Athens is a broken jaw,
its amphitheater rubble.
Here cushiony cars
tread gravel, inch up inclines
to aim Oedipal eyes
at a seamed rectangular screen,
earth's dorsal fin. Images beam
over the darkened cars
and Titans battle where we
painted over the horizon.

On my front hood
the engine's warm breath
hisses through the steel.
Gingerly I lean against
the cracked windshield.
I can see the stars,
I can see the screen,
lift my paper cup of cola
and toast Euripides,
hear the chattering chorus
of dwarf lampposts,
the drone of an airplane,
the whirring of mosquitoes.


The Code of Ourobouros:Forgetting Evil

Imagine evil's ultimate insubstantiality
reduced even further, by calculus,
from a steep stairway into a slide;
fold it and roll it like a neural tube,
mark it with an _S_, then watch the hoopsnake
eat its tail and disappear inside a shrinking flask.

Paul wrote, "I don't even judge myself,"
and Luther said, "Sin boldly if you sin."
Half-assed sacrifices make asses of us,
so live passionately as Jesus and forget
Eliot's one end, which is always present,
and heave your heart like a spear
at the nearest good.

.

C. E. Chaffin