Pope

Jason Brennan

I tear a quote from a dead Pope’s sermon
And with a surgeon’s precision
Remove the excess fat.
The waste is bagged but not
Destroyed and the peculiar
Misshaped organ is laid on a slab
And studied for disease.
I carry this slop for days
In a plastic bag around
cinemas shops and parks,
Extracting oxygen out of the mouths
Of passers-by to charge
The fading pulse. To encourage
The chance of cross-infection,
I incubate. A month
Beside discarded peel broken
Parts and half finished
Jokes spawns a bulbous
Growth which I snip
And shape with secateurs
And nourish to fruition
With mad arithmetic
And ancient verse pumping through
Intravenous drips.

This poem is taken from Total Cardboard issue 7, and remains under copyright. For more information see www.totalcardboard.com