Kevin Heaton With Driftwood Crosses, A Fleetwood Mac Reference, Gestures of Smoke, and False Prophets

Cautiously Pessimistic


Meerkats are auditing ‘The Book of Life,’
rejecting all angel submissions, blotting out points

of light. No new names are being written down in Glory—
Coptics and old Kansans were left kneeling behind their

altars; lobbying like Protestants. I hear the pinprick noise
of a Gnostic cross dragging itself through Christ thorns—

‘ooo baby, ooo, said ooo.’ I see the white-winged dove
as she circles Ararat for her errant olive branch. I look

up, I look up, from where Jonah sleeps with fishes—
in hopes the next first star I see will mark a bright child.



Scars & Empty Vases


Van Gogh’s mad ear enflamed a field
of purple irises—marring the face of
a sleeping homeless man. Artists render

people like pastels & watercolors.
The wounded gather shopping carts & talk
about Jesus, their smiles resemble burn

scars. They tape magazine clippings
to bedroom mirrors & blow cigarette smoke
into perfect images hoping to see a heartbeat.

Liars parse sermons like ravens, then genuflect
at driftwood crosses & line their egos
with Cardinal feathers—change sangria

into green tea. Would that I were sickle
& whetstone—a reaper of men, or palette
& canvas—the turned cheek of Christ.


Meth


Tina accepts my swirling mind:

its tics & fidgetings,

its slipped knots of rage & rancor—

then babbles me away to the afterlife.

Kevin Heaton is originally from Kansas and Oklahoma, and now lives and writes in South Carolina. His work has appeared in a number of publications including: Guernica, Rattle, Raleigh Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Adroit Journal, and The Monarch Review. He is a Best of the Net, Best New Poets, and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee.