Dazed in Burbank with a Doctor Shopping Priest

His eyes twinkled with divine peace
as he described his spiritual odyssey.
From high end offices downtown
to freaks at Providence St. Joe,
in search of the pain killing grail.
Refusing temptation of black market
slums, keeping devout faith in the scriptural
doctrine of prescription, he grinned brightly
as his patience had been rewarded.
We toasted his illumination and broke tablets
together. They shed, fizzing in our dark glasses.
“How long have you had bad knees?”
I asked as the night vibrated in violet,
“I don’t,” he quipped under red, drifting eyes.
“But I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around and wait until I do.”
___________________________________________________________

Maybe God

Like the sound of heaven’s fists
pounding away at the roof of the world
the man in the apartment above
is doing his thousand sit-ups.

In the dark I chuck an empty bottle
into the ceiling. Fragments of light,
I see it shatter like a dream piñata.

“Another late night, boy?” he sings.
I holler, “why the hell always so early?”
He sings, “It’s when God wakes me up.”
“Don’t go to bed at six, maybe God
won’t wake you up so early,” I wretch.

My head a volcano of dizzy crimson,
glass shards like tiny arrowheads
in my arm, I listen to the thunder resume
and mumble something like a prayer for rain.

Rick Marlatt teaches English in Nebraska. He has BAs in English and Philosophy and a MA in Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska, and he is currently pursuing a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside at Palm Desert. Marlatt’s most recent publications include Heroin Love Songs, The Pedestal Magazine, and Other Voices Poetry. Marlatt performs as an actor, poet, and writer, most recently, winning the University of Nebraska Sigma Tau Delta Short Fiction Slam.