Belial
It is what it is, and we’ve got to do
what we’ve got to do. Heaven, we were taught
to chant, is a kingdom where God’s will rules
and we want it done here too. Nice to say so,
though who believes so? Since we ourselves
are hell, shouldn’t we to our own selves be true
and celebrate our nature in nature
by roaring through neighborhoods of the timid
on loud motorcycles, arms drooping upward
toward heaven, idling in ominous cackle
before churches, perhaps drowning a sermon
that justifies the flaying of Hypatia
or describes heaven as Las Vegas wrought
all in glaring gold? Once, I, you, all of us,
in fact, screamed so loud for ice cream
in the backseat riding home from church,
our wish was granted, yet weren’t we whipped
for dripping absolute goodness
on our best clothes and denied our cherished hour
to watch gray cowboys kill gray Indians
on a gray screen? So much for your free grace.
For heaven is right here, my friend,
and right over there, my friend, if only
we could see it. But no—to shift just that jot
would be to batter through adamantine
walls of fear only to diffuse in a chaos
of endless nothing. Like the famous slow-
boiled frog, only by increments can we
finally frolic in the seething misery
of this life. But better yet, let us just chant it,
for is it not thoughtless prating that weaves
the threads of habit? Even better, let us
be misery itself, thundering city streets
in the name of charity, like furious angels,
fulfilling a brute will ordained for us.
what we’ve got to do. Heaven, we were taught
to chant, is a kingdom where God’s will rules
and we want it done here too. Nice to say so,
though who believes so? Since we ourselves
are hell, shouldn’t we to our own selves be true
and celebrate our nature in nature
by roaring through neighborhoods of the timid
on loud motorcycles, arms drooping upward
toward heaven, idling in ominous cackle
before churches, perhaps drowning a sermon
that justifies the flaying of Hypatia
or describes heaven as Las Vegas wrought
all in glaring gold? Once, I, you, all of us,
in fact, screamed so loud for ice cream
in the backseat riding home from church,
our wish was granted, yet weren’t we whipped
for dripping absolute goodness
on our best clothes and denied our cherished hour
to watch gray cowboys kill gray Indians
on a gray screen? So much for your free grace.
For heaven is right here, my friend,
and right over there, my friend, if only
we could see it. But no—to shift just that jot
would be to batter through adamantine
walls of fear only to diffuse in a chaos
of endless nothing. Like the famous slow-
boiled frog, only by increments can we
finally frolic in the seething misery
of this life. But better yet, let us just chant it,
for is it not thoughtless prating that weaves
the threads of habit? Even better, let us
be misery itself, thundering city streets
in the name of charity, like furious angels,
fulfilling a brute will ordained for us.
