Best Poems - Religion

“The devil — 

                                    blubber-lipped,

                                    asshole-hipped

                                    anus-eyed,

                                    tail-wide,                                

                                    & caprihorny,

                                    Beelzebuggering,

                                    cummingbirding,

                                    sniffing,

                                    whiff-emitting,

                                    strumpeting,

                                    fart-trumpeting

                                              through a funnel.

                                    Loving & dancing,

                                    drinking & prancing,

                                    singing & laughing,

                                    smelling & touching,

                                    eating, fucking,

                                    sleeping & sleeping,

                                    weeping & weeping.

Mandrake, mandrake,

The devil has a crooked stake.

                                    Cock-a-doodle-do!

                                    I ride and I crow,

                                    go mounted on a doe

                                    & on a porcupine,

                                    on a camel, on a lion,

                                    on a burro, on a bear,

                                    on a horse, on a hare,

                                    and on a bugler.

Cork, cork,

The devil has a small pitchfork.

                                    Love in a garden,

                                              nude … ah, summer!

                                    Garden of Delights.

                                    On one foot the appletree

                                    & on all fours the flower

                                    (And your lovers,

                                   asses bare to the wind,

                                   to perching birds, small bouquets.)

                                                            Prickster, dickster,

                                                      The devil is a trickster.

The devil jackrabbit

jackoffrabbit

packoffrabbit

fackoffrabbit,

with his satyry,

            summery,

            cuntery

              company,

jabs,

grabs,

dabs,

nabs,

stabs

With an enema.

                                   Bellies, nostrils,

                                   lizards’ tails,

                                   dolphins flying,

                                   ears impaled,

                                   eyes gape-mouthed,

                                   lost brooms,

                                   boats in dread,

                                   vomitings & wounds,

                                   the dead.

He preaches, he preaches,

The devil puts on leeches.

                                    Ladders sliding,

                                    potlids flowing,

                                    cauldrons blowing.

                                    In the lethal

                                    chamberpots,

                                    the most infernal

                                    rags, shoe-toes –

                                    sad, ultimate

                                    scarecrows.

He scythes, he scythes,

Devil cobweb harvest lives.

                                    Nightshade

                                    nightmare,

                                    dark,

                                    polluted,

                                    untransmuted

                                    fruits,

                                    tears,

                                    fear,

                                    & gnashing

                                    teeth

                                    without

                                    cease.

Uneasy painter:

your palette ascends to the skies,

but on a horn your paintbrush flies

                                    to Hell.”

“I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus
Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!”

for Leo Dangel

“The worst job I ever had was nailing

Jesus’ feet to the cross on the

assembly line at the crucifix factory.

Jesus! I’d never thought of myself

as religious before that, but when

I had to strike those nails—I figured

it up once—more than two thousand times

a day, my mind began seeing things:

little tremors along the skin, jerks of

those legs that were bonier than

models’ legs, his eyes imploring,

forgiving. I swear, if a tiny drop of blood

had oozed out of that wood at my pounding,

I wouldn’t have been surprised at all.

I was ripe for a miracle, or a vacation.

But all I got was worse: with each blow

of the hammer, I flinched, as if I

were the one getting pierced. Doing

that job day after day was bad enough,

but doing it to myself—my arms

spread out from one end of my paycheck

to the other—was crazy. I began

to sweat constantly, though the place

was air-conditioned. It wasn’t long before

the foreman took me aside and told me

I was taking my job too seriously, that

if I wanted to keep it I had better calm down.

He was right. I pulled myself together

like a man and put all pointless thoughts

out of my head. Or tried to. It wasn’t easy:

imagine Jesus after Jesus coming down

at you along that line, and you with

your hammer poised, you knowing

what you have to do to make a living.”

“Florid with flora, brighter than a prize,
Equipped with bougainvillea and cordial heat
In which the gold globes of the lovely hour
Ripen to order (twenty-four today),
Florida flashes, on the best of Fridays.

Loquat and cumquat, hibiscus, oleander,
Limeblossom; down the endless glossy groves
The Spaniard’s sweet and swollen legacy
Shines on the bough; of course the glittering palms
Sound their perpetual pour of tropic rain. 

Outside the church is shell-infested sand:
Oblong, violet, opalescent, serrated
(Not as conchologist would name them), shells
Done with the moods of moon; dry, broken,
Perfect; rolled in on the winking fringe of foam. 

Inside it smells of wood and salt (of wood
Because of unvarnished pews, wood of the Stations,
Wood of the Cross?)—and here is water too
(No wave no shell) in a glass bowl and shallow;
No movement but the fire in colored cups.

The Image is death, is still; the sea is motion.
This is not Easter; shall the image bloom?
Who shall see hunt or hunter in the water.”

                I
“The boys were sittin
In a grove of trees
Listenin to buddy
Explainin the keys.

‘Boys, I say the keys
Cause there’s lots a keys
But only one door,
One hive for the bees.

So listen to me
And I’ll try to tell all
As I heard it long ago
In the Pure Land Hall.

Life is like a dream,
You only think’s it’s real
Cause you’re born a sucker
For that kind of deal;

But if the Truth was known
You ain’t here nohow
And neither am I
Nor that cow and sow

You see across the field
One standing silently
The other rutting ragefully
In essence so quietly

For you good boys
With winesoaked teeth
That can’t understand
These words on a heath

I’ll make it simpler
Like a bottle of wine
And a good woodfire
Under the stars divine.

Now listen to me
And when you have learned
The Dharma of the Buddhas
Of old and yearned

To sit down with the truth
Under a lonesome tree
In Yuma Arizony
Or anywhere you might be

Don’t thank me for telling
What was told me,
This is the Wheel I’m turning,
This is the reason I be.

Mind is the maker
for no reason at all
Of all this creation
Created to fall…”

“Do you need an explanation
what the Russian God can be?
Here’s a rough approximation
as the thing appears to me.

God of snowstorms, God of potholes,
every wretched road you’ve trod,
coach inns, cockroach haunts, and ratholes—
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of frostbite, God of famine,
beggars, cripples by the yard,
farms with no crops to examine—
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of breasts and…all sagging,
swollen legs in bast shoes shod,
curds gone curdled, faces dragging—
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of brandy, pickle vendors,
those who pawn what serfs they’ve got,
of old women of both genders—
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of medals and of millions,
God of yard sweepers unshod,
lords in sleighs with two postilions—
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

Fools win grace, wise men be wary,
there he never spares the rod,
God of everything contrary—
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of all that gets shipped in here,
unbecoming, senseless, odd,
God of mustard on your dinner—
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.

God of foreigners, whenever
they set foot on Russian sod,
God of Germans, now and ever—
that’s him, that’s your Russian God.”