The greasy sepulcher, the filthy ankh, a crucifix dripping blood:
These are the images we hold dear?
The ones we revere?
Why not a flower or a tree? A dead rat in a sewer?
Who are these powers that be?
What, pray tell, do they want, aside from everything?
What makes icons iconic, creates an image of a middle eastern Jewish man
that resembles the Bee Gees?
Catch Sunday morning fever with the lord of the dance?
Do you see how meaningless the images are?
What happens when we finish eradicating what they represent?
About the Creator
Harper Lewis
I'm a weirdo nerd who’s extremely subversive. I like rocks, incense, and all kinds of witchy stuff. Intrusive rhyme bothers me.
I’m known as Dena Brown to the revenuers and pollsters.
MA English literature, College of Charleston
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More stories from Harper Lewis and writers in Poets and other communities.
Letter to my Daughter
You have a choice to make here: are you going to continue the cycle, or are you going to break it? Keeping your son away from me hurts him; there’s no question about that. I thought you were being hurt, and I was trying to protect you, not punish anyone when I kept your grandfather away from you. I have said that I was wrong and I am sorry, but there was never any malice involved.
By Harper LewisExclusive • 2 months ago
Comments (2)
I may be wrong but I believe we were told, by Jesus, the body and the blood were what was left for us to remember...the other images are used by the church. Props? lessons? Fear stirring? Control? I dunno
The line about the crucifix dripping blood sitting beside a dead rat in a sewer really caught me off guard—it made me uncomfortable in a way that felt intentional, like you were poking at the reflex to sanctify some images while recoiling from others that are just as honest. It got me thinking about how much of faith is inherited symbolism versus something we actually feel in our bodies, like a flower or a tree just existing without explanation. If the images fall apart, what do you think people reach for next—the meaning underneath, or just another symbol to replace it?