Am I spiritual you ask?
Now here I must take you to task
What mean you for heaven’s sake?
I know of head and belly ache
Do you infer belief in God?
A proposition I find odd
On bended knee in fervent prayer
In hope that this time God might care
And with averted eyes beseech
The Promised Land be in my reach
Be pious, poor and all alone
Far bleachers to a mighty throne
Eschew this all too fleshy fief
Or damn me to eternal grief
That I must aim for life past this
Feel guilty when it hurts to piss?

Should I become a voiceless monk
And rid my life of all my junk?
Would then I see my shining path
Or failing that, improve my math?
Or offer alms and other bribes
Find fault with all competing tribes
Or proffer to a preaching man
The coin he asks to show God’s plan
And raise his house so heralds hark
And maybe an amusement park?

Might mediums my spirit call?
For cash, they claim the wherewithal
To séance (and some uncles too)
To summon up the long dead you
Or should I trek to Mandalay,
Meet Peterman along the way
And maybe breathe odd-scented smoke
To find my missing self in toke?
Or take a spiritual retreat
Make nebulous what’s been concrete
Perhaps repeat hypnotic chant
And mumble superficial cant
Or seated, cross my legs and hum
‘Til I feel bliss- though not my bum?
Well, save me from this spirit stuff
It’s naught but metaphysic fluff

I have a brain that can be known
From it, a mind, where reason’s grown
That signals move my hands and feet
And makes me loud, or more discreet
That governs all my daily chores
That stimulates, or simply bores
That keeps exhorting me to learn
And calmly tutors to discern
Instructs that I should see and care
And whispers never fail to dare
Inspires art, or dreams a goal
And if allowed, would craft a soul.

But my one chance is real and now
To grasp what time and health allow
To eat and love and never pray
“Now let us sport us while we may.”
And marvel that we’re here at all
At how the strings and genes did fall
And thus, Lucretius marked the score
“Atoms, void and nothing more.”
So while I wait the bell to toll
I’ll feed my mind and spurn a soul.

Paul Heno Copyright 2012