What If?

A challenge to imagine myself as very different from how I usually perceive myself.

 

What If?

 

What if I thought

God will never forgive me

My transgression unspeakable

Against man, world or God?

 

If I murdered

one righteous

In coldest blue blood

Without rue or regret,

And unlike Lot’s wife

Never ever looked back?

Eternal hell then

My deserved reward,

If I believed

In such places,

Instead of an eye coin

On route cross the Styx.

 

And what if I knew

That hell was my heading,

Care I not for the pain

I cause man, woman and child?

No I think that I’d care not,

Just do what was pleasin’

To me, only me

If hell bent I was sworn.

 

Once set on my road,

My path paved with ruin,

I could maim at my pleasure

Or spare as I chose.

It’s not hell that could turn me,

Or fear of the Lord,

But the wish to return

To heed the small

Voice of my soul.

Reviews

[Paul Grimsley]

this poses some interesting questions and has an interesting ponderous pacing that makes you ruminate as you read and lets the images settle into your brain. i really loved the last stanza and the conclusion the poem arrived at. the only part that didn't work for me was the penultimate stanza -- it is not to do with the images conveyed therein but a certain awkwardness in the phrasing that slightly threw me off there.