Note from the LuapHacim: I am working through Paul's letter to the Romans, trying to get a little deeper into its arguments. I find that writing free verse helps me to stretch my thinking about a thing, so I'm writing one free verse thingie (I hesitate to call them poems) for every verse or two in the book. The results will be posted here with the label "Romans Indisprosed." Comments and criticism are welcome, with one requirement: they must be in free verse, too. It is impermissible to hate the playa without participating in the game.
Slave
No will, no power, no choice,
Constrained by a master's orders,
Sold into subservience,
Yet, inexplicably, full of joy.
Why?
Zealous, bloodthirsty persecutor,
Hand-picked by a laughing god
To serve the object of his former hatred,
To sing of the love that transformed him
From a Very Important Pharisee
Into a laughingstock and a byword,
That wrested away his last lingering shred
Of poisonous self-importance,
Replacing it, like a bad blind taste-test,
With reviling, ridicule,
Stonings, beatings, shipwrecks,
Poverty, pain, and prison.
And filled him with joy, to hold him there.
Taste the irony. A dignified fundamentalist
Transformed into a heretical buffoon,
An unlikely mouthpiece:
The almighty's favorite kind.
Noises From the Machine
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