Our tale thus far:

A Sage mysteriously appears in St. Peter's Square, Rome (ancient seat of man) and proposes that, rather than squabble eternally over whose religious belief is right (and hence all others wrong), the entire human race should run the quintessential Formula One race to determine, once and for all (having crossed the ultimate finish line) which believers shall attain to Heaven and forevermore occupy the Moral Highground.

A day is agreed upon and the masses, thronging together in St. Peter's Square, are much enlightened to see, in the lavish raiments of their most holy of holies, where have gone their "tithings and their sacrifice."

All over but the crying, the wringing of hands and the gnashing of teeth, preliminary 'heats' have whittled the contenders for the Celestial Cup down to 'Heaven's Seven': a Moslem mullah, a Christian priest, a Buddhist lama, a Hindu guru, a Jewish rabbi, a Confucian monk, and an Anglican nun. In layman's terms, six semi- and one Semite-finalist.

They're off! on the Road to Xanadu.

The monk, in seeking to court the nun, takes a fatal step, and then, just to make certain, a hundred and thirty-five more.

The sacrificial lama is led to the water.

The Camel, pushing the needle to the limit, passes through it's sigh.

The guru breaks his sacred vow, and kills the blessed sacred cow, and, eye for an Ai!, takes his life's bow.

The priest dies of a broken heart when at the schemes he comes apart.

Let us now return to our tale, in progress.

Hymn 10: The Brindled Pig

Now every head and twice the feet,
Of every soul upon the street,
Felt full the sun of Roman sky,
This mid-day Sunday, mid-July.
The laps were ten, the hours two,
’Twixt Heaven’s glory and the few;
And now the cry was: "One on one,
Between the rabbi and…the nun!"

“O Heavenly Father, hear my plea,
I pray that I may worthy be;
That I, a lowly nun, was spared,
Whilst he so holy poorly fared:
A man of peace, a moral rock,
A shepherd—fleece to all his flock;
A celibate so pure and true,
And Lord, forgive me, toothsome, too.”

“The truth is I have not the least
Sweet rabbied tooth for the deceased;
Oh, why he held aloft his cross,
Forsooth!—I’m at a total loss.
He wasn’t English, wasn’t French
—And God should sing he was a mensh?
His pagan art destroyed his car,
Whilst broke his heart, King David’s star.

“As from the oyster comes the pearl,
So fresh from cloister now this…girl,
This shiksa Queen of Sheba comes,
So like unto King Solomon,
To test my wisdom—face-to-face—
And wrest my kingdom, faith-to-faith;
But like the priest, she, too, shall part
This beastly world, with broken heart.”

So swore the rabbi, mouth afoam,
In sight no more of Beth Shalom;
Where now was settling in the street,
The Temple’s dust neath Christian feet;
And where despite the anguished pall,
As if it were their Wailing Wall,
Stood eight old Jews all hacking phlegm,
They ate cold in Jerusalem.

The nun more felt than heard the cries,
More felt than saw through teary eyes,
The full lament of Christly grief
In life would never find relief.
And thus her saintly heart sore bled,
Without restraint more tears she shed,
So past ‘The Wall,’ this ‘House of Peace,’
Her speed did all the more increase.

“Dear God, what makes a Jew a Jew?
What makes a Christian through and through?
Why must all earthly brothers cry,
'God, there, but for thy grace, go I?'
Why must our sinful hearts contend,
To win thy love to ALL thou send?
And God, what lust do I pursue
That I must overtake…this Jew?”

“A kosher ball of mucilage,
Oh, may it fall upon the Sage!
My foot in pain cleaves to the floor,
And yet the nun gains more, now more.
Myself, my faith, my synagogue,
A wealth coughed up to buy this hog,
This Lamborghini—what a joke!
Houdini, on this dish, would choke.

“Unto the Sage a river poured;
Now I, chopped liver, can afford?
('If greed tempts thee to trim expense,
Thou hast contempt for consequence.
Spend thy lucre!—Horde it not,
Lest Lucifer shouldst burn the lot!')
Our gold, our silver—all is lost!
Gone up in smoke, that is, exhaust.

“Now through this haze so blue and hot,
She comes—the POOREST of the lot.
How, Lord, can this poor, pensive nun,
Afford the MOST EXPENSIVE one?
(The Sage warm-clasped her trembling hand)
Dear God!—at last I understand!
Make my life’s wage one dwindled fig,
But paint the Sage…a brindled pig!”

To swell the kosher Jew’s regret,
The nun drew closer, closer yet;
Till every poor and rich man’s dream,
Did lure the rabbi to blaspheme:
“O low Ferrari, Satan’s car,
May all of every Jew’s catarrh
Flow down into thy sinful path,
And drown thy wheels in Israel’s wrath!”

The more to swell this righteous tide,
To prime the well so deep inside,
Depraved with hunger’s stricter rule,
The rabbi craved his mid-day gruel.
He drew a basket to his side,
He thrust the lid and threw it wide;
For all he saw his eyes grew big:
One sad, small, dried (and lonely) fig.

No meaning could his mind construct,
As near Rome’s ancient aqueduct,
Both mind and body rashly sped,
As if from some ungodly dread.
Though flesh and soul were both now sore,
The rabbi’s hunger drove him more;
Towards his maw he thrust the fig,
And saw—“Dear God!—a brindled pig."

Atop the ancient waterway,
Sad vestige of a bygone day,
Where Jewish slaves in Christian chains,
Died young for these once-proud remains;
An old, and lonely, brindled boar,
Gazed down like stone upon the roar.
How came this beast? What to presage?
One God, one Jew alone could gauge.

The eyes of man and beast now met,
And Oh! the feast it did beget:
The rabbi, losing sense and place,
Struck thence a column full of face.
The old boar tumbled to the ground,
Whilst stones, like swords, fell all around;
A lone and sharp one struck the Jew:
His boneless part cut clean in two.

“A sense of humor has our God?
And hence makes each a little flawed?
Whilst some—the goyim—are baptized
‘The Chosen’—Oy!—are circumcised.
A rabbi of me thou hast made,
And so I’ve plied my chosen trade;
And what’s my gift, my just reward?
Once more thy swift—and terrible—sword!”

Now seven sad and lonely bells,
Struck seven only single knells.
The rabbi’s soul at last was free,
Its earthly ties of slavery.
As to its fate, the brindled boar,
Truth must relate what good men swore:
It snuffed about and found a fig,
Then wandered off…a happy pig.

But truth, if so, must also tell,
The woe befell on Israel;
On every holy grain of sand,
Of every holy Promised Land;
On each and every Pharisee,
From Rome to Sea of Gallilee,
Whose every heart shall ever be,
Sad Garden of Gethsemanee.

“O Kinder of King David’s Star,
Reb’s tender light shone from afar.
Thy rabbi prayed to be baptized,
But strayed and (sad!) was penalized.
He poorly died—oh sure because
He gave—to an unkosher cause—
His meager meal, one measly fig,
Too eagerly to some old pig.”


                                 To be continued


Our unexpurgated tale thus far:


              The Celestial Cup
                           (revel religio in 4/4 rhyme)


Prologue:

A Sage arose in modern times,
In agéd pose proposed in rhymes
That every pure religious face,
Should cease to pray, and run a race:
To settle once—and once for all—
To whom the Heavenly Gates should fall;
And end the strife that first began,
When God wrought clay—lo! wroughten man.

Hymn 1: The Sage's Address

High over Earth's blest Italian boot
Shone Heaven's eye, a golden fruit,
Warm-kissing earthen heel and toe,
The thigh above, the calf below,
Whose gilding light fair dressed each home,
Though fairest blessed of all was Rome,
Wherein lay gilt St. Peter's Square,
Where lilting bells sweet-tolled the air,
Whence, as the light, now swelled on stage,
And, as the bells, sweet-tolled … the Sage:

“O pious friends of God and man,
Pray hear a Sage's humble plan
To end the bloodshed, pain and grief ,
That's dealt—and felt!—for thy belief:
Do let us sport instead of fight,
To sort out who is wrong or right;
The victors shall in Heaven dwell,
And all the rest…well, who can tell?

“Pray, let us make divine the rules,
That doth define the Sage from fools:
In truth it would be sense gone wild,
To have each woman, man, and child,
With teary eyes to Heaven cast,
Beseech the skies their faith be fast;
Then don a number (their's to choose)
And pray to God! that they not lose.

“No, let each faith, religion, creed
Mount their most holy on a steed;
But not the equine beast—perforce,
A faster, far more stable horse:
A thoroughbred in all respects,
Yet free of Dobbin's speed defects;
A low-slung beast 'twould scorn his pace:
An Indy CHARGER—born to RACE!

“But friends, alas, man's many creeds,
Do far surpass all worthy steeds.
If thou art pure and wouldst take part,
But thou art poor, pray now take heart:
If faith but lira thou hast not,
With one who does, pray cast thy lot;
Pray in these hands (put by your fear),
Place your one soul, and let THEM steer.

“And if, in course, thy steed shouldst fall,
Endorse another therewithal;
For in the end the only sin
Faith can't defend is NOT TO WIN.
Yea, bless thy dead creed with a prayer,
And leave the dead steed lying there;
Then fast! another mount embrace,
And count thyself in 'Heaven's Race.'

“Pray, holies, sell thy churches, land,
Upswell thy wealth into thy hand!
If greed tempts thee to trim expense,
Thou hast contempt for consequence.
SPEND thy lucre!—horde it not,
Lest Lucifer shouldst burn the lot.
If thou be nervous (fear hits hard),
Well, I've a service … here's my card.

“If thou a Maserati choose,
Slim be the chance that thou shalt lose;
A Lamborghini, less now yet
Ferrari, surely thy best bet.
No matter that it cost the moon,
A crew must keep thy beast in tune.
My stable is at thy command;
If able, grace a Sage's hand,

“For I'll a Golden Cup award
—At my expense!—as thy reward,
In honor of thy faith, and speed
If thou wilt but my counsel heed.
A million then (wouldst thou agree?)
Is but a paltry entry fee,
For thou, with God, to ever sup,
Drink afterlife from thy sweet cup.

“For this 'Celestial Motorfest,'
Let each knight don his Sunday best.
Dispense with helmets, suits, and gloves,
That He may bless whose dress He loves.
Let safety be not thy concern,
His hand shall guide thee through each turn.
Eternity's a damnéd spell,
To dwell in Heaven—and look like Hell!

“Fair Vatican City's hallowed gate,
Shall be the gap that seals thy fate;
Those sacred portals so divine,
Shall be thy start—and finish—line.
Make fly! the Pope's own sacred dust,
To ply those ancient streets august,
Of man's 'Eternal City' home
(Ever the world's belovéd), Rome.

“As fast thou quit St. Peter's square,
Spit out thy utmost earnest prayer,
And o'er swift Tiber make thy cross
In haste! lest time shouldst be thy loss.
Where Romulus and Remus snore,
There seven hills await thy roar;
In seven hours—for Heaven's sake—
Must seven laps times seven make.

“I pray thee then to fix thy course,
And from thy steed coax one last horse;
Though hearts of steel cry out in pain,
Spur on thy beasts!—and give them rein!
Shouldst rivals seek to past thee glide,
May thine own conscience be thy guide;
As He dost judge thee from above,
Let thy lone rule be: Brotherly Love.

“Who crosses first wins Cup of Gold
And he and his shall Heaven behold;
Thy faith engraved in bas relief :
The 'Sole Official Blest Belief.'
But should no Holy cross the line
Within the fair alotted time,
The Cup shall e'er with me reside,
And I thy troubled souls shall guide.”


Hymn 2: The Glory That Was Rome

O Rome, thou can't escape thy past,
When gladiators gaped their last;
When lion hearts on Christians fed,
Thou it was pronouncéd dead.
How paltry seems thy Colosseum,
When all thy streets cry Mausoleum!
Soon Jews and Muslims-all-shall roar,
And lying hearts shall dine once more.


Disputed long, agreed upon,
It came to pass, the day did dawn:
A Sunday morning, mid-July
(At seven bells the dust shall fly!)
Already in St.Peter's Square
A din and clamor pierced the air.
The Sage, as light infused the east,
Gazed down and mused upon the feast:

Oh, such a godly fine array,
Shone on the Sage that fateful day,
As never before the Earth did grace,
In harmony of time and place.
The masses who had suffered lent ,
Now suffered more for how was spent,
Their tithings and their sacrifice,
Over writhing sins and wracking vice:

Plush habits, cloaks of virgin wool,
Alpaca caftans, flowing, full;
Spun-silver slippers, chamois gloves,
Kid leather sandals soft as doves;
Sleek satin tunics, capes divine,
High velvet fezzes, gold and wine;
Oy! yarmulkes of coal-black silk,
Midst turbans white and smooth as milk;

Fine linen hankies ruffed with lace
In cambric pockets, sleeves to grace
Chemises, robes of such damask
The very saints would blush to ask.
The Sage's eyes appraised the throng,
A twinkle glistening there erelong,
For brightest gear could not erase,
The righteous fear on every face.

Yet…

Of all God's high priests good and fair,
Not one exalted head shone there:
Each high and pious, saintly mind,
“For reasons here set forth…” declined;
Then each devout, most reverend face,
A minion posted in his place;
Yea, every blessed, holy nose,
A designated driver chose.


Hymn 3: Heaven's Seven

And thus that morn it came to pass:
Amidst the pious, wailing mass,
Sat seven hopes and seven dreams,
In seven holy time machines;
For yestermorn, in seven heats,
Full seven more lost seven seats;
The Sage now, 'fore all Hell was loosed,
The 'Heaven's Seven' introduced:

“A Moslem mullah from the east;
From West Berlin, a Christian priest;
A Buddhist lama from Tibet;
A Hindu guru—Bombay's pet;
A Jewish rabbi north of Liszt;
A South Chinese Confucianist
—A monk who, yes, begat a son…
But I digress—the seventh one!”

Such frigid protest then arose
As might a lesser's wits have froze;
Through wisdom's grace the Sage kept cool:
“Pray, friends—embrace the Golden Rule!
Has mankind truly come this far ,
To grouse about who drives the car?
Old habits we must shed—and shun.
Behold! God's blesséd Anglican!”

Oh! such a saintly pretty thing,
She, pity, from all hearts did wring;
Such, vestal virgins pure would fight,
To wrest from her her habits white.
The mullah and the guru both,
Swore inwardly to her betroth;
Whilst celibates (sigh!) waxed full loath,
To think they'd sworn such curséd oath!)

The Sage warm-clasped her trembling hand,
Whilst rapt, as one, the masses scanned
(That face—a saint!), and drew a sigh,
For seven bells were queuing nigh.
Although the Sage officially
Forswore impartiality,
Shone from his dais in the sun,
The Sage's bias for…the nun.

As Moses did the Red Sea part,
The Sage, with mass, reprised the art:
A path before them opened wide
—Oh! for her beauty how they cried!
(How sad that Chastity divine!
Has graced this beastly starting line;
And disappeared with step so light,
Into her low Ferrari's might).

Who knows what seven hearts did feel,
As seven bells began to peal?
The Sage with flag and Cup in hand,
Pronounced his most profound command:
“O drivers, thou so pure of heart,
I pray thee now thy engines start
—And may they never cease to roar,
Till thou the Tiber cross once more!

“Thy steed is chomping at the bit,
Pray heed—thine every faith commit;
To heart take this Sage caveat:
Nay! slacken not thy pace for that
On wings of prayer thy Pegasus
Fly! thee to St. Pete's terminus
FIRST—pray nor speed nor spirit leaven
That THOU might rise to Seventh Heaven.”


Hymn 4: The Road to Xanadu

Such discord never before heard Rome,
As echoed from St. Peter's dome,
That God Himself might well despair
To hear the bells (much less a prayer).
As engines screamed and faithful cried,
He might have deemed the Pope had died;
Thus louder prayed each soul its cease
Would bring them everlasting peace.

“Drivers, thou shalt hit the streets,
In order same thou won thy heats.
From moment that thou cross the line,
Full seven hours elapsed are thine.
True, Rome was not built in a day,
But let not that be thy cliché.
To do in Rome, as Romans do,
Thou wouldst of this most surely rue!

“Devout, thou'st come from near and far,
To bless and cheer thy faith and car.
The path to glory is just that:
A winding course that's seldom flat.
Yea, all roads lead to Rome, it's true,
But only one to Xanadu.
Behold! the blest Celestial Cup.
May God smile down—as "MINE!" speeds up!”

With flourished waving of the flag,
Each raving beast lept like a stag;
At once both prey and hunter too,
All seven from St. Peter's flew:
The priest was first across the line,
His Porsche's curse a shrieking whine;
Four Goodyear's cried for earthly tie,
As o'er swift Tiber all did fly.

The guru hugged the priest's rear end,
In smug belief that he'd transcend;
His Aston-Martin (2) was proud,
And hummed its Vishnu mantra-loud.
The mullah was no less devout,
As Allah akbar! thrice rang out;
His Maserati never ceased,
To 'fast' whenever headed east.

The rabbi, strictly orthodox,
His faith—Oy vay!—would stop the clocks;
His Lamborghini (Talmud's rule)
Ran fourth—and lean—on kosher fuel.
In fifth the monk disdained to look,
To quote his Master from 'The Book':
“Confucius say: A monk must sow,
To reap an Alfa Romeo!”

The lama spake enlightened sense
(His car ran sixth, his karma hence):
“In darkness though its root's begun,
The Lotus blossoms in the sun.”
“Fair Virtue's battle's never lost
Till she, the Rubicon, hath crossed.”
An inner peace already won,
In seventh heaven sped the nun.


Hymn 5: Romeo, O Romeo!

On every crack, on every stone,
Of every street stood every bone,
Of every wretch and every wraith,
Of every church and every faith.
On every stoop, on every sill,
Of every house on every hill,
Watched every eye of every face,
For every sign of 'Heaven's Race.'

Oh, how the vias, corsos rang,
As holy torsos over them sprang,
In chariots whose deafening keen,
Screamed out of horses never seen.
And every tongue from every place
Cried every prayer of every race,
And every curse in every head,
And every oath that ever was said.

Thus through the plazas, fountains 'round,
Over papal tombs and sacred ground;
Astride the ruins of ancient homes,
'Top temples, forums, palace domes;
Past stadiums of loud repute,
By marble statues: crumbling, mute;
Amidst the hills where wolves once played,
'The Seven' set their wills … and prayed.

Lap three of forty-nine now done,
The Holy Shrine so moved the nun,
That she, the Sistine Chapel, passed,
With blesséd full Ferrari's blast.
The ardent monk, bemused and slow,
Bethought HIMSELF the Romeo;
And when the nun was full abreast,
The amorous monk, her heart addressed:

“Confucius say: 'A woman's heart,
Must love in life 'fore youth does part;
Soon Beauty's gentlest bloom is lost
To Time's relentless, chilling frost.'
Confucius say: 'To love is Life;
To love is to become a wife;
To be a wife and love a man,
Is loving God's—and Nature's—plan.'"

“Dear Lord, forsake my earthly pride,
That takes me on this sinful ride;
Where weep these highborn Roman streets,
So deeply worn with Man's conceits.
Now drunk upon Confucian lore,
A lovesick monk wears them the more.
I pray, O Lord, he be excused.
Forgive him, Lord…he's just confused.”

Thus Passion's arrows missed her heart,
She, past the monk, was quick to dart.
In dudgeon for her righteous nerve,
He nudged the gas to spite her verve;
“Confucius say: 'O Romeo,
A woman's “yes” is often “no”;
If love you seek—pray, never forget:
Love speaks with God's own ALFA—bet! '

“Confucius say: 'A man must be,
Religious in his chivalry;
And nothing makes a courtly man,
Like practise, and more practise, can.
Love's labour's like' (and here he smiles)
'A journey of ten thousand miles:
Although it takes a lover's pep,
The aches begin—with the FIRST step.'”

And what a thundering step they chose,
These two sad blundering Romeos;
And then another, then a score,
And then a hundred-fourteen more.
Down the ages, down the depths,
In fiery stages took their steps;
Where Keats the poet breathed his last,
Love's journey ended…with a blast.

“Confucius say: 'Before Love dies
Each lover sees before his eyes
Each name that did his heart console,
Each flame that warmed his very soul.'
Oh, I see three, and now a score
And now a hundred-thirteen more!
Though down I crash into the fire,
Love's passions lift me higher, HIGH-!”

As hush fell over St. Peter's Square,
The sage wore his most solemn air:
“O Lord, dear friends, so sad my heart!
So PURE thy servant didst depart.
His chaste soul vanished—to the depths!
In tumbling down the Spanish Steps.
Oh, praise his piety in thy prayers,
Who died for thee on Spanish stairs!”


Hymn 6: The Lamb of God

The lama who’d himself advanced,
Was astral travelling, well entranced;
Though no ‘Grand Lama,’ he ran hot
A ‘Dally’ Lama he was not.
Upon a hill the monk he’d passed,
But still, though fifth, was second last.
The seventh lap now just begun,
The lama rapped most everyone:

“O Buddha, I am from Tibet,
Or from Siam…I quite forget;
I must be in some mystic funk,
Or, Lord, in love—just like the monk.
And love is like the lotus flower
When much of either we devour:
The lotus fruit fair makes us sleep,
The fruit of love fair makes us weep.

“Although this Lotus makes me ache,
Pray notice, Lord—I’m wide awake!
But of this fruit that makes one cry,
Sometimes, Dear Buddha, I could die!
How can a rabbi—God!—from Liszt,
Know love from broad old yentas kissed?
What fires shall there his mettle try,
When gray mares in his shtetl lie?

“That celibate, self-righteous priest
—What knows this wit of passion’s feast?
A frozen heart, a rigid head
—Such frigid parts can’t warm his bed!
Where blow the hot Sahara sands,
There go for naught fair Love’s commands;
Thus ’neath burnous and turbaned skull,
The mullah’s juice lies cool … and dull.

“The guru’s soft, for lack of meat,
His point of view thus lacking heat;
What cow would sport a flaccid bull,
That seeks to court—a vegetable?
For all his trite Confucian quotes,
His Lilliputian anecdotes,
Gautama Buddha, Lord Above!
What can a dead monk know of love?

“And yet, these thoughts now said and done,
I count it not against the nun.
Dear Lord, her vow I’d gladly breach,
Her, habits now, I’d love to teach!”
With these few love-knots off his chest,
The lama laid his thoughts to rest;
Unravelling then as oft before,
Went astral travelling yet once more.

With blast to stir Rome’s stately hall,
Now past the Palace Quirinal;
Where popes, kings, crimes and presidents,
All in their times were residents;
Both nun and lama quickly hied,
Flashed through the plaza, pink and wide;
Two hearts, as one, now beat so close,
The nun, in heat, became verbose:

“My Lord, the lama’s thoughts are crude
—Gautama’s lips were not so rude!
The late, dear Buddha’s sweet young lamb,
Has grown, I fear, into a ram!
Who seeks to pull, with clever lies,
His reeking wool over all our eyes;
So Lord, I must—for Heaven’s sake—
His beastly lust now overtake!”

When he divined she sought to pass,
He thought to smite her saintly brass;
Thus as she loomed up on his left,
His Lotus bloomed, so swift and deft:
He veered in front and stave the brake,
But Oh! (Dear Buddha!)—grave mistake!
The Lotus, slipping, set a trend,
Of deadly flipping, end for end.

“As snow doth on the mountains fall,
So coins unto the fountain’s call.
Thus Man will dream and Man will dare,
For no more reason than they’re there.
In water born does lotus rise,
In water lives, in water…diiiies—!”
The lama did no more expound,
For, like the Lotus, he was drowned.

“O Brothers, Sisters, welladay!
That we shouldst live to see this day.
Our Lamb of God, our lama—Christ!
To save the nun he sacrificed
Himself—the pride of all Tibet;
In Trevi Fountain, died—all wet!
But he’ll return to Rome—a Saint,
Whilst I, a sage, though worthy, mayn’t.”


Hymn 7: The Camel's Tale

As if all Heaven’s clappers sang,
All seven bells in clangor rang.
In first still, by a second’s gap,
The priest streaked forth, on his ninth lap.
“God, east is east and west is west;
Your Holy Grace knows which is best.
Oh, may it never be my disgrace
That Thou should kiss this…camel’s face!”

In second place and top gear now,
The mullah made a solemn vow:
“If I don’t smear this infidel,
’Fore I hear one more curséd bell,
May Allah strike dead Abou Addam
Al-Farouk-El-Sheik-Ben-Saddam.”
‘The Camel’ stopped to spell his breath,
And thought he caught the smell of death.

And if he’d known that fateful morn,
The oath the priest himself had sworn
(“I’ll lead him such a Roman chase,
I’ll blow the beard clean off his face;
And If I let this Camel by
—May God Himself spit in my eye!”)
He would have prayed or rushed to plead,
That Allah pay his little heed.

The mullah’d passed the guru great,
Who’d paused in pits to meditate:
“Enlightenment of flesh and mind,
Does man refresh and make refined;
But too much drink unnerves his bliss,
And only serves to make him miss
The joys of life when less is mor—”
His noise cut short by Aston’s roar.

As if he’d read the guru’s mind,
The mullah to himself opined:
“We Bedouins do not imbibe,
For we’re a pure and righteous tribe;
And all our tribe (I am a prince)
Has roamed the desert dunes now since
Before it was the Holy Land;
Just shifting, burning grains of sand.

“They call me ‘Camel’—from the east—
A dirty, ugly, smelly beast;
As one they jump upon my back,
Where BOTH my humps they soon attack.
Contrary to the camel’s son,
A dromedary’s bumps are one;
But wealthy mullahs have a stack:
Yes, lumps of moolah’s what we pack!”

The priest, ’fore burned the starting line,
His holy water turned to wine;
Which downing of it caused a flap,
But upped his speed—with every lap!
“Though ever faster times I log,
I cannot shake this desert dog:
Amir Hyena from the east,
And I a HIGH—and western—priest!”

The Pantheon now flashed on by,
Yet faster, FASTER he would fly;
The Roman Forum but a blur,
As Porsche’s pulse did louder purr;
Then paled the ghost on Caesar’s throne,
As purr was pushed into a drone;
Till neath the Arch of Constantine,
The drone (like water) turned—to whine!

The memory of the mullah’s oath,
Swelled neath his turban like a growth.
The ninefold hour was near—alas!—
But still the priest he could not pass.
“The bells! the BELLS! as nine comes round,
Hell’s strident bells shall nine times sound,
O God, the death! of Abou Addam
Al-Farouk-EI-Sheik-Ben-Saddam.

“—But wait! a graveyard lies ahead,
Where lie the bones of Christian dead.
If over their coffins I should speed,
Why, who’s to scoff—or even heed?
Does Allah care if I besmirch
The Holy Roman Catholic Church?
Did not the sage say, ‘…push come shove,
Let thy lone rule be other than love’?

“Soon ’round the cemetery’s end,
The road there takes a tight, full bend;
The priest must slack his frightful speed,
And I shall do my rightful deed.
So what though infidels all talk?
By Hell’s own rule I’ll save—a block!
Mine eyes on Mecca’s gold will feast
—BEHIND me I’ll behold … the priest!”

Just as the mullah had ordained,
The cemetery he profaned;
Crashed through the gates with hellish zeal,
As seven bells began to peal.
Flowers, headstones, mourners too,
Were scattered—shattered—as he flew.
“O Allah, if thou caring be,
Pray, strike my VOW—instead of me!”

The mullah lost his fervent grip,
The first ungodly, fiery flip;
When seven more the road brought nigh,
The laughing priest went roaring by;
The Lamborghini, charred, grotesque,
In ninth and final arabesque,
Flipped high atop a rich man’s tomb,
And burned the lips which spake of doom:

“A camel, if the deed will try,
May well pass through a needle’s eye,
Before a rich man Heaven sees
—Though he wear out a thousand knees!
But if, as well, the camel’s rich,
He’ll go to Hell—without a stitch!
How sad—and poor!—is Abou Addam
Al-Farouk-El-Sheik-Ben-Sa—DAMN!”

How all Islam shrieked in prayer,
And plucked their eyes, and tore their hair,
And screeched their every epithet,
From every mosque and minaret;
With lamentations, loud and long,
Flayed every ear of crowd and throng;
Then every muslim gaze fell on,
The sage lips praised their fell low khan:

“Dear muslims I, too, share thy grief,
Fell tears for loss of thy sherif
—Chopped down! for so devout was he,
That thou mayst ne’er his equal see.
So powerful was Mecca’s sight,
His heart and soul BURNED with its light;
One glimpse proved such a blinding feast,
He, bowing east, bowed out—to priest!”


Hymn 8: The Sacred Cow

Fast breathing down the rabbi’s back,
Unseen beneath his gown of black,
The guru read the gory news,
Off cue cards fed him by his crews.
And since he was a man obese,
Whose mystic musings never cease,
Upon the mullah’s sad demise,
He had to thus philosophize:

“Oh, what is life and what is death,
When separates them but a breath?
The Camel’s foolish crashes must,
The mullah’s ashes, turn to dust;
And then the wind the dust shall lift,
And cause the very dust to drift;
Then drifting dust turn into Man
Who roams the shifting, burning sand.”

The heat now rising, like the sun,
With thirty-three laps left undone,
The guru’s fat commenced to sweat,
So that his Nehru, drenched and wet,
Clung to him like a second skin
—His best it was!—and such a sin:
How he was looking less than cute,
When nun acutely pressed HER suit.

Near House of Vestal Virgins now,
The nun renewed her purest vow:
“Dear God, my heart beats just for thee;
Mine eyes do only thine eyes see;
And ’neath my whitesome breast my love,
Shines all its light—for thee above;
When shall my earthly beauty die,
My heavenly soul—to thee—shall fly!”

To left, the hill of Avenine,
To right, so still, the Palatine;
By wasted Circus Maximus,
The nun and guru hasted thus:
The guru, by the nun, was chased,
Who knew not he was most unchaste:
Whilst she, in truth, the Bible read,
He, Kamasutra, took to bed.

When in the mirror, with a glance,
Her low Ferrari’s bow did dance,
He thought his mind, her heart, could bend
With one quick shift, into ‘Transcend’:
“With all the power at my command,
Within the hour I’ll win her hand;
With Kamasutra in her head,
Fair nun shall stir my wedding bed!”

O Rome, so was thy glory spent,
In days and nights so decadent;
From high upon the Palatine,
Thy nobles, drunk of Sodom’s wine,
Looked down on Nero’s Circus floor,
And cried for blood—and heroes’ gore;
Whilst in the middle, unconcerned, .
A fiddle played—whilst all Rome burned!

Now by his ancient charnel house,
A modern game of cat and mouse
—With all its strife—did now begin:
Sweet everlasting Life to win.
The nun’s Ferrari, nose to ground
(No pause) closed in with feline bound;
The guru’s Aston caught its scent,
But scarce the wit of his lament:

“O Brahma, Vishnu, woe is me!
O Shiva, Krishna—pity me!
For I’m a mouse, a trifle fat,
‘Purr’sued by this ‘Ferr’ocious cat.
A mouse though, if astute of mind,
And fat, and cute, and not too blind;
Oh, if a mouse be all of that,
Just like a flea—he’ll catch the cat!”

As head to tail they flew through Rome,
Love failed to drive its message home.
The guru’s mind, from ‘Well in Tune,’
Now shifted up into ‘Commune.’
The laps and minutes quick did fly,
But still the same thing: no reply.
Despite the risk of mental harm,
He poured on ‘Transcendental Charm’:

“Since I’m a sweet fruitarian,
I wish to meet—and marry—one.
Till now my only sacred vow
Was not to kill the sacred cow.
Fair nun, my troth I shall expand:
Within the hour I’ll win thy hand.
If not, the blest Celestial Cup,
All love, all life, I shall give up!”

His mind, now gravely losing strength,
Sought frantically the nun’s wavelength:
“O Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva—three,
O Krishna, where the deuce IS she?
Dear gods on wing, my straits are dire,
Soon ‘Ten’ shall sing Rome’s ‘Iron Choir’!
One final try…dear gods—rejoice!
I hear, I hear! the nun’s sweet voice!”

“O Lord, My God, my tears express,
My worldly sins I here confess:
So chaste, and soft, for thee am I,
My soul prays oft for me to die.
Three grey long days, from food, I fast,
Until my hunger, lewd and vast,
Depraves my faith and I must eat,
And Lord, I crave, I CRAVE—for meat!”

Oh, where the skeptics needing proof,
That God to prayer is not aloof?
No sooner ‘meat’ drooled from her tongue,
Into the street a…creature sprung
(As if to test the guru’s vow):
A blest and sacred Brahman cow.
And—oh! to make his hell more real,
All seven bells began to peal.

The nun turned red, the guru white,
He veered to left, she steered to right;
His Aston clipped the beast’s hind end
(Which act no priest or god could mend);
She missed its head by scarce an inch,
But it was dead so never a flinch.
The Aston turned its first cartwheel:
The first of ten the nun could feel.

“O Hindu gods, whence came the cow,
That caused me hence to break my vow?
Oh, what was I in other lives,
That I must die—whilst SHE survives?
O Karma, Kismet, Destiny,
O Fate, cruel Fate—why this to me?
Oh, what is death, and what is life,
When separates them naught but strife—?”

His death brought forth no single moan,
His dying breath no single groan;
In love, in life, in misery,
The guru liked warm company;
Spun flaming nine times through the crowd
(Defaming him, they wailed aloud);
Their screaming tongues, in torture swore,
Until, like he…they swore no more.

And with their passing silence fell,
As did the tongues of every bell.
Then bitterness, and woe, and grief
(For which their faith found no relief)
Unto the throng did now descend
As if death’s song would never end;
And fell again unto the sage,
Their well of sorrow to assuage:

“O hearts of light, do not despair,
Though Heaven smite thy every prayer.
Thy guru was a man of word,
Who made a vow, of which you’ve heard.
But how this beast, so young and sweet,
Came there and then into the street,
No mortal soul can dare explain,
Nor any god repair the pain.

“His saintly vow was like a prayer:
He gave his life—the cow—to spare;
And those who knew him rest assured,
He chose to die—without a word.
Upon his pyre some forty-three,
—On fire with love—performed suttee.
Sweet rack of lamb, in life obese,
In death was wrapped…in golden fleece.”


Hymn 9: The Broken Heart

Three hours had passed, four dear ones dead,
And countless more the tears they’d shed;
For four deceased left two and one:
The priest, the rabbi, and the nun.
And so their order—one-two-three
—With four more hours of agony,
And nine and forty laps to run,
Less twenty-four the three had won.

The halfway mark was near at hand,
And still the priest was in command:
“God grants dominion over the beast,
That Man upon his flesh may feast.
The question is not even moot
—The APPLE was forbidden fruit.
Because the cow he must not hurt,
The guru got his just desert!”

But let the rabbi’s yiddish tell,
That fast was blabbing midst the swell:
“They call us moneylenders—Jews!
Who profits before prophets choose;
That shekels are our fondest wish,
That stink like ten gefilte fish;
And worse, our kosher food is sham,
For that we worship Abra—ham!

“A Jew it was, the Christians say,
Did Jesus Christ betray, betray!
For thirty silver pieces fine,
Made dirty the word ‘Philistine.’
But surely any goy can see,
A true shlemiel he’d have to be;
For no Jew worthy of the name,
Would sell—so cheap!—his people’s shame.

“But I’m a lowly philologue
Who teaches at the synagogue,
Of all rabbinic laws taboos,
And countless more Thou shalt not do!s.
So what should I for money care?
Is it not written, in a prayer,
How weak is gold and silver’s worth,
When shall the meek inherit Earth!

“And God, that Hindu—what a shmuck—
To run into such beastly luck!
A shlep, a shmo, a true shlimazl,
To get himself in such a shmozzle.
He got his dues, that mystic one,
For trying to shmooze the pretty nun.
To tell the truth, it makes me laugh:
He died in youth—a fatted calf!”

When he, the Cup’s equator, crossed,
The priest sped up—lest all be lost.
The masses, piles flew quickly by
As he the laps and miles made fly.
“Oh, twenty-five, yes twenty-six
God bless my white-gold crucifix!
Now twenty-seven, twenty-eight,
Oh, closer, CLOSER Heaven’s Gate!

“And yet, for all my holy haste,
Another no less time does waste.
As sure as night does follow day,
That Semite stalks me like his prey.
For all I put my Porsche through,
The rabbi sticks—like kosher glue;
But I’ll see his black soul—in Hell—
Before shall toll ONE midday bell!”

Fair Rome, thy sun lights nothing new;
One Christian more fights one more Jew;
An act as old as day and night:
The Jews in black, the Christians white.
‘Eternal City’ that thou art,
How fitting thou shouldst break his heart;
Who seeks life everlastingly,
Yet reeks of ancient blasphemy.

Twenty-nine had come and gone,
And still the Jew (the swine!) hung on;
Then thirty passed, then thirty-one
God, something DIRTY must be done!
Beneath his miter now a vain,
And priestly fighter racked his brain;
Beneath his surplice white as sleet,
A cold, dark-purposed heart did beat.

Then seven bells, eleven times,
Rang seventy plus seven chimes;
So like some hoodoo-haunted beast,
Now FASTER flew the hunted priest.
But not to be outdone, the Jew,
Lap for his lap completed too,
Till quoth the priest with venomed breath,
“My oath, my oath is to the death!

“O Lord, on him thy vengeance wreak,
Make grim thy wrath for soon shall speak,
The Twelve Apostles of the bells,
In twelve times seven decibels.
There lies ahead a synagogue,
Where takes the road a deadman’s jog,
The sun shall near its apex be,
And he shall fear what I foresee:

“Upon this star of Zeus I’ll fix
Its light—upon my crucifix;
Reflect it back into his eyes,
Which shall his black soul mesmerize.
In simple words he’ll miss the road,
Into the temple he’ll explode;
And when this act—of God—is done,
I’ll make a fresh pact with…the nun.”

Now loomed the Temple Beth Shalom,
Where perched, foredoomed, atop its dome,
The Star of David, gold, obscene,
(Whose points the priest had not foreseen).
He held his cross up to the sun,
“And now God—let thy will be done!
What I’ve foreseen—let all behold!”
(Unseen, the first of seven tolled.)

The sun ignored his crucifix,
And poured its light on points of six;
So perfect was the priest aligned,
His vision ceased—for he was blind.
The Porsche, left without a soul,
Bereft of faith, began to roll,
Toward the star atop the dome,
Atop the Temple Beth Shalom.

“Lord, from afar it guided them,
The holy Star of Bethlehem;
Unto the infant Jesus came,
The magi to revere his name.
To David’s Star—how can it be,
That I am drawn so…magicly?
O Lord, REPROACH my wayward car
Fast dares approach this graven star!”

To end its twelfth infernal roll,
While yet the bells, the bells did toll,
The Porsche, slamming Beth Shalom,
Shook loose the Star atop the dome.
Oh, down it crashed, a golden sword,
Through Porsche’s windshield smashed and gored
The priest, his chest, in two did part:
One golden point had cleaved his heart!

How sad, O Rome, how sad thy bells,
A myriad of mournful knells.
Did ever a sound evoke more tears,
The more profound for all their fears?
And now the last, the last does cease
But shall it bring a lasting peace?
All eyes upraised unto the stage,
Where numbly praised the priest, the Sage:

“O children of a common God,
I stand before thee, humbly awed.
A mortal’s words can poor express,
What God for joy doth surely bless:
A heart so full of Mankind’s pain,
Incapable to more contain,
So burst its seams, its priestly love,
Flew up to star, with him, above.”


Hymn 10: The Brindled Pig

Now every head and twice the feet,
Of every soul upon the street,
Felt full the sun of Roman sky,
This mid-day Sunday, mid-July.
The laps were ten, the hours two,
’Twixt Heaven’s glory and the few;
And now the cry was: "One on one,
Between the rabbi and…the nun!"

“O Heavenly Father, hear my plea,
I pray that I may worthy be;
That I, a lowly nun, was spared,
Whilst he so holy poorly fared:
A man of peace, a moral rock,
A shepherd—fleece to all his flock;
A celibate so pure and true,
And Lord, forgive me, toothsome, too.”

“The truth is I have not the least
Sweet rabbied tooth for the deceased;
Oh, why he held aloft his cross,
Forsooth!—I’m at a total loss.
He wasn’t English, wasn’t French
—And God should sing he was a mensh?
His pagan art destroyed his car,
Whilst broke his heart, King David’s star.

“As from the oyster comes the pearl,
So fresh from cloister now this…girl,
This shiksa Queen of Sheba comes,
So like unto King Solomon,
To test my wisdom—face-to-face—
And wrest my kingdom, faith-to-faith;
But like the priest, she, too, shall part
This beastly world, with broken heart.”

So swore the rabbi, mouth afoam,
In sight no more of Beth Shalom;
Where now was settling in the street,
The Temple’s dust neath Christian feet;
And where despite the anguished pall,
As if it were their Wailing Wall,
Stood eight old Jews all hacking phlegm,
They ate cold in Jerusalem.

The nun more felt than heard the cries,
More felt than saw through teary eyes,
The full lament of Christly grief
In life would never find relief.
And thus her saintly heart sore bled,
Without restraint more tears she shed,
So past ‘The Wall,’ this ‘House of Peace,’
Her speed did all the more increase.

“Dear God, what makes a Jew a Jew?
What makes a Christian through and through?
Why must all earthly brothers cry,
'God, there, but for thy grace, go I?'
Why must our sinful hearts contend,
To win thy love to ALL thou send?
And God, what lust do I pursue
That I must overtake…this Jew?”

“A kosher ball of mucilage,
Oh, may it fall upon the Sage!
My foot in pain cleaves to the floor,
And yet the nun gains more, now more.
Myself, my faith, my synagogue,
A wealth coughed up to buy this hog,
This Lamborghini—what a joke!
Houdini, on this dish, would choke.

“Unto the Sage a river poured;
Now I, chopped liver, can afford?
('If greed tempts thee to trim expense,
Thou hast contempt for consequence.
Spend thy lucre!—Horde it not,
Lest Lucifer shouldst burn the lot!')
Our gold, our silver—all is lost!
Gone up in smoke, that is, exhaust.

“Now through this haze so blue and hot,
She comes—the POOREST of the lot.
How, Lord, can this poor, pensive nun,
Afford the MOST EXPENSIVE one?
(The Sage warm-clasped her trembling hand)
Dear God!—at last I understand!
Make my life’s wage one dwindled fig,
But paint the Sage…a brindled pig!”

To swell the kosher Jew’s regret,
The nun drew closer, closer yet;
Till every poor and rich man’s dream,
Did lure the rabbi to blaspheme:
“O low Ferrari, Satan’s car,
May all of every Jew’s catarrh
Flow down into thy sinful path,
And drown thy wheels in Israel’s wrath!”

The more to swell this righteous tide,
To prime the well so deep inside,
Depraved with hunger’s stricter rule,
The rabbi craved his mid-day gruel.
He drew a basket to his side,
He thrust the lid and threw it wide;
For all he saw his eyes grew big:
One sad, small, dried (and lonely) fig.

No meaning could his mind construct,
As near Rome’s ancient aqueduct,
Both mind and body rashly sped,
As if from some ungodly dread.
Though flesh and soul were both now sore,
The rabbi’s hunger drove him more;
Towards his maw he thrust the fig,
And saw—“Dear God!—a brindled pig."

Atop the ancient waterway,
Sad vestige of a bygone day,
Where Jewish slaves in Christian chains,
Died young for these once-proud remains;
An old, and lonely, brindled boar,
Gazed down like stone upon the roar.
How came this beast? What to presage?
One God, one Jew alone could gauge.

The eyes of man and beast now met,
And Oh! the feast it did beget:
The rabbi, losing sense and place,
Struck thence a column full of face.
The old boar tumbled to the ground,
Whilst stones, like swords, fell all around;
A lone and sharp one struck the Jew:
His boneless part cut clean in two.

“A sense of humor has our God?
And hence makes each a little flawed?
Whilst some—the goyim—are baptized
‘The Chosen’—Oy!—are circumcised.
A rabbi of me thou hast made,
And so I’ve plied my chosen trade;
And what’s my gift, my just reward?
Once more thy swift—and terrible—sword!”

Now seven sad and lonely bells,
Struck seven only single knells.
The rabbi’s soul at last was free,
Its earthly ties of slavery.
As to its fate, the brindled boar,
Truth must relate what good men swore:
It snuffed about and found a fig,
Then wandered off…a happy pig.

But truth, if so, must also tell,
The woe befell on Israel;
On every holy grain of sand,
Of every holy Promised Land;
On each and every Pharisee,
From Rome to Sea of Gallilee,
Whose every heart shall ever be,
Sad Garden of Gethsemanee.

“O Kinder of King David’s Star,
Reb’s tender light shone from afar.
Thy rabbi prayed to be baptized,
But strayed and (sad!) was penalized.
He poorly died—oh sure because
He gave—to an unkosher cause—
His meager meal, one measly fig,
Too eagerly to some old pig.”


                                 To be continued



Post Edited (09-01-04 11:49)

Damn, David, I'm glad to see you're back to your long-winded self.

If this is just the prologue, what the heck are we reading here, The Oddysey?


Les



Post Edited (07-02-04 15:23)

It's a ribald revel religio in 4/4 rhyme.

Thanks Hugh, for a minute there, I'd thought David had lapsed into the utter darkness of Hades, never to return to our shores. I'm still curious about the Ventura county address. Are you lost in the avacado orchards of Filmore, Dave?

Les



Post Edited (07-05-04 12:20)

Doubtless I would be more enlightened if I knew what a religio is. I also thought he lived elsewhere on his last appearance. Didn't he used to use words like splendour and colour?

Well, perhaps not, but surely no USA poet could be quite so sesquipedalian, not since Edgar Poe shuffled off this mortal coil anyway.

Just to Claryfy:

Yes, Hugh, you've got that ribaldry part right, all except for 'religio' which is not so much an 'a' as it is an 'adj.' (Italian religio[so]: religious, which it pleased me to truncate to suit myself. As to your innuendo that I once came to you from across the splendourous pond the colour of ocean, I believe you've conflated me with that militant Anglophile Brucefur, arch-defender of the Queen's English, who never saw a 'u' he didn't like, unless perhaps it was youse.

And, Les, I'll thank you not to locate me in any Fillmorean orchard, but rather in those of Ojai, where I've been told I have lifetime tenure (not to be confused with manure) at the school of hard knocks.

The Roaming Gnome (Book Travelocity. Don't forget your hat.)

Well, David, I guess anything is better than Camarillo. No offense JP.

Les

I bet he also listens to the Roulling Stounes !

Thanks for clearing up the confusio

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a whimper but a bump.

Hymn 2



Post Edited (07-07-04 15:34)

David, the thing I dislike about Satire is that it's so SATIRICAL
with nothing in the works which would deem it quite empirical.

So to bring with alacrity your revelations to the front of us,
Could you post your Celestial Cup here upon, or duly face the brunt of us?

We wait for the weekly race of antiquity,
not expecting it hid within the outposts of ubiquity.

A separate space for each race please provide,
Lest we search e-mule's depths even 'neath the Ass's hide

For a continuation of the story quite replete with details,
anachronisms, soliloquies and semi-weekly Madisonian rails.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author: D Madison (---.vcss.k12.ca.us)
Date: 07-10-04 02:57

Whoso, The Celestial Cup, would drink its fill
MUST take it in drafts of drawn-out weekly swill.
To drink the Cup at once—my God! the cost
Would be tantamount to ONE pull on Paradise Lost.
I fear it would be NO reader's cup of tea,
And it would be MY soul liability
That I didn't warn them with an apt disclaimer
Their attention spans, in short, would make them blamer
—And I the blamed!—accept my frank assurance
That I carry no such poetical insurance.

Reply To This Message

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author: lg (---.trlck.ca.charter.com)
Date: 07-10-04 03:17

David, while I understand the dosage given each week,
It is the lost postage which grieves me so to speak.
To bury the posting back in the lost pages of the mule
Surely will forsake your readers who are lazy as a rule.
They dare not hunt and find what has been left behind
In the pages deep and dark of this website so unkind.

So if it suits your fancy, could we have two posts on the pages here,
One current, for our weekly perusal, and one a compilation, posted in arear?


Les



Post Edited (07-10-04 14:25)

This post was recalled for lack of currency.

Les

No WONDER you're broke, Les—you've spent your last 'Sent' on 'Post'age!

Returning (yawn!) from the Land of Nod
I find your request a little odd
If not perhaps a trifle flawed.

I post the current Hymn each week
(I like to think in verse comique),
And then AGAIN in doublespeak

—Tacked on the tale-to-date's hind end,
Each week the current Hymn append,
And yet you ask me to amend

My wicked ways of but ONE post
I like to think (yet fail to boast)
Will keep you in suspense the most;

Each week ask me to post —anew—
The latest Hymn on a thread brand new,
A task that I'm too kind to do,

Fearing readers new unto the forum
Might deem it C Cup indecorum
So MANY C Cups flout the quorum

Of ONE thread to the C Cup line,
And are apt to think (and so opine!)
We're fixed on the milk of human kine-

ness here at the mule—and I'M an ass
To be so overly mammary crass,
And give the whole a reading pass.

If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never was by mammary moved,
And so remain as unbehooved.

To post so MANY! ('twould be lawless)
C Cups would be 'Les' than flawless,
And so but one, I must (GO BRA!) Les
(Irish, I would 'ERIN GO BRAGH!, Les).



Post Edited (07-10-04 11:37)

Madison you never cease to amaze
with your weekly tirades you bedaze
I'll accept your decision here to post but one
Of the cup's installments till you're done
But should we lose the post under the heap
You'll pardon me if I do not weep
For lost in the archives of the mule
we may never find who the race did rule

Les

Les, in deed, how SHALL it be lost
When I bump it each week (at modesty's cost)?

If you raise it to the top that's fine,
I thought you were to just post-edit,
surely the fault herein is mine,
for the art of "bumping", you'll get credit.

Les



Post Edited (07-10-04 18:03)

Is that your final Celestial (may I?) Culpa?

'Tis the last; the final die has been cast.

Les

Stop. Not so fast.
MANY dyings to get through before the last.
Stop. You're right.
I MUST stop if I'm to write.
Stop. Not to HIM—but Hymn 3.
Stop. Yes, will someone PLEASE stop me!

David, I knew I should have never said "die".

Ours is not to reason why...

But to sleep perchance to dream...
A marathon though this may seem...

To some who ask what of we speak,
It's only known to those who seek

To capture here in poetic verse
A topic which if died might curse

He who posted last at length
And give the other better strength

I'll risk the fall and tell you here
Let's quit this place and call for beer

Les

Hymn 3

David, am I mistaken or do you have 2 Christians in there. There should be a Taoist somewhere shouldn't there?

Les

One has to draw the lying somewhere.

Good point...

Les

My cat is a Maoist....actually more of a Meowist

Just another bump in the road: one for Him, and one Hymn 4.

Well, David, the race heats up. What's the nun driving, a VW?


Les

God, I can't believe it! This is your FIFTH bowl of 'Post' serial! in a row or similar noisy dispute. You keep this up and you're just going to keep getting fatuouser and fatuouser—and that goes double for you too, fatuousmadam! (Serves you bloody well right for joining Wait Watchers®.)

Just a point of clarification, David. It wasn't Confuscius but Lao Tzu, the man on whom Taoism is based, who said "A journey of a thousand miles may lie at your feet."

Les



Post Edited (07-28-04 13:03)

Yes, yes, I know, you're about sick to death of Post serial—but keep swallowing it. Take comfort in knowing that, when you've finally emptied the balks of its contents, you will be more than satisfied to know that you have eaten total.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Too bad about the lama. No lama lama ding dong this time. Oh, well! Off to Budapest.

Les

Is it really true that Les
is going off to Budapes?
To see the hungry llamas graze
I'd end up in a different plaze!

Here's a thing....turns out there really IS a Salvador Deli in this area, truly no pun intended........It caters to people from El Salvador !

Hymn 7

OK, so now you've killed off the Muslim! How many people do we have left in this race? Seems like there should be 5. But this line says seven more cars were still in the race:

When seven more the road brought nigh,

That should have been six, unless God brought the lama back for an encore.


Les

Hymn 8

David, this paragraph alone is a work of art.

His death brought forth no single moan,
His dying breath no single groan;
In love, in life, in misery,
The guru liked warm company;
Spun flaming nine times through the crowd
(Defaming him, they wailed aloud);
Their screaming tongues, in torture swore,
Until, like he…they swore no more.

Les

Nine for hymn, and nine for her.
(Read whichever you prefer.)

Well David, the way you're killing off all these holy guys, you're surely going to roast a long time for this. Who's left in this race anyway? I lost track after the Ferrari crashed. I figure if a Ferrari can't win, it can't be much of a race. It seems like at least a couple of these guys could have used a Hum Vee.


Les

Ten for hymn, and ten for you;
Read them, and weep, through and through.

Bump, for Veronika and anyone else who's been away from the forum a while.

David, I've been looking for a link to this entire poem, since I believe this to be just an excerpt from the unabridged version. Can you give us a link to the entire poem? I do believe there was a complete version posted here on the mule somewhere, but I have no idea where it is. Wasn't there an epilogue?

Les

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/12/2021 04:43PM by les712.

Les,

I couldn't find the full version either. The excerpt above, "The Brindled Pig" however, is followed by ten of the eleven Hymns. The concluding Hymn and Epilogue follows:

Hymn XI: The Agony, the Ecstasy, and the Gigolo

The nun, O Bestial God, the nun,
The gold Celestial Cup—has won!
This sentiment in many a prayer
Impassioned rent St. Peter’s Square.
Each Hindu, Moslem, Buddhist, Jew,
Each mad, non-Christian tongue was blue;
Each frantic, glowing, rabid face,
Despaired of knowing Heaven’s grace.

And now, all curses said and done,
Each tongue converses: Where’s the nun?
The bells of one are long at rest,
The sun now well into the west,
And hark! the once ear-jarring skies,
Are absent her Ferrari’s cries!
By swift degrees their minds engage
Their memories how spake the sage:

…In seven hours—for Heaven’s sake—
Must seven laps times seven make;
But if no holy cross the line,
Within the fajr alotted time,
The Cup shall e’er with me reside,
And I, thy troubled souls, shall guide.
Once more a sound suffused the air:
Humanity’s profound despair.

The nun (our tale goes back in time),
Fell heir the hail of rocks and swine:
With first a whistle, then a roar,
By scarce a bristle missed the boar;
Her winkling glance did not espy,
The bored indifference in its eye;
Nor did her flashing glimpse embrace,
The apathy upon its face.

No time to pray, just swerve—and duck—
Oh, such display of nerve! (or luck?)
The very Roman sky did fall,
And yet, the nun flew through it all;
Till one last small belated brick,
Was cast to do its fated trick:
A shearing blow no God could heal:
The low Ferrari lost a wheel.

A ship without a rudder now,
A grinding shudder shook its bow
For ancient cobblestone on steel,
’Fore all commenced a spinning reel.
“O God Most Tender, Light Divine,
My soul surrenders now to thine;
And so my love, my heart, my hands
—Take all of me! Thy will commands.”

Released of driving’s enterprise,
The nun in peace now closed her eyes,
Of late so rare unto her breast,
In prayerful pose her hands were pressed:
“Oh, soon, My Lord, I’ll be with thee,
Restored in thy sweet company;
The sun sets on my worldly days,
To end my frets of worldly ways.”

Some swear an unseen hand did guide,
The nun upon her unmanned ride:
Where wildly it had shrieked and spun,
The low Ferrari peace now won;
When were her tear-filled eyes undressed,
Her worldly fears had come to rest,
Beneath an ancient laurel tree:
Her crown for moral purity.

And thus it was her dream collapsed:
With thirty minutes unelapsed;
Three laps undone to test her wits,
The nun, depressed, was in the pits:
“O Lord, how could a lowly nun,
Think she could win this ‘Holy Run.’
In vain I’ve sought to thus be free,
For all our thoughts are vanity!”

But all the while the nun despaired,
Her pit crew toiled; now all repaired
(“No matter that it cost the moon,
A crew must keep thy beast in tune”).
Her low Ferrari, born anew,
Gave testament to faith and crew:
Without another prayer’s delay,
The holy pair roared on their way.

O Rome, invest in them your grace,
For you have witnessed many a race;
And many the vanquished you have seen,
Much more the anguish of their mien.
Indifferent as you are to pain,
Have mercy now, in Heaven’s name;
Protect them in their hallowed quest,
And Rome in Heaven shall ever be blest.

“O Lord, how deft the minutes fly,
And twenty left is but a sigh.
Alone am I in Heaven’s Race,
Yet ’fore me I see every face,
That once in faith and raiments fine,
Fair graced St. Peter’s starting line;
And sadly now my grieving heart,
Dear mourns their leaving, from the start.

“Have mercy on the monk, O Lord,
Confucius, tersely, he adored;
His maxims so inflamed his heart,
Love’s flames the monk and life did part.
A zealot’s tears—the tears of Job—
Fell down upon his silken robe;
For all his faith bore him the higher,
Its reign could not put out his fire.

“The Buddha said, Lord: Those who say,
Know not the high Nirvana-way;
And they that true Nirvana know,
Disdain to say the way to go
The lama sought Nirvana’s fire,
So he was hot to quench desire.
Four Noble Truths thus shared his bath,
Along the Buddha’s Eightfold Path.

“I pray too, Lord, that Thou evince,
Accord with Allah’s ‘Camel Prince’;
Rebuke not harshly Abou Addam
Al-Farouk-El-Sheik-Ben-Saddam.
Although the mullah was a ‘beast’
(A burdened one to say the least!)
Who can, his addled blunders, blame,
When saddled under such a name?”

The Sistine Chapel fell away,
Like forty-six times more that day;
The nun fixed eyes upon the road ,
Whilst on her mind swift Tiber flowed:
“One blurred view less of Rome’s terrain
Thus two twixt Heaven and I remain!
Then fast shall fly my albatross,
When last the Tiber I shall cross.

“The guru’s charm lay in his vow:
To save from harm the sacred cow;
But Lord, the poor beast, young and meek,
He gored (she’d turned her other cheek).
To every Hindu deity,
He prayed, O Lord—but not to thee!
For all the gods he called upon,
Despite the odds, Sweet Lord—he’s gone!

“O God, the priest, thy earthly host,
I laud and mourn thy worthy most;
Whose miter shone more white than snow,
Whose virtue, whiter still did glow;
Whose zeal to drive thy scriptures home,
Moved Jews at Temple Beth Shalom.
Though he was cleft, Lord—torn apart—
He left us with a broken heart!”

The Castel di Sant Angelo
(Its forty-seventh cameo!)
For one split second domineered;
As fast it beckoned, disappeared;
Once more the Square, the Vatican,
The Trastevere, the Pantheon,
Then—gone!—each one, flew fast apace,
As flew the nun in Heaven’s race.

“O Lord, less fourteen minutes time,
The blesséd bells of Rome shall chime;
But shall each sweet, angelic voice,
In rhapsody with me rejoice?
Or shall each doleful, cold decree,
Compose my woeful elegy?
When seven bells shall twofold knell,
Will I see Heaven, Almighty—or Hell?

“But Lord, whichever way they toll,
Pray spare the rabbi’s severed soul;
Who gave up all his worldly pelf,
To save the Jews—then gave himself.
Since he was born Jehovah’s waif,
All things he scorned considered treyf;
So pure was everything he did,
Thy kosher prince, King David’s yid.

“The ‘Seven,’ Lord, are down to one:
One sad and lost repenting nun;
For Lord (my heart beats just for thee,
Mine eyes do only thine eyes see)
Strange flutters felt I in my breast,
That uttered of my heart’s unrest;
Till tears undaunted bade me cry,
And fell unwonted from mine eye.

“Dear Lord, I overmore confess,
My eye, a rover, stirred my flesh;
But Father Sweet, I trust that thou,
Know heat and lust shan’t break my vow.
O hear, Divine, my truest oath:
My heart shall thine—or none—betroth;
If earthly mortal catch mine eye,
Unworthy, mortal, might I die.

“O great Egyptian obelisk,
Once borne from Heliopolis,
Upon the Nile, to ancient Rome,
So many an ancient mile from home;
I see thee now—in Peter’s Square!—
Where long hast thou abided there,
To point the way to Heaven’s door,
Like forty-seven times before!”

With crimson rush (no longer meek),
A winsome blush suffused her cheek;
The nun (O hark the engine’s whine!)
Embarked upon lap forty-nine:
Once more to pass the Colosseum,
With one last Laudamus, Te Deum;
Once more to blaze the Roman Forum,
In praise of Holy Variorum.

The weeping mass now closer pressed,
To see her pass (O she so blessed!)
Round every curve of Rome’s terrain,
Each muscle, nerve, and eye did strain;
Back every fence and barricade,
Strained every sense God ever made;
With every beat and every breath,
Each prayed to cheat the Devil’s death.

Thus every hope and every dream,
Plus every mad utopian scheme,
With every vision and romance,
That ever in their hearts did dance,
Fueled every fancy, mad desire,
Fanned every fantasy with fire,
Till every face did brightly burn,
With everlasting life’s concern.

“O Lord—My God!—the second hand,
Now from the minute takes command
—But one hill lies twixt me and mine:
Serene, bestill—the Palatine!
Then thou, My Lord, shalt lift me up,
Adored! of thy Celestial Cup.
Thou hast my love, and now I pray:
Sweet Lord Above—show me the way!”

As if some power of Heaven or Hell
Beheld both hour and nun in spell;
As if some force did hypnotize,
The ‘Course of Life’ before her eyes,
A holy light suffused the air,
A nimbus!—bright—over Peter’s Square;
Above the ringing rose the sound,
Of angels singing all around.

“O God, the bridge, the bridge I see!
Where flows the Tiber, swift and free;
And there—The Cup!—the finish line!
Where thou await me, Lord Devine.
Now one last curve unto my left,
Where fast I’ll span the Tiber’s cleft;
Then Lord Devine, My Heavenly Heart,
Thy finish line shall be…my start!”

The second hand now sweeping fast,
She scanned the weeping faces vast.
From out the throng (so fine His beard!)
A holy vision then appeared:
“A miracle! oh, how He mourns!
Upon His head, a crown of…thorns,
A cross in teary flood bears He,
His blood, from feet and hands, falls free.”

As fell His blood for Man’s disgrace,
As well the nun’s now from her face;
So holy, touching was His sight,
The nun turned ghostly, saintly white.
“O Christ, My Lord, so young and dear,
For thee so gored my eyes now tear;
How pure and meek thou bearst thy plight;
O Christ! oh, bathe me in thy light!”

A radiant Jesus heard her prayer,
And raised aloft into the air
His massive cross—of polished chrome—
Reflecting, now high over Rome,
Precisely as the nun flew by,
The sun’s full glory in her eye;
Of all God’s sight she was bereft:
The nun turned right. The bridge lay left.

With one last pitched and whining scream
(As if in some rich-dining dream)
The low Ferrari left the earth,
Abreast the Tiber’s sunken berth.
In brief ethereal view of Rome,
In grief of watery catacomb,
The nun, O saintly pretty thing!
Self-pity from her heart did wring:

“O God, have mercy on me now,
Who kept her purest, fondest vow
(If earthly mortal catch mine eye,
Unworthy, mortal, I shall die).
Thy Son! who sermoned on The Mount,
Oh surely, Lord, He doesn’t count!
If so, my life—I’ve sacrificed!
O God, O Lord, oh-h—Jesus Christ!”

The low Ferrari, scorning prayer,
Two gainers turned in mourning air;
Then entered clean with rare panache,
To end all dreams with scarce a splash.
The river’s pace swift bore away,
All ripple’s trace of where she lay;
O would her ears could (hear!) how swells
The peals of Peter’s seven bells!

A weeping more profound than prayer,
Arose around St. Peter’s Square,
Resounding through the Papal Home,
And out into the streets of Rome;
And thence to every foreign strand,
Of every corner, every land;
And every child of every age,
Sore wept for grief to hear the Sage:

“O Satan! Satan! thou in Hell,
Who dwelled in Heaven’s grace…then fell;
What child of man who crawls couldst miss,
Thy trident’s hand in all of this?
To think thou once wore angel’s wings,
And now to Earth such Hell thou brings;
Though God’s sweet lambs all cry for grief,
Still thou wouldst eat thy pork and beef!

“Upon the monk, on God’s own priest,
Upon the guru’s fat didst feast;
A lamb, a camel—then a cow,
But ham eluded thee so thou
Didst stick the rabbi ’pon thy fork,
But still thy tongue wast shy of pork;
And so, in spite, when all was done,
Thou thought to bite…the pretty nun!

“So thou ‘cooked up’ this gigolo
To look, like Christ, simpatico!
The nun, of all her sense bereft,
Oh! white thence turned instead of left.
This gigolo her heart so kissed,
That she—the ‘Bridge to Glory!’—missed;
Sank ’neath the Tiber, never crossed,
Both nun—and moral fiber—lost!

“O Father, thou who gave us birth,
Who gave us Heaven, gave us Earth;
Who gives us life, then gives us breath;
Who gives us strife, then gives us death;
Thou mak’st us what we are and then,
Thou tak’st us all—we know not when,
For all our ailings, sins, and flaws,
And all our failings of thy laws.

“O dear Celestial God On High,
Pray hear a Sage’s humble cry:
Our faith hast put thee to the test,
But thou direct’st as thou seest best.
Each holy face, fast-driven to pain
For Heaven’s grace, hast striven in vain,
Oh, who so wise couldst then foresee,
That none wouldst rise to chauffeur thee?”

The Sage caressed the Cup and pressed
Its gilded splendour to his breast.
So saintly was his well-feigned smile,
No words of his deigned speak of guile
“Lord, bless their souls, where’er they be,
And if they are more blest than me,
Then—PRAISE THEE!—may their faith be kissed!
Let us pray for every atheist.”

Epilogue:

The sun set down, once more to rise,
But sore were lit God’s Roman skies;
For not one bell sweet-tolled the air,
Nor stirred one soul in Peter’s Square.
Where Heaven’s grace had been denied,
No face was seen, no voice did bide;
Upon the stage in Roman graph,
Some sage had carved this epitaph:

O Rome—hear! what’s been whispered round:
‘The Sage was seen going underground.
The hole was dark, the host was grim
—Seven ghostly souls accompanied him!
Some say it’s legend mated with
Pure unsubstantiated myth.
And yet, O Rome, this, too, they say:
‘They slew their vows along the way
—It’s true!’ they swear, ‘Since two that day,
The gods—the gods themselves!—do pray.’


And so our tale, while yet its terse,
Draws to a close the Sage’s verse.
Was he so wise? Did he speak true?
Did he speak lies as others do?
O Sage romancer—is it so?
O Rome, one answer’s all I know:
If ever the gods themselves did pray,
’Tis sure they did that Roman day.