The God of Melancholy: A Religious Treatise

     A young man walked into a prayer meeting last evening in a black South Carolina church. He sat down next to the preacher for an hour then rose, pulled out a gun, shot the pastor and eight other people dead, and walked out. How much more proof does anyone need that this is the only “god” there is? --

 

THE GOD OF MELANCHOLY: A RELIGIOUS TREATISE

By Lewis Turco

...he is a rammy, fulsome fellow, a goblin-faced fellow, he smells, he stinks, he belches onion and garlic, how like a dizzard, a fool, an ass he looks, how like a clown he behaves himself! — Burton.

 

       His feet point inward at

90º angles.  The world spins

       between His big toes.  He squats

above it all so that the tallest peaks

       just barely miss His ass-

 

       hole.  He waits.  That's His job,

partly — waiting.  And while He waits, things

       get better between His thick

toenails, perhaps.  The President goes to

       China; Muhammad goes

 

       to the mountain, conquers

the ultimate crag, never even

       glimpses a hemorrhoid; Dick

puts it to Jane: His wife doesn't suspect

       a thing.  But at last it's

 

       time.  Deep in His bowels,

Melanchole senses the thin movement

       of gas.  There is a small cramp

beneath His duodenum.  A tremor

       passes along the San

 

       Andreas Fault.  Pressures

build.  It is time: There is Agony

       in the Cosmic Expression.

Slowly, our nostrils in the blithe air, we

       begin to understand

 

       the essence of sulphur,

the quintessence of hopes digested.

       Along our valleys, brown fog

seeps out of the hills.  China gags, believes

       it is the President's

 

western odor.  Boulders

dump Muhamnmad, and Dick's wife finds out.

       Were we not blinded, we would

understand Joy; were we without noses,

       we would serve no Purpose;

 

       could we but see beyond

our noses, we would relish delight

       between the toes, under His

cheek — for our Keeper is smiling; nay, He

       is laughing in Relief!

 

            From Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, Scottsdale, AZ: www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007. ISBN 978-1-932842-19-7, cloth; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, paper. Also available in a Kindle edition. 

 

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