FABRICATION (A Poem)

FABRICATION by Jeff Mallinson

It was as soggy as ever

That evening I wandered down

Failing Street.

I was not feeling like a winner.

I was trying to imagine the melody

My late son might have draped

Over his unfinished lyrics

About God pissing on his face.

My friend whose stuck in Tehran,

Uses a Farsi version of that metaphor

When he is held back

from his living children

By religious zealots

Who misread Rumi.

Not like us.

We get him just fine,

But we’ve lost the recipe

For his wine.

Now back in Portland

I was smoking from a pack

I could no longer afford,

Fighting the sickness unto death:

A despair that’s more frightening

Than lung disease.

Just then, a pickup truck

Drove by.

It’s logo read:

JEFF MADE

It’s subheading said:

FABRICATION

Was this stroll down Failing street

My predestined path?

My karmic destiny?

My pain that refuses to let me die

But promises I’ll become stronger?

Did I sign up for this madness

Before the world was born?

Or are such thoughts

Just pious torments

From the ghost of Ram Das?

Is this last spiritual bypass

The last great temptation

Faced by pilgrims on avenues

Without bodhi trees?

Did I escape the shadow of Jonathan Edwards’ angry Calvinist God

Only to find out

That the demiurge with fatalistic intent

Was me all along?

Am I the architect of this living hell?

Did I decree my own reprobation?

Am I in a fabricated Gehenna

JEFF MADE?

If so, I’ve got a nasty Yelp review

Coming for this Jeff guy.

I think I’ll entitle it:

That bastard’s ego must die.