The Pontificators

Arthur says “God has some ’splainin to do.” The remark refers, I think, to the question of evil in the world. It is an old philosophical debate, as in, “If there is a God, how can he allow evil things to happen in the world?” I don’t hope to end the debate for all time here, but this is a poem of mine that encompasses some of my thoughts on the subject.

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God’s Dogs

I know your brother drowned that day,
there in the cold cold water. Now you
hate God, as though He chose to swim.
You say God let him die! and cross your arms.

Might God be better if like a pious pet owner
He kept his dogs neutered? But dogs might have
a different view about that kind of juggling.

As for me, I’d rather walk a-danglin’, though the world
is full of bumps and stumps. I don’t want God
to make me safe with scissors, even if a bitch
is ready, there across the cold cold water.

There are presuppositions (a priori, so they say),
which are all the whole foundation of our view.
They seem axiomatic and not subject to decay,
well, that is, unless unfolded for review.

For since they are accepted without proof of any kind,
and because there is a slew from which to choose,
I sometimes interchange them with each other in my mind
so that now I’m nothing surer than confused.

You can’t look underneath them for there’s nothing there to find;
they’re suspended in the ether of “beats me,”
pure articles of faith that are selected and combined
and become the roots of why we disagree.

I choose to mix and match them like a random hand of cards,
though it makes my whole perspective jerk and skew.
It’s vertigo and motion and reality in shards:
metamorphic never-formed subjective view.

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