“Reverend X”

c.2020 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(12-20)

YouTube

Early hours of a Wednesday morning

Coffee charge clears my head

Of a restless roll in bed

Clicking through results

That quicken my pulse

Reverend X

Street preacher, rough talker

Like a character from ‘Kolchak the Night Stalker’

Self-appointed, God-anointed

A Holy Trinity received

From a Los Angeles street

The gospel sent from Heaven to those below

In this ‘One Man Show’

Vincent Stewart, who are you?

Dancing to Tupac

Lashing out with cane shots

And scripture from the Yellow Pages

Wisdom for the ages

“I come in the name of Jesus” he says

“By the power of the Holy Spirit”

Suited up and double-dipped

Curses fly from his lips

“The Devil is a F-ing liar!”

I know that to be true

But I did not expect

To hear it spewed

In the lingo of lost souls huddled over bottles of screw-top wine

And pockets bare

Tent cities

Politicians proffering pity

Rev listens to a tape

Of Bible verses read aloud

The cockatrice egg

Bringing death

His head down, sobbing

Panting for his breath

Until there is a telephone ring

Callers aplenty, challenging

The gospel that he brings

“I am God and you’re not - Bee-otch!”

I can’t find the button

To make it stop

Repent from the torment

Can’t imagine where the remote went

X chastises the infidels

Banishes them boldly

To the depths of Hell

“I am the law!”

He reserves for himself

This sweat-stained, scarred son

Slinging MFs

Like Samuel L. Jackson

Dancing, prancing

Seemingly stuck in an epiphany

Of Christ coming to Cali

Laughing like ‘The Count’

On Sesame Street

“White supremacist nincom-F-ing-poop!”

Chickens come home to roost

Camo duds

Or a three-piece suit

Sermon on the Mount

Sidewalk sage, stepping out

Let there be no doubt

Reverend X spits through his teeth 

Talks of the sacred scrolls

And the blood sacrifice, complete

Downtown decay

Voice going away

A life gone astray

Cigarette butts in the ashtray

From a follower who heard

This four-letter scripture

Schizophrenic, manic mood

Witnessing to the woeful

He gives us an earful

I’m ready for a bottle

Of Colt 45

“You F-ed up! You know your ass is doomed!”

His voice fills my living room

“You trust in Hell and you’re already in Hell!”

Fingers flip the pages

Lips slip the bullshit

Is he an actor, or a practicing prophet misunderstood?

A wandering whisperer in the hood?

The video stream does not reveal

It only feeds

An appetite from the unclean

To nod off with the television on

A substitute for revelation

“Devil worsipper, you got no excuse!”

Spirit of Truth

“I see you!”

Is there a producer in the booth?

A puppet-master pulling strings?

I scroll through his posts

And ponder such things 

Arrested at the courthouse door

Quoting Matthew Chapter Four

Satan tempts

The Son of God does not relent

Failed fool

Lucifer does not rule 

With fear

Jesus said, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near”

Vincent vocalizes his belief

In a cocked-up theory

Maybe born of chemical ingestion

And suspect intentions

I know only this

There’s a hook on his line

Like doing the ‘Twine Time’

I want to close my eyes

But there’s a kernel of gold

In that turd

Is he blaspheming the holy word?

Or perhaps sweeping back the veil

For those run off the rails

With lives lost and dreams failed

Evicted, convicted

Detoxing in jail

Does this man with the drunk jive keep hope alive?

Open a sinner’s eyes, when the darkness of death has smothered love and light?

Might a curious fool, so long lost, be moved to look toward the cross?

Past the doped damnation

Past the broadcast of a TV station

Replayed in perpetuity

On the flatscreen

This is the hope I see

From my armchair

Drinking Lite beer

Midweek has arrived

Now long after midnight

I sit with vision

Or perhaps simply, a pilsner delusion

Whatever the situation

I let the alphabet fly

And write

Written on my iPhone SE