Heavens and Earth

Chapter 49: JUDGMENT

Open in WeRead

About This Book

The collection assembles varied lyric and narrative poems that range from reworkings of classical myths to sharp urban vignettes and satirical sketches of modern life. Several longer pieces retell mythic episodes with vivid, imagistic language, while other poems observe city streets, public figures, and personal loss with concise reportage and elegiac restraint. Recurring concerns include desire, mortality, war, and social disorder, framed by a tension between heroic past and everyday present and rendered through formal experimentation and dramatic monologue.

JUDGMENT

“He’ll let us off with fifty years!” one said.
And one, “I always knew that Bible lied!”
One who was philanthropic stood aside,
Patting his snivelling virtues on the head.
“Yes, there may be some—pain,” another wheezed.
“One rending touch to fit the soul for bliss.”
“A bare formality!” one seemed to hiss.
And every one was pink and fed and pleased.

Then thunder came, and with an earthquake sound
Shook those fat corpses from their flabby languor!
The sky was furious with immortal anger,
We miserable sinners hugged the ground:
Seeing through all the torment, saying “Yes,”
God’s quiet face, serenely merciless.