Beatification: the official act of the Pope whereby
a deceased person is declared to be enjoying the happiness
of heaven, and therefore is a proper subject of religious honor
and public cult in certain places.
Let's not talk of someone's blood shed for my sins,
The bitter solace or the triumphant "I told you so"
Of a Last Judgement. Let's not talk of Jihad
Or Holy War. I don't need some downer religion.
Give me a creed that will banish my cares,
That will lighten my oppressed spirit and send me
Out of the Church in side-splitting laughter.
Let us kneel and pay grateful homage to
The Holy Trinity of Larry, Curley and Moe,
Benevolent dieties who spurn eternal punishment.
You do something stupid
Moe thunks you on the head
Or maybe slaps you silly.
Divine retribution comes via knuckle-rap,
A box to the ears or poke in the eyes.
No long range ramifications, no guilt trip;
A little pain and you've done your penance.
And such miracles! Christ's pale in comparison.
Eye pokes that never cause blindness,
Sledgehammer blows to the head that never
Fracture a skull or cause a concussion.
Talk about loaves and fishes, how about
The never ending supply of pies to be thrown.
Get thee back, Satan. Evil can be warded off
By the Curley shuffle or a well-timed "duck"
Or thwarted with a hair pull or a conk on the head.
The patron Saints of knuckleheads
Nitwits and numbskulls,
These are dieties who failure never daunts,
Resilient as a pair of suspenders,
Able to bounce back from adversity
Higher than a rubber ball.
All hail these princely puncturers of pomposity.
Let us build them a cathedral of Silly Putty.
Let us glorify their names with the sacred snicker
"Nyuk" Nyuk" Nyuk" Nyuk" Nyuk" "Nyuk."
Sing loud their praise with the holiest of chants
"WooWoo" "WooWoo" "WooWoo" "WooWoo"
Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts
Friday, May 6, 2011
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Ida Toilwueri
I leafed for my last time through the yellowed envelopes
Adorned by postage stamp visages of dead statesmen.
Familiar faces that now mock me, impudent rebukes
To my once so vivid dreams of immortality.
Seeds of ideas would drift onto the soil of my mind,
Putting down roots into my fertile imagination.
Transplanted into words though, they'd wilt and die.
Images that bloomed in my soul droop lifeless on the page.
My pile of rejection slips grew larger than I'd ever dreamed
My reputation would. This trunkful of manuscripts remains;
Brittle pressed flowers of visons that seemed to me beautiful,
That I'd nurtured and pruned in my mind until I plucked them.
A bouquet once picked, quickly dies. Petals fall from stems
And are caught by the wind, fluttering onto the frozen ground,
Or an icy editor's desk. From there they'll be swept aside,
Often unread, into neat little piles of leaves to be burned.
The grey walls of my mundane existance slowly pressed in
Upon me like the remorseless grip of a tightening vise.
All I'd gleaned from my existance was grey hair, aching bones;
The potter's field beckoning me like a hooded spectre.
The Horatio Alger creed that avers that failure
Can be overcome by dogged persistance is a lie.
Each rejection slip confirmed my worthlessness;
Another manuscript of mine had crawled home to die.
A soul bereft of pride is as ready to be toppled
As a statue of the leader whose regime's been overthrown,
As the fragile house of cards when its base is lightly nudged,
As a castle of sand at the onslaught of high tide.
Each slip hissed its message of failure, as age and despair
Hovered about me like winged demons extending their claws;
Sent by the Prince of Darkness to pull me into his pit,
I'd become ripe fruit for his minions to harvest.
This frail old woman had to finally let go of her dreams.
They've fled the grasp of my arthritic fingers, as do needles now
That I used to thread with such ease. I guess an old clothesline
Will suffice now to finish the novel that nature had begun.
That bulky trunk, with its Flying Dutchman cargo of ghost
Of penned passion that has blotted stillborn onto paper,
Squats like Satan's black dog at the foot of my bed,
A mute reminder of the failure that has hounded my life.
That trunk could perform a service for me now, though.
I pulled it over to a spot beneath a rafter,
Stepped atop it, slipped a noose around my neck
And leaped
To meet whom I hope will be a merciful God.
Adorned by postage stamp visages of dead statesmen.
Familiar faces that now mock me, impudent rebukes
To my once so vivid dreams of immortality.
Seeds of ideas would drift onto the soil of my mind,
Putting down roots into my fertile imagination.
Transplanted into words though, they'd wilt and die.
Images that bloomed in my soul droop lifeless on the page.
My pile of rejection slips grew larger than I'd ever dreamed
My reputation would. This trunkful of manuscripts remains;
Brittle pressed flowers of visons that seemed to me beautiful,
That I'd nurtured and pruned in my mind until I plucked them.
A bouquet once picked, quickly dies. Petals fall from stems
And are caught by the wind, fluttering onto the frozen ground,
Or an icy editor's desk. From there they'll be swept aside,
Often unread, into neat little piles of leaves to be burned.
The grey walls of my mundane existance slowly pressed in
Upon me like the remorseless grip of a tightening vise.
All I'd gleaned from my existance was grey hair, aching bones;
The potter's field beckoning me like a hooded spectre.
The Horatio Alger creed that avers that failure
Can be overcome by dogged persistance is a lie.
Each rejection slip confirmed my worthlessness;
Another manuscript of mine had crawled home to die.
A soul bereft of pride is as ready to be toppled
As a statue of the leader whose regime's been overthrown,
As the fragile house of cards when its base is lightly nudged,
As a castle of sand at the onslaught of high tide.
Each slip hissed its message of failure, as age and despair
Hovered about me like winged demons extending their claws;
Sent by the Prince of Darkness to pull me into his pit,
I'd become ripe fruit for his minions to harvest.
This frail old woman had to finally let go of her dreams.
They've fled the grasp of my arthritic fingers, as do needles now
That I used to thread with such ease. I guess an old clothesline
Will suffice now to finish the novel that nature had begun.
That bulky trunk, with its Flying Dutchman cargo of ghost
Of penned passion that has blotted stillborn onto paper,
Squats like Satan's black dog at the foot of my bed,
A mute reminder of the failure that has hounded my life.
That trunk could perform a service for me now, though.
I pulled it over to a spot beneath a rafter,
Stepped atop it, slipped a noose around my neck
And leaped
To meet whom I hope will be a merciful God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)