golgotha souvenirs

the label on the art print says:
untitled, blood on paper
the artist: christ, the time: back when
crucifixions were the trend

the theme: a story, old as time
man on man bloodthirstiness
buy two prints, the third one’s free
pay with cash, lord have mercy

the seller: yellow smoke-filled beard
wrists bandaged with dirty rags
he’s dragging on another spliff
how far can one push this grift

he flips the tap & fills a glass
with something red, takes a sip
says if i don’t like what he drew
there’s magnets & corkscrews too

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

casus belli bum

yesterday there was a ruckus
in the tailless monkeys’ workshop
they were apes by any other name
but their bare rumps exposed them to shame

so the monkeys began a feverish search
for those to whom they could pin the blame
the cognitive dissonance
was strong in these monkeys’ minds
and they issued a press release
to call out the suspected beakless geese
who must have plucked the monkeys’ tails
to cover up their revealed mouth crease

then the monkeys went from words to deeds
constructed a bunch of bent clay dicks
strapped them to each startled face
of the entire beakless geese race
then the monkeys took photos of them all
and uploaded the images to myspace

happy that justice had finally prevailed
the monkeys hit the pub to celebrate
but also forgot that they’d left the kiln on
so the workshop blew high like it’d been bombed

and now the bare bum monkeys are bankrupt
with no workshop, and as for the geese? well…
…they now paint clay dicks to look like putin
and sell them off as souvenirs to ‘unfriendly countries’

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022