An Old Man Sonnet

Jesus. I don't get it. How some nonsense

About a rib and the devil tree. Evil. Good.

Test of what? Why? Adam was lethargy. How rude

To wake him. Let sleeping dogmatists. Cain tense,

Essentially gave us the mafia, and beasts

For men -- even Moses had horns, was psychotic,

Forty years away from his wife (Odysseus

Tied to the mast), Moses returns, all harmonic.

It doesn't make any sense. Old Abe's crazy tribes

All the begattings, sweet Lucy with knucklehead;

All the buried bones of contention, all the bribes,

The deportations, the holocausts, all the dead.

And yet I enjoyed Jesus Godspell in my youth

They passed the basket around; I gave my canine tooth.