Passing over

[Truerenigma]

Why is Jesus on the front page
of today's paper, wearing clown shoes
and holding a sign protesting
against the overuse of onions
in roadside cafes?

Where is his dignity, and where
are his sandals? Someone broke his heart
and sent it to the Antiques Roadshow,
complete with provenance, for gilding and
breakfast on live broadcast. His mother,
meaning well, pulled the splinters from his
palms and left them on her bedside table.

Nobody uses toothpicks anymore. Whatever
is stuck there, stays
rotting for days, until colonisation is complete.
Jesus watches Big Brother as the next
reject talks about things and stuff and
the world keeps going into itself, folding,
abysmal. Trivia is a greasy spoon, an
onion Golgotha and something that once
started with R.

evolution

Hi, Leanne. Lovely poem. Trivia and the greasy spoon seem like red herrings and aren't interesting enough to justify their existence, I think. Maybe cutting "trivia is a greasy spoon" and punctuating accordingly then playing with the line break to see if you might like it on onion might be fun - or maybe not.

I almost didn't notice the break on and in S2 on the first read, but then it bothered me on the next few. Now I am ambivalent. The break on "his" seems like it would be much better on splintered and I'm sure you already know all of this I guess so why am I telling you? - whatever you were trying to do there was lost on me.

"things and stuff and" in the same sentence as "the world keeps going into itself, folding,/ abysmal" doesn't mesh very well for me - the shift in tone and abstraction feels clumsy.

Hope that helps.