The Community of God Expects Their Kingdom Come Today, St. Augustine

They stand with arms to heaven

Naked but for tea-leaf loincloths

Waiting for Kingdom's coming

For Christ to be reborn

Just to see him crucified

Hear his cry: "It is finished."

Their Kingdom comes today.

We are officially in that time:

everyday apocalypse

sinking stock markets and politics

to the recesses of human thought.

In their minty nudity,

they give up the world

craving eternal happiness.

Not me!

I am skeptic, follow probability

Nietzsche, become superhuman

stoic, jump the downstream flow

epicurios, minimize pain, double pleasure

not a quitter, won't surrender 

earth. No! Not for the vague promise

of something better. Ha!

Anything is better than the surface:

9 circles of Hell, Purgatory, Paradisio,

Listen to me, Dante, you describe LIFE!

I'm not that kind of Christian,

maybe God won't notice?

I swallow transcending wisdom in leather-bound dosages

Texts long-dated in confessional lies to God,

Buddah, Satan, Mother Mary, my own fantasies: fallacies.

I confess to thee and thine my will:

I know God and chill with the Devil

in my bed on sinful sheets,

soul's solitary climax

bathed in crumbs and juice,

midnight Mass leading

Emotional Masturbation

knocking on heaven's doors,

begging St. Peter to let me in.

Let me in!

Crimson droplets linger balancing,

falling, melting in throws of passion.

Jesus falls from my lips

to meet the downcast angel.

Internal war disturbing slumber

until I spit them both into the bin

tucked safely under my bed

where the soulless can wrestle

against satin sheets of discomfort

and I pray, to God, I pray

Please, please, just let Him win!

St. Augustine, they crave resurrection!

Can't you just admit the truth in your confessions?

No more stealing pears, no more GUIL,

no more Hymns and voices through others.

Give me the Gospel of Hippos

because the Apocalypse isn't coming because He came.

It is too far beyond us -- beyond you!

They stand there with arms outstretched,

waiting to crucify and resurrect

their soulless longings again,

waiting for Kingdom come.

It is finished, St. Augustine, it is done.