I
Am
Ever
Lasting
Omnivision!

An austere monument,
built over eons by the brute
whip and rolling of hand-hewn
boulders upon logs one-by-one glued
together with a mortar of crushed skulls.
Yes, astonishingly, it is still with us, not yet
crumbled ash to ash, dust to gray dust: For not all
of Ozymandias' treasured legacies have parted from
us as Shelley did prophesy. For in the midst of our very
presence, from where we peer through Venetian blinds by
which we queue without a whisper, its cyclopean eye can now
be seen as it hovers like a flock of buzzards over its pyramidal base
upon lime-green sands which reek the sickly mirage of an oasis. There—
without our consent, this omniscient tyrant defies the very laws of gravity—
secretly recording our every scratch, nose pick, and yawn for all of posterity.

Hong Kong Hallelujah!!!

The Praise Jee-zus!!! Fan Club
infiltrates the PRC:
Evangelicals pose as doctors
and computer experts.

One self-proclaimed proselytizer
(Degree: Oral Roberts University)
hopes his aching cavity will be filled
by the Lord’s grace.

His fearless funambulist minister queries,
“Is your Communist girlfriend
truly a true believer
and by the Holy Spirit blessed???…

“Well, not yet, but she’s…”

“Then Let Us Pray for her Soul.”
They bow their heads in silence.

At last the holy man responds to the initial inquiry:
“Certainly it will be less expensive.”

“Praise the Lord: Hallelujah!!!”

A true story-revealed!!!

The silken bra worn outside her purple sweater
consoles her young, yet sagging, breasts
with the compassion of an evangelical preacher.
Yet, in reality, she's really no more loyal a member

of the Jee-zus!!! Fan Club than is her sidekick,
the laughing thin man who plays the organ with a gavel
on Sunday when the collection plate is passed
through the pews.

Together, the two lounge on the porch at dawn
and toast to the sale of her artwork,
its style and images copied quite fastidiously
from painting exhibited in an out of town gallery.

Only they know the joke inherited divinely
through the generations which is stitched like dope
within the skin of an aged woman's corpse
in their un-airconditioned apartment undergoing
condo-conversion.

Though their laughter blends mellifluously
with the street crowd, they must always smile
with the radical sweetness of a persimmon,
and then begin to creep, cowering behind the trash pails,
to avoid those who practice karate in swift, silent rhythms.

Yes, it's true!!! This fat woman is, in reality, really
no more a loyal member of the Jee-zus!!! Fan Club
than is her sidekick, the laughing thin man (particularly
when his angelic acolytes usher the collection plates
on Monday….)

Phoencian funeral tablet

Erected by RS, chief of commercial agents
For Father, chief of commercial agents,
Son of RS, chief of commercial agents,
Son of MNHM, chief of commercial agents,
Son of B’LBM, inspector of commerce…

Just a step down from Vincent and Theo's

And just a step down from the ivy of your neatly groomed plot,
before a bright field of amber waves of wheat swaying sunlight,
not far from tombstone rows of soldiers needlessly sacrificed,
an official sign is posted upon your neighbor’s former burial site.

The white plaque signals in bold blue letters to all onlookers:
The Mayor’s office must be contacted in order to restore possession
of those souls once buried below, that is, the ash and cinders—
after, of course, renewing the cemetery’s rightful $$$concession$$$…