poem of the day 07.01.15

on briefly studying pope francis’

encyclical on climate change

my wife says

they usually put men

who talk to god in institutions

but i’m not sold on this pope

despite the tenor of his insanity

although he has nothing to prove to me

a non-believer riding the dying waves

of this american christian tide

i just don’t want to see pope francis in the nuthouse

or even in jail, especially not an american one

who knows what kind of atrocities could happen

i mean whether he’d be pounding patties

for mcdonald’s or wendy’s while in there

working american airlines or, god forbid, victoria’s secret

i like that alienated catholics are jazzed about this pope

people need things to be jazzed about other than television shows

i like that he gets by on doing the bare minimum

of just preaching peace and love

unlike the last two barbarians

who stuck their noses into everything

and let their priests butt-fuck little boys

some critics say that this pope practices

latin american catholicism

i don’t really know what that means

except maybe something along the lines

of an american proxy government

with a bloated dictator at the center of it

but that doesn’t sound like pope francis at all

maybe they mean he’ll just be a good shortstop

someone to snag all of the chip shit the world hits at him

turn it into amazing double plays

that is to say i tried reading some of the pope’s

encyclical on climate change

but it was writen in italian, i think

or maybe it was written in

one of those latin american languages

mexican or ecuadorian or venezuelan

or whatever they speak down there

i know he got the point across here in my office

where we speak stone cold american

we haven’t had air conditioning for weeks

and everyone is sweating and cursing

praying out to god for relief

but god works in mysterious ways

so i’m sure our suffering

is benefiting someone somewhere else

and helping to save the climate too.