I rode up on a rocketship to heaven's pearly gates
The doorman said, "Got yer ticket?
Out the thicket! We gots no room fer pagan hate
Fer tricks, an rickshaw runnin cow-bowin Hindooz,
Kow-towin Boodasts, shucklin Jooz,
Up in these here bles-sed hills...
If yer not fer Jeezus, ya kin git to Hell!"
Politely I reminded him of my Christening,
My goodly, Christian glistening, my listening
To all those sermons piously 'neath stained glass
On Sunday mornings with a tear upon my cheek.
"Yeh bet yer ass!" he spat and opened up the way.
"Git yonder 'n an see with yer own lit gaze
He that died to set yer white soul free! Go'n ye!"
I humbly nodded and stepped
Across that glorious threshold
To behold the Son of Man
And that vast array of angels He commands.
His glowing countenance showering forth
Radiant light. His hair and robes like snow.
His flaming heart with beams of love and grace.
His face a thing of perfect symmetry,
His every move geometrically aligned,
And I bowed down and cried
And kissed his nail-pierced feet.
He greeted me with kind embrace
And whispered in my shivering ear,
“My child, come nearer,
I will take thee to my Father’s house,
Where lie the many mansions of that vast mind.”
Boldly then we flew before the throne of grace,
Which looked oddly like a circus tent,
I mused, and curiously turned a curious eye on Christ.
“Not I,” he leered, his teeth as pearly as the walls,
“But the Father…” and with so grand a gesture
Swept my gaze upon a maudlin clown.
Aghast I sucked the astral air into my lungs,
My tongue cleft tight upon my stunned mouth’s roof,
As garish pantaloons ballooned out from
That great fool’s suspenders, hung like fish kites,
Round mouthed “Oh-ing”
At the gaping space beneath his tipping tottering toes.
Gayly whirling, pasty white, and spackled fresh
As picket fences on a Sunday lawn,
His garish grin, red-rimmed and lush as sin.
“My God!” I gasped,
And he who died for me
Spoke: “Now you see.”
