Dark Night at the Jericho Abbey

The Plague never infected my body

It killed my job in a New York minute

80K per annum

fire flushed in a crematorium oven

A boozy butcher mixing slaughterhouse soup

I had to bring home that bacon

I’m now a night clerk at some janky ass motel

One filled with cadavers that told no tales

SET BACK

dilapidated and smelling of dead drug addicts

JUST OFF 

the blazing asphalt of a turnpike

that stole its name from a seedy Biblical city

Hookers tantalize me from the shadows

Phantoms offer me carnal pleasure under the desk

The manager

a gentle devil worshiper

who stinks of sulfur and greasy take out food

Hands the welfare mothers free rooms as payment

To rub their sweaty feet

and get their children caught up in the ongoing social trauma

Of ritualistic experimentation

The little ones won’t be permanently damaged

The public schools

Boiling over with Marxist teachers who speak of drab things

and psycho students that count out carbines and bullets

Will complete that job quite nicely

The hungry pigs and local politicians

Collect broken souls from the rickety Ice Machine

and deposit them in offshore bank accounts

I watch Three’s Company reruns on the late show

As I hand over another key for a jacuzzi room