escape fantasies

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"I take it apart
in the garage
like a puzzle:
the petals are greasy
as old bacon
and fall
like the maidens of the world
backs to the floor
and I look up"

~ Charles Bukowski, "Destroying Beauty"

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selah this, bitches—

that God so loved us
He gave us His only begotten son
& some postulate that
he is either madman or messiah

—but what of the fact
that only children are spoiled
& a bit self-aggrandizing?
or that, as Catholics say,
Joseph never slept with his wife?
& Jesus was born in a stable?

it sounds like his home life
would be difficult,
smelly,
full of sexual tension,
Mary saying no,
Joe getting drunk, making
lopsided furniture,
Jesus in the corner,
crying behind a fat cow,
his swaddling clotch
reeking of piss & lamb shit,
worried the three kings
were pedophiles bearing
frankincense, yes, but
maybe chloroform & lollipops,

maybe Jesus was a poet,
not insane or a god—
maybe he, too, wanted to escape
& with words become
a god.

***

sometimes, when i am drunk,
i think the spies are after me.
don't ask what spies
or why they chase me—
i am drunk—
usually i don't even know.
i wake up & read my texts
with red eyes & shame.
sitting there impishly between the usual &
embarrassing i want to fuck you's
& let's go to hawaii's
are those texts
about the spies—
no, i can't join you at the bar,
the spies are after me—
no, i can't come home,
the spies are watching—

it's not real (at least i think)
my mind is
stuffed full, overflowing
with science fiction shows—
sea monsters & dragons
all roll into each other
& i dream i can fly.

& it wouldn't be an insult,
at least not to me,
to ask whether Jesus had
one too many,
Tweeted one drunk night to his fans,
"#Water into wine!"
& then the whole shit
hit the ceiling—

& maybe he had good intentions.
i don't really want to fuck those girls,
i don't have money to go to Hawaii,
let alone take a few days off—

i had a fucked up childhood
& i have a drinking problem
& i protect myself with booze & poems

***

so why can't Jesus be
a sane man, too,
who at twenty
sat in the temple, terrified of
stables, hating kings, donkeys his friends,
& spun a yarn fueled by Mary Magdalenes
& wine he imagined he made from water?

he, like me, would be
scratching at a wound
that will not heal,
gnawing at the bones
of our youth &
howling at the moon—

& honestly,
hanging on a cross for our words
would be the best poem
we ever wrote.