Have I posted this poem yet? I'm too lazy to look, just like you're too lazy to go back and look for it.
As a younger man I was quite, what's the word? Abrasive. I enjoyed provoking people. When the Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door, and the Witnesses came around frequently back in my old California neighborhood, I would answer their questions cheerfully and truthfully. "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?" "Yes." etc. Then we'd talk about creation, and our preferred level of metaphor would diverge dramatically.
For the record, yes, I believe in god and yes, I am an atheist. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Somewhere in Heaven
Imagine when upon my sad demise,
After years of cynicism, thought wise,
I found myself in heaven among friends,
Was welcomed to a party without end.
Bright without assistance from the sun,
The temperature is always seventy-one,
No time, no space, but only here and now,
No worried minds, and no more knitted brows.
I was not like the one who had succumbed,
Looked not the aged wreck I had become,
Tattoos intact, I was to youth restored,
And reassured that I’d be never bored.
Remembered from my Bible, yes I read,
That poor guy, Lazarus, when he was dead,
Saint Peter took him to a balcony,
Where he, in hell, the rich could clearly see.
This broad veranda’s now my second home,
There’s time the rest of heaven to be shown,
I always have a cool drink in my hand,
And love to scan below perditions lands.
One day Saint Peter gave my hand a shake,
Declined a drink, said, “I’m just on a break.”
But took my earnest offer of a seat,
Said, “Freddy, we’re all friends, just call me Pete.”
Through heaven’s lens we both could plainly see,
All hell-bound souls, could find them instantly,
And Satan too could we closely observe,
He tortured those poor souls with fearsome verve.
“He must be very angry, all this time,”
But Pete just smiled, he took a different line,
“He’s not so bad a sort,” I heard him say,
“You should see his apartment, take your breath away!
There’s air-con there, and a much better view,
Than this one, here spread out in front of you,
He has the Platinum Package, big TV,
His friends go down to see him frequently.”
“I thought, the war in heaven, and that God,
You know, it hurt His feelings, took it hard.”
“No, all that stuff was over long ago,
But we’ve still got the system, don’t you know.”
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2 comments:
Fred: seem's to me that depending upon one's own definition of god (or God) and position, relative to the "broad veranda", it's possible to be a theist and an atheist at the same time. The same can be said regarding life and death: I certainly don't know what "the dead" experience. I've known a few people that claimed to have died and all of them say that they were engulfed by a bright white light at the moment that they thought they were dead. The dead might be in a state of peaceful non-existence or they might be "alive" in some other universe, happy as hell, and wishing that they would have leaped off the veranda long ago. I guess the element of uncertainty and fear of the unknown prevents most of us from taking an early plunge. Here's a scary thought: perhaps our present existence is as good as it's ever going to get.
Freddy Scott. Hey Girl. Awesome song, I know I heard it growing up. I blame you for my 'dramatic fool' side. What a hauntingly beautiful song.
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