(Disperse Los Dientes Del Dragón)
"The way to heaven out of all places
is of like length and distance"
Thomas More
What if there is an omnipotent, omniscient god
what if this padrone floats away
leaving this broken world eternally:
would it be so bad,
scattering the dragon's teeth
of ignorance and superstition?
Christ did not request tithes;
he whipped the money lenders
and cleansed the temple
ruining such comfortable sins-
all this on a belly full of bread and fish!
Is there a great scheme of things
or have we ruined the fun of scheming?
Stuck in habit, frozen in ritual,
the sad story of the happy fool:
a broken cistern holds no water but ice;
you greet a man, not his shadow,
and how quickly everything amounts to nothing.
Fernand Roqueplan writes that he is a combat veteran, a medically retired Marine, with a 50% service-connected disability rating from theVeterans Administration. He works physical therapy, as an interpreter for social services and, seasonally, as a steelhead fishing guide. Fernand has been published in the Manhattan Review, Many Mountains Moving, Indiana Review, Revista/Review Interamericana, Wisconsin Review, Southern Humanities Review, and Borderlands.