David, the Adulterer,
or David, the Whimpering
“I’m sorry, Dad” Guy;
You Choose
Goliath in the guise of love stalks round
Us in the margins of our days. Truth dressed
In tessellated sentiment is found
In mosques and synagogues. Cathedrals test
Our limits with confession boxes, beads
Of guiltinesss, and all the trappings of
Submission suited best to virgins’ heads
In veils. Ventriloquists speak from above
In pulpits. We bow down as Davids in
A penitential psalm with strings attached
Like marionettes made of tears and sin
And meanwhile vengeful angels are dispatched
From palms and fingers of some god who knows,
Like Allah set in his infernal pose.
I know of phantoms like the Eternal
And Unitary God. He’s even worse
Than that more complex but still infernal
Concept of the Trinity. Both are terse
(Or not so brief) expressions of control,
Of final absolutes. The Triune God
Is just about as heavy as that whole
Iron Goliath, Allah. Men are awed
By both Ideals—Divinity above
And far beyond, of justice and of law,
And crushing Truth, or worse still, smothering Love.
These notions stick in Liberty’s wide crop.
Our tendency to worship what is huge
Turns humankind into a puppet stooge.