Holy Toaster

Holy Toaster

you saw the face of christ

in a piece of toast

yet you don’t own a toaster

you can’t even boil water

you have enough trouble

opening a granola bar

you aren’t the first

to have seen the face of christ

where it doesn’t belong

why was it only the face

was the piece of bread

too small to hold his entire body

was the holy toaster

limited by propriety

to specific body parts

was it the result of

ancient aliens

who after they built the pyramids

designed a toaster

specifically to replicated

the face of christ in toast

a pleasant enough face

that seems rather caucasian

for an ancient alien

This is a fun, almost silly, piece ripped from the headlines – based on a true incident! You can now buy a toaster that will singe the face of christ, or the virgin mary, or even the name of your diner into every piece of toast. Apparitions of icons have now become kitsch icons. This hasn’t stopped stories of these sacred faces appearing in unexpected places & those places, for a time, becoming shrines.

It was a simple leap from the sacred toast to aliens. I’ve seen a few TV documentaries that prove, by reinterpreting ancient texts, cave drawings, hieroglyphics, that we were visited by advanced civilizations. Yes, there is one in which Jesus was a spaceman. In the typical modernist mind if we can’t do it, clearly those backward civilizations in Egypt or Peru clearly lacked the ability to build pyramids, construct stone cities in the Andes. Aliens with levitation devices did it.

The people who testify to the veracity of their insights are so invested in their truth logic doesn’t sway them. I sometimes think they are trying to convince themselves a much as anyone else. History is rarely objective – it is seen through the filter of the times of the seer. Like that face in the toast – why is it not, say, Czar Nicolas of Russia? or John Lennon? Much like our Santa Clause, the face of christ we see is one invented for commercial purposes to appeal to the middle-class Caucasian market.