Indulging in Sloth
If nothing is sacred,
then doing absolutely nothing is the proper prayer for the iconoclast.
To just sit quietly and stare vacantly,
to hear and see everything but to listen and observe nothing:
not to talk, not to read, not to learn,
not to chant Om, for to Om is to meditate
and to meditate is to think about not thinking,
not to add two plus two or to try spelling Poughkeepsie,
and to be oblivious to the itch in your nose and certainly not to pick it
to do all this not-to-do is to do absolutely nothing.
Sloth, a syn-o-nym for indolence and devilishly easy to commit.
It’s a coward’s indulgence.
It’s the blanket pulled over your head each blue morning.
It’s the devil’s inertia.
Simply stated, sloth is the only sin committed by not committing it,
and proudly being noncommittal about committing this non committing.
I’ve committed it often, very often, very very often.
Once I faced a wall for hours imitating a paralyzed slug.
But after the nothing, after the nothing, after the interminable nothing
came the pain, the sweet pain
as I dug my anxiously bored fingernails deep into my skin.
Only the dead are masters of the art of doing absolutely nothing,
if you exclude rotting.
Eight Count
The seven deadly ones alone won’t get you there.
Sloth?
After a lifetime on your butt why get up and move, even if it is all downhill?
Gluttony?
The starving pray just to have this sin to commit.
Greed?
That’s merely gluttony without needing the bathroom.
Lust?
Not really a sin, but a lack of the virtues temperance and patience.
Pride?
About what, you’re going to hell.
Envy?
Of whom, so is everyone else.
Wrath?
Now there’s a paradox.
According to the good book the one upstairs is often full of it,
so if you go, he goes.
And the Lord of the Flies doesn’t need another lord crowding his personal space.
Obviously an eighth one is needed.
Pandora committed it and so did Eve.
It’s the deadliest one of all,
makes you perpetually restless and unfulfilled.
Curiosity is an eight-pronged pitchfork
poking us sinners with an eternity of what-ifs and whys.
Incarnations
Siddhartha’s nostrils were assaulted
while Yahweh beamed in beatific bliss
at the rising smell of burnt meat.
Yahweh fanned the flames
and Abel’s smoke wafted heavenward.
But Siddhartha looked to Cain for hope
while Yahweh thundered against vegetable ash on his plate.
Yahweh sent forth another wind that blew Cain’s smoke back to earth,
while the heaven-high fumes of Abel’s burnt lambs
watered Yahweh’s mouth but brought tears to Siddhartha’s eyes.
Siddhartha extended his hand to soothe Cain’s jealous heart,
but Yahweh brushed it aside.
For this land was Yahweh’s and Yahweh’s alone.
Let Siddhartha become the Buddha in his own world.
Then when Siddhartha saw Cain wield his bloody stone,
the Buddha retreated to the East to find truer believers.
The sweet fragrance of the blood offering quickly turned foul
when it was the stench of Abel’s blood troubling Yahweh’s nose,
and not the sweet scent of lamb’s blood
sating the nostrils of this one-and-only god.
Great was Yahweh’s fury and loud was His thunder.
He seared the mark on Cain,
that brother who dared sacrifice blood to his own jealous demons
rather than to the jealous God.
Tenth Circle
Far better the devil than a snoring god.
Better to be whipped daily than totally ignored.
The blacklist is better than no list at all.
A sheep struggles to weave itself into the herd,
to become just one of the woolen threads carpeting the pasture.
But we’re not sheep.
So some of us dare to pray for wolves,
anything to be picked from the crowd
singled out and pursued,
to be desired, to be stalked, to be noticed,
instead of just enduring a plebian life
of blending in with the herd grazing only in peaceful pastures.
But for those who betrayed friendship for fame,
hell has a tenth circle,
a reception room for those wannabe VIPs,
where cold indifference is the cruelest thumbscrew,
where the master torturer eagerly awaits,
to do nothing, an absolute zero of nothing,
except to bark the roll call
as the damned just sit there waiting, waiting,
for their grand debut.
Fiery hell, icy hell,
where names from every alphabet are soon called,
except the names of those impatient glory hounds.
The others enter while they wait forgotten,
for their names will never honor the Devil’s welcome list.
Hell is already too full with names like Quisling, Brutus, Judas.
The Missionary’s Contract
Is it legal, this contract?
The blood ink, quality parchment, a proper wax seal,
cloven hooves and pitchfork, clerical collar and crucifix,
both parties in customary business attire,
all the accouterments of a hellish deal present,
but with no lightning and thunder from above
just disillusioning silence.
Money, women, rock star fame
not even offered, an obvious insult.
But there is a dirt-poor child with a fever above 105,
and for this singular child
the man of God invokes desperate prayers
and holds her upright just to let her breathe.
Desperate prayers are sometimes answered.
The supreme hustler knows when a customer can be tempted.
So a cure is hawked offer, acceptance, consideration, contract.
Is it legal, this contract,
a man of God’s eternal life for a child’s mortal one?
For what is legal must be enforced,
and demon sheriffs haunt deadbeats for payment
in accordance with the dictates of the silent one above,
who first chiseled the law into stone.
And the missionary knows the law
and how much he’s sacrificed upholding it
to help, to guide, to lead the wretched
and he takes pride, such pride in his sacrifice.
