Jeffery Alfier: two poems

THE DEFROCKING OF FATHER J CHRISTOPHER TODD, LATE OF THE O.S.B.

He preached: God sold the lantern
of the poor Canaanites to
America on the day

of the pope's auction of souls...

Then the world's oldest anger
wanted to nail his ass
to the door of Canterbury.

RESPONSE TO A PATRIOTIC SERMON

Serrated edge of other-world storms
as bitter as the cypress cone
where, on Sabbaths, preachers pummel
  Stars and Stripes back into Shiloh...

No chance. Rather, America
appeared in that vacant staircase
in the Tower of Babel...
  where He silenced vanishing points.