
with so many far-off stars dead and leaving
cosmic vibrations both here and everywhere
making it hard for them to escape with
their best intentions unmolested

John Scalla inexorably finds himself
again
navel gazing awkwardly at chair legs
girls legs
this guy named Greg face down
passed out
in someone else’s kitchen where
multiple eyes
glimmer, glazed visibly with
half-recognition
and the amp that human ivory smile
plays on
where deaf hands moving with
blunt precision
fumbling for alarm clocks bra hooks
silent red cups
doing essential jobs that essentially involve
doing nothing

John Scalla’s multi-geared aluminum pony
saddled up in the corner of a studio apartment
quietly rusts it’s best years away
watching him take another **** rip
pass it to a friend who passes it
to another friend who passes it to
another who passes it back to him
who is now wondering if that last hit
was necessary and whether the aluminum
pony’s quiet crying in the corner
is any cause for alarm.

I had a dream I was *******
over the balustrade of the arcade
at the top of the Scalla
in the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo.
Venice's rooftops stretched out beneath me,
completely dark.
cemetery silent.
the only sound was my **** hitting
the calle below.
upon finishing, I turned
and told a shadow, as I
zipped up my jeans,
"let's go get espresso, I need a cigarette."

I hope it was prescient.
I hope the shadow was you.
I hope you read this one.

you most likely won't.
forever the shadow on what I do.