So nice to see a fellow child survive
The range of impish grins that I recall
Now ruck necked, fleshy, bellied
Bristly gray, their handsome sons and daughters
Grand-babes seize my eye. The sermon
Has a quality of place, a place that System
Unrelenting mocks—from quaint, to cult,
To butt of jests elite: “Subvert those
Rubes to 50 Shades of Gray!”
In the decades since
I preached there as a teen (many say
The best youth sermon they recall)
The calling never lessened to repair
And release my inner Savonarola
To the task, to chivvy more than platitudes
For war, and wreak the lesson System
So deserved. But for that, alas, the preacher
Disagreed, “Vengeance is the opposite of grace.”
Said he: “Pray for Harvey Weinstein.”
Or so forth and so on and so
I sloughed my cowl for secular attire,
And made a Trojan voice to infiltrate
To give as good, or better, than I got
And inflict a verse effective with surprise:
“Beauty,” I proclaimed, “is all–
Now burn you motherfucker to the ground!”
Baptist Church Homecoming
