Ivan Jenson - Two Poems

Last Hail Mary

I have a firm belief
that having flimsy morals
will only cause 
a person to 
fluctuate between 
saint and sinner
thus resulting 
in them only injecting 
small amounts
of the opiate 
of the steeple people
and so their faith 
will be tested
by a series of gritty 
secular sequences 
of harsh reality 
and they won’t know
what nation 
or denomination 
they belong to 
which will result in 
a bitter aftertaste 
in the afterlife 
and stained 
pearly whites
at the pearly gates 
when they half-smile
as death's dessert 
is served up  
by the ultimate 
short-order-cook guy…
and it will be
heavenly homemade 
pie in the sky  

Positively Negative 

Kind or unkind 
words
seem to be all 
I can remember 
be it the unexpected
compliment spoken
matter-of-factly 
which had
the butterfly effect 
of silencing the 
negative self-talker
that never has my back
or the cruelty 
dished out and disguised
as constructive 
criticism 
that has been 
festering inside me
pestering me to 
give up believing in
this hyper-sensitive 
and frightfully-fragile 
disorganized 
organism 
that only I 
can call
me

Ivan Jenson, a celebrated Pop artist of New York City, moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan where he experienced success as a published poet and novelist. Ivan has over 600 poems published internationally, online and in print, as well as a book of poems and four novels. Ivan Jenson’s new novel Gypsies of New Rochelle, a comic family saga circa 1980, has been published as a paperback and eBook by Michelkin Publishing.