Erik Moshe- Three Poems

"American Gods"

Show your true shaman
Show your polytheistic folklore dreamscape
as sun gods stand there with Aztec wigs
Mayan anagrams burnt into the wet film of their eyes

baby forgers in futile efforts
the modern battlefield a blood stained coffee field
while a headhunter poses, caffeine induced
clenching the severed head of a left wing right wing
center wing never wing posterboy in the afterthought
of a rigged election resent to polls –
but the farm is a pigsty and if they fly, so be it

Industrial awakening is still sleeping
its rickety psychological state held in a coma
on a deathbed made of crimson new beginnings
sheets the color of whetstone, covered in patterns
of classic baseball games, confederate gun smoke
Robert M. Gatekeeper confiding secrets
the rebirth of a dying species spawned paraplegic
if only gods do float -
leg room for the religious bandwagons
regarded as hogwash

politicians are pigs
who put bacon on their tables
that ultimately kill us via cholesterol
choirs spew vitriol sermons

Destiny is reinvented in elegantly earthy Virginian baskets
feeding on heavenly perceptions
the unawareness office never files complaints
though by all sanctimonious diatribes
we should know the truth is elusive by now

your forefathers were deities alright
every leader since dawnlight translates human swansong
to put more goldfish in their lakes
and magistrates in their castles, or steeds in their darkhorse stables
the images of windmills, blurry corn pastures,
Madison Square Garden undergoing geometric transformations
until the dustbowl that once was
melds into the distance, and civilians grieve
- the meridian sheds civil disobedience leaves



"Peoplemancer"

Keep yourselves alive
as sculptures in this aquamarine waiting room
Join the acromegaly brothers
the blue nosed parole officer
the old man with Beelzebub in his gut
the woman with arthritis in her vagina
Ooh, it hurts.
Sit there, twiddle your thumbs
Watch CNN as the anchor shoves
thumbtacks through your naked cornea
Hey, thanks
flip through a Woman’s Digest
and chuckle to yourself in silent remembrance
of your ex wife’s intestines in the backyard,
housing a mole right about now
a mole with a dozen children,
curled up in fuzzy paradise
Unlike a rotund middle aged woman
whose name is probably Priscilla
with synthetic blood sacs for children,
giving me weird looks in between youthful exploration
the innocent little bastar--
I know it’s my job to report on irrelevant matters
but can’t I be a ghosthunter in the hospice hall or something?
I know this city is a cesspool
We all know
and this hospital is an even more putrid swimming pool
of inner city underlings with a predator who’s been biding it’s time
Take your weight loss reality shows
Take your corporate boulevard Huxtable physique
baby rates dying rapidity facilities
and just let the human stone sit
let some toxic sun rays hit it, apply sun skeet
Mmm
when you open your eyes the next morning,
I hope it’s like trying to open a stubborn cuttleflesh with a carpenter nail
or one of those spike-barbed bacteria cells
Saliva and raspberry jello and parking lot dirt
and janitor cigarette smoke
contract these lungs into a pathetic rising and falling
of imminence
I just need my blood drawn



“C.O.N.T.R.O.L’s Control Room”

Glorious mornings do not exist.

The hegemony classifies freewill as a disillusioned misfit…
I don’t contest this hypothesis.
I recognize that there are things
smaller than an amoeba’s most distant cousin’s best friend removed.

Religion is the catheter with which we channel and process liquid vitality.
We’re unable to classify what vitality is,
Because what’s of importance is an opinion.

Even the uncontrollable have tickets to the manikin orchestra.
They clap obediently.
Well, it’s less of a “clap”
and more like cacophony of thermoplastic flapping.

Control is a…
tridimensional comfort word
that violates and fulfills at least several thousand interchangeable charters
of an animalistic human pedigree.

All strings attached,
puppet masters strung,
victims coagulating in their various provincial prisons.

Using your third eye’s diopter,
one may pinpoint their maker’s intentions
But they’re all out of stock, I’m afraid 

Erik Moshe is an aircrew flight equipment technician for the U.S. Airforce who is originally from South Florida. His work has been seen floating around before in Gloom Cupboard, Spirit of the Stairway, Clutching at Straws, mad swirl, and The Bactrian Room. He's currently got his eye on a wizard's tower, waiting for a signal from the blackbirds.