traintrackgospel
a new jesus is walking down water
street searching for the right flavor
ice cream for a communist to eat
his holy profile is stained by a saint’s
mullet that reeks of the wine he uses
to wash and his dusty feet sing praises
to the desert left behind while mary
and judas play dominoes with dinosaur
bones on the tea shop table top and sweat
their lusty daydreams out out out and down
on the corner john the baptist is hustling
the salvation that he keeps hidden beneath
his robes he knows that wherever he goes
there will be a royal axe hungry for his neck
and that is why he likes this new jesus who
speaks and speaks and stops and cries
at night because these human sins scarring his
hands hurt worse than a traitor’s kiss or the long
nails that hold railroad ties down as the train
slices through the belly of the country leaving
black smoke and forgotten longing in its wake
- Ian Rhodewalt