What’s this? Am I in what they call a life?
Are we in France or in Nineveh?
A one-armed man with pregnant wife
Just walked into the cinema.
The angels give me lyres to play,
My world’s pellucid, clear as glass;
And, meanwhile, this guy gapes away,
While Charlie Chaplin shows his ass.
How come this twerp with ravaged sleeve,
A man of peace, of no small charm,
Can trudge so calmly, unaggrieved
Through worlds that take away an arm?
This can’t be here; it’s Nineveh,
Is what I think when with his wife
The unarmed leaves the cinema,
And heads for home to live his life.
That’s when I shriek, my molars gnash,
I take my leather belt in hand,
My angels’ backs I whip and lash;
My angels scatter, then disband,
Fly high into the city skies.
Reminds me of the way spooked doves,
On St. Mark’s Square did flutter-flies
Beneath the feet of my best love.
Then graciously I doffed my hat
And walked up to the unarmed man;
First touched his sleeve, tried brief chitchat,
Then made this speech in trite deadpan:
“Pardon, monsieur, when I’m in hell,
For my disgusting sins requited,
While you, with spouse, in heaven dwell,
(‘Tis true, my life is sore benighted),
“You’ll be aloft, immured in grace,
An eye trained on the sins below,
With no vexations, not a trace,
Your white wings wreathed in hallowed glow,
“Then from your perch on cloudlet blest
Please throw me down a feather light;
Or, soothing to my scorched, burnt breast,
Let one small snowflake land, alight.”
The man with one arm looked at me,
A grin upon his phizog soft,
Departed then his wife and he;
His derby hat he left undoffed.