The Diving Board

What may be deciphered from a crack-pot piper
With his father’s right, cherry-red boxing glove
Caught cold raw to jawline of his own puppet-
like dome, the waster delivering as well taking
The dry Jekyll-to-Hyde punch, which turns his ex-
pression to Jell-O as he trips over eerie half
Of a tombstone–that while choking down a tiger
Orange to yellow flame of some fairytale’s angel
Dust. Yes. Some fairytale’s angel dust, after which
What may be deciphered from such a crackpot piper?
That like our many failed visions of God, each cipher
Breaks the jaw of our heaviest weight. Amen. Amen.
We might never come clear to be sure and of course
We’ll surely have to settle for whatever is next to fold
Itself out as the tongue of a prophet that today will be
Labeled just another pistachio nut reading in baritone
From papyrus scroll; from a cemetery’s pine-pulpit stump,
The fired pastor of brimstone wears the taxidermized
Mask of a ram or Carolina panther. The sermon rolls
From his tongue. A ten-hour sermon for which we call
Back to the same crackpot piper and scratch our heads
As to what may never be deciphered, what may never
Be deciphered after following such a trail of ten-thousand
Crumbs and crumbs and crumbs; when will we finally get
The captain crunch that what we’re looking for or trying to de-
cipher becomes less and less the point as this very poem turns
Into the scout’s only mountain road of swerves and switches?
That this all ends on an old train-track bridge that breaks
To halves &, just as Moses crosses over, turns to diving board?
Dear Reader, you’ll get there if you keep going. That promised
Land. Yes, you’ll get there. I’m this close to almost being sure.