Certitude

I was certain of many things.

When they told us an invisible man

was watching and keeping score,

I believed them.

I conjured the man's likeness 

from portraits in the church foyer

and mother's dining room:

        tender, mesmerizing eyes,

        alabaster skin, 

        scarlet sash over 

        a seamless woolen tunic,

        an immaculately trimmed beard─

        leading man looks in 1979.

The relationship was fraught

from the get-go.

When they declared Halloween

Satan's holiday,

I put away the Spider-Man costume

and joined my siblings in the basement

to hear our old man read scripture

by candlelight.

I tossed my Beatles

and Led Zeppelin cassettes

into the fire

to cleanse myself

of their demonic influence.

And I tried Christian rock.

I really tried,

but its flagrant mediocrity 

only aroused my enthusiasm

for secular music.

I endeavored not to permit

lust into my heart.

The man forbade it.

Lust crept in anyway, day after day,

until temptation metastasized 

into a crippling fear of girls.

We thought it best 

to avoid girls altogether.

But there is no safe harbor

from an adolescent boy's raging libido.

After my first nocturnal emission,

I wept,

certain I had offended

the creator of the universe.

I begged the man's pardon

as a flood of indiscretions washed over me.

I thrashed in the undertow

until the whole arrangement,

the surveillance,

the score-keeping,

the heavenly disappointment,

collapsed under the weight

of its sanctimony─

like a tent revival

in a hurricane.

The guilt drained off, thick and useless,

leaving only the sour film

of self-inflicted martyrdom.

Yeah, I was certain of many things.

So were you.

When I became a man

I put away childish notions.

Tongues

        "Brothers and Sisters,
        raise your hands to the Lord.
        Invite his Holy Spirit to fill your vessel

        with his wondrous love.     

        Hallelujah! 

        Can I get an 'Amen'?

        Ah-shah-la-la Me-kah-show-nah-teh,
        Oh-nah-tah-shah Me-kah-tah-neh

        Key-lo-mah-tah-tah-weh."

Speaking in Tongues, they called it.

Most merely stood in their pew

muttering at the ceiling,

our Old Man among them.

I studied his cadence 

and learned to mimic the routine

so as not to be singled out for unbelief.

The grander the display, the brighter

the accolades from church elders.

Some danced in the aisles.

Others launched into convulsive fits.

The best of them was Sister Mary Hoagarten,

a lowly widow from East Kansas City

with a silver bird's nest of hair

and bellowing, staccato delivery.

Mary committed to her performance.

She was Method,

drawing from a boundless well

of resentment and betrayal

to deliver her weekly self-exorcism.

Mary howled and flailed about,

always ending her number 

with a flurry of guttural yawps 

that climaxed with abrupt silence,

centering the congregation

in solemn reflection.

Mary enjoyed a long and storied run

as the High Priestess of Spectacle,

until Lester Hollinger joined the congregation.

Brother Lester was a towering, erudite bachelor,

always in the same charcoal undertaker's suit.

He never missed an opportunity

to showcase his biblical memorization.

One Sunday morning,

Lester descended from the foyer

and assisted Mary off the carpet.

He ushered her to her seat,

shuffled to the microphone,

cleared his throat,

and delivered an Interpretation of Tongues:

        "Praise the Lord.  

        Our Heavenly Father has revealed to me, 

        his humble servant,
        the message hidden within 
        Sister Mary's utterance.

 

        Indeed, it is a passage from the Holy Book.

        I Corinthians 14:28: 

        'Let her keep silent in the church, 
        and let her speak only to herself 

        and to God.'"

Doomsday (1982)

Stacks of burlap in the basement, 

seven bags high:

        soybean, rice, corn seed; 

        cases of canned peaches, peas, 

        carrots and green beans—

        enough to feed Gideon’s army.

Young Gideon, 

we learned in Sunday School,

gathered a ragtag crew of Israelites 

on God’s instruction 

to slay the mighty Midianite army.

Mother grimaces:  

        “Talk to your father.”

At supper, we eat boiled soybeans

with Ezekiel bread and butter.

"Soybeans are the meat of the field,"

our old man says.

"A righteous antioxidant,

packed with protein,

vitamins and minerals."

We are told that dried soybeans, 

stored properly,

will retain their nutritional value 

long enough to survive an apocalypse.

I am twelve years old in ’82.

The end of the world 

sounds like an Atari game 

where the protagonist expires 

in a puff of smoke,

only to discover himself reborn 

into an unspoiled universe.

In father’s game, 

global war engulfs Planet Earth,

followed by a return 

of the angry Old Testament god 

hurling fire and brimstone 

down upon an ungrateful creation.

“Do not fear,” the old man says.

  

“God’s chosen will be spared his wrath

and rewarded with heavenly riches.”

Gideon was also chosen,

and for his subservience rewarded 

as a hero of faith—

seventy sons were bestowed upon him

from the many women 

he took as wives.

Even Gideon petitioned divine intervention

before signing on to God's plan.  

Three miracles he required 

to march into battle.

I required only one:

        Dear Heavenly Father, hear my prayer.

        Your holy scripture declares 

        that to those who ask it shall be given.

        I ask that you demonstrate 

        the truth of your power 

        by turning these mushy soybeans 

        into a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.

               ~ Thomas

**First published in Hole In The Head Review

Childish Things

Church bells clank and clamor,

welcoming the shuffle of the devout
ascending stone chapel steps.

As a youth, I was among them,

dutiful and wide-eyed, 

walking in the light of the redeemed
at my father's side.  

The sanctuary greeted us

with scents of varnished pews,

leather-bound hymnals,

heavily perfumed matrons.

The bells sang of a warring celestial realm, 

where white-winged cherubs 

collide with silver-tongued devils
in a storybook crusade 

for man's eternal soul.  

The price of entry:

        our untried imagination 

        laid bare upon an altar 

        gilded with the blood sacrifice 

        frightened ancestors bargained 

        to appease a jealous Divine.  

The promise of paradise quickened our step,

held our gaze upward 

to the heavenly chorus 

ringing from the bell tower.  

We received it with unquestioning assent,

heard it spoken in parable and psalm,

understood it as children

counting the days until Christmas,

certain of the treasures 

awaiting god-fearing 

boys and girls. 

Believing came easy 

as skinning a knee.

**First published in In Parenthesis literary journal