Author Information
At Rome, In The Early Reign Of Nero
[For Deborah, of Fresno; nearly possessed; Saturday evening, September 19, 2015]
Some of these local venders have professed
their so-called saving faith in some dead Jew.
And when I heard such travesties expressed,
as if they were self-proven facts, I flew
into a rage with hot profanity.
I had the right and used it blatantly.
Silent terror---part of customer service---
compelled their listening (though very nervous).
I strutted forth my fierce indignity
and dared them all to turn their backs on me---
on pain of seizure into slavery.
On learning my physician, Luke, was one
of them who thought a dead man was the son
of some god, I dismissed him from my care
and sought one less misled to better cope
with this enormous bulb beneath my ear.
It tilts my head sideways, and makes my eyes
bulge from their sockets like a bloated fly's.
More than mere inconvenience, I must bear
the symptoms now suggest malignancy,
nor can it be removed by surgery.
My swift decline feels like a downward slope.
I shall not be, all that much longer, here.
Those Christians I abused have prayed for me.
I spit upon their hollow charity.
Fully I know who and what I have been.
I hate---despise---and curse those born again.
Starward
[jlc]
