The Wart of Satan |
by Adrian C. Louis |
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“Never bring the Lord an animal that is blind, has broken bones, cuts, warts, scabs, or ringworm. Never give the Lord any of these in a sacrifice by fire on the altar." —LEVITICUS 22:22 I offered my broken spirit to the Lord and he ignored me so I swam inexorably towards the black light. Somewhere between immaculate conception & wireless reception, the Wart of Satan was born. Oh, fearsome wart, I am old & tired. Talk down & dirty to me. Blessed be your “snow day” inception when I was alone at home with the tube & the lube & finished, trumped the desperation of the Last Supper with homemade beef stew aged in the freezer for two wartless years. The boxer interviewed said, “I want to inflect damage once I step into the ring.” The Wart of Satan comprehends all snot-knocking epiphanies. In Leviticus, it says, “When a wart becomes bed bound upon your nose, do not despair. It has only chosen a cushy coffin.” In the soulless desert of faux-quaint Minnesota, I hear a homely Pillsbury doughboy on Public Radio moaning the blues so far off-key that winos puking blood would be sweeter music to me. Wart of Satan, go thee to him. Go thee to the Rolling Stones who wiggle their wrinkled wieners at the Super Bowl. Not that it matters, but in Leviticus it also speaks of a green, green valley where two bears danced down a road covered with dusty toads, each step an explosion of toad ghosts & warts. Blessed be the dawn & its expurgation of historical facts. But how should I react to the minor cruelty of a devil’s ship, a Mayflower landing upon my nose? The store bought remedy is not poetical & quite unlike a needed scalping. It’s more like peeling back the skullcap & peeing on one’s brain. This is your brain on drugs. Of course there are no atheists in foxholes. I am no snitch & I am no bitch (simply something of a witch with a cursed proboscis) but I am going to kill the Wart of Satan. Poof. Gone. Merely a whisper in my silver sky of age. My flesh fluttered, rose, tasted rain & stalled in morose lack of movement. You came with the dust… & were gone with the wind. This bereavement is awkwardly odd. Caught in a graceless angle of vanity, I was weak when I wanted you gone. Wart, you most surely were flesh of my flesh & a flash of my ashes. |
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