ONE THEORY OF HELL (Albrecht Dürer’s Harrowing)

by Thom Dawkins

 

 

Jesus looks like he’s been training, getting cut
for the day he’ll dig through the dirt, stooping
to save the folks who went below. Suppose him

un-emaciated, un-crucified, gone underground
to undermine these muppets shouting back at him,

bending low to pull their prisoners aside.
In this hell, the well-dead German sketches
Louis Armstrong cheeks on a beast who blows

his horn from milked-out tits, his shofar turned
into a hideous ploughshare. In this hell, you have
to know where you stand, and I must confess,

the demons down here are merely fat monsters,
nothing so furry I would fear them, not so demonic
I would not protect them from any man or savior.

 

 

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