— to Denis Diderot
When that last king is strangled
With the guts of that last priest
Then who will stay the whip-hand?
They talked of law and love, at least
(However much they mangled
The charge left in their care)
If God’s a deaf and dumb thing
And the hungry masses, kings
Then our spires sink in quicksand
And the stupid poet sings
To tell us we are something
More than spleen and hide and hair
With the breakdown of the Medieval system, the gods of Chaos, Lunacy, and Bad Taste gained ascendancy.
Ha! I was wondering if you’d be able to find something to say besides, “Nice picture. Terrible poem.”
Actually, given your comment, and the fact that I wrote this long after the breakdown of the medieval system, I guess you said pretty much exactly that.
Tu dixisti.
Sorry, very tired.
Great stuff, Matthew. The first three lines are killer. What was the occasion?
Okay, I’ve read it over three or four times now, and I like it a lot. Extra points for rhyming “some thing” with “dumb thing”.
Hee hee! Thanks much. The occasion was feeling low and mortal, and then reading a lot of internet chatter about the wrongheadedness, the stupidity, the just obvious falseness of belief, and Christian belief in particular. Sitting in the company of scoffers, serves me right.
At least now I know why we lost a couple of Facebook fans.