Dear MaryAnn,

having birthed ten children, I can surely attest to being "a serious mistake in a nightie.." After number 6, things just don't resume their former position. "As you were, corporal" doesn't mean a thing.

Beyond that, this Thursday's duck soup of an OPP is a real disappointment. Nice meter and rhyme. Appealing. Sure.

The difference between this and Artemesia's popes-raping-irish-children poem is merely one of craft (and a few less F-words here.) That might mean everything to you, MaryAnn. To me, it demonstrates the small difference between adequately-written blithe contempt and low-grade malevolent contempt.

Your poem brings up the intriguing idea of whether God exists apart from man (the three Abrahamic religions) or exists within man (see, for example, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, the eastern religions).

if God is not transcendent, if god merely exists in the spirit of man, a la Emerson and Whitman and then I agree with James Fenton: there is no god. but if you look closely at the three Abrahamic religions, MA, you'll discover your musings propose a false dichotomy. there is one amongst them wherein God is transcendent, God is Incarnate and God dwells within man.

monica