A Heresy Sublime
An artist whom I’ve met is Dürer,
Whose hands are oh-so busy,
In a word, beaverish. Poemed,
He gnaws himself to splinters,
Though I have it on good authority,
Saintly Jerome materialized there
Before his dim gaze, sat for portraiture
While also astride a crisp log in Tartarus,
And at that very moment still wanted
For company, to see them reincarnated,
Roasting (peace, to him, eternal anathema).
The sorcerer was of course immortalized.
He became a religion. But Dürer is yet
Beyond confessing to biting his nails
And saving them to blissfully eat alone.
Weep, weep, for the famished who have
No hands, Dürer teaches; for prayerful hands,
Fettered in cuffs, even with chains broken
Upon wheels inside of wheels of slavers
Rolling like sizzling bacon, are doomed,
Smokes a pack a day of fake faith healers,
Reclining at poolside with St. Jerome—
Boys in virginal white thongs, their angels.
Angels’ feathered wings are what, synthetic?
—Made like Purgatory, eraseable?—
Like Mithra’s birthday, not to be discussed?
Immortality, you deserve a rest.
