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RSWells
Member Elite

since 2001-06-17

Posts 2533

0 posted 2001-07-09 08:21 AM

Hotfooting a Houston highway
in a bland rental sedan,
I heard a young voice
in the backseat ask
"Daddy, what's limbo?
What's purgatory?
The neck stiffens
at questions like this.
Ordinarily I enjoy being
their authority.
But religion?

Driving, I was able to buy
some time busying myself
changing lanes, looking around.
Momentarily they were distracted
by music on the radio.

I flashed back to my
catholic upbringing.
The black and white seriousness
of habited nuns
and austere collared priests.
The dare not veer
from the faith stares.

Limbo,
that border region of heaven
or hell.

Limbo,
land of the unbaptized infants
or the righteous whose misfortune
it was to die in between
Christ's vacations here.

Purgatory,
the place where dying sinners
who through their ignorant humanity
sinned (though not mortally)
and sit in a penalty box
submitting to some vague punishment
for some vague length of time.
Where maybe,
just maybe,
they may someday
be forgivin.

After being browbeat
to aim to angelic perfection
and old enough to know
we are all sinners,
but before realizing the impossibility
of such purity
and hurling headlong to a
happy-to hell with it-hedonism,
we are teased
with eyebrow raising enticement
and the rope of hope with
Limbo,
Purgatory.

I thought of my short stay
in a county jail.
remembering an old "habitual offender"
who slept 20 hours a day,
warehoused.
Of how he once tried to reason
with the participants of a near
(unofficially sanctioned)racial disturbance.
In his short leave from hibernation
he told of the Jews
who, though a peaceful, loving and tight knit
race had in the gas chambers,
in their last gasping moment,
lashed out at the only thing within reach,
each other.
The scumbag nazis had to pry
cold fingers from each other's faces.
The lesson was lost in that
purgatory,
so he returned to his bed and his
limbo.

I thought of my failed marriage.
How so henpecked, harried, hopeless
and turned off I was
in it's last year that I didn't
(couldn't) even touch her.
Our bed, that bed,
a reliquary of resentment and remorse.
Purgatory.

I looked in the rearview mirror,
at a pair of yet innocent eyes,
and no better than the nuns said,
"Limbo is life,
Purgatory is a town in Colorado."

Seymour Tabin
Member Empyrean

since 1999-07-07

Posts 31720
Tamarac Fla

1 posted 2001-07-09 08:30 AM

RSWells,
Good description, good phrasing, good presentation, Good ending, all in all, an excellent work. IMHO Sy

Cpat Hair

Member Patricius

since 2001-06-05

Posts 11793

2 posted 2001-07-09 09:06 AM

very nicely told... enjoyed the ending and enjoyed the thoughts...

Interloper

Member Rara Avis

since 2000-11-06

Posts 8369
Deep in the heart

3 posted 2001-07-09 10:26 AM

Interesting thoughts and a fabulous ending my friend.

Mysteria

Member Laureate

since 2001-03-07

Posts 18328
British Columbia, Canada

4 posted 2001-07-09 12:04 PM

Limbo is life, and Purgatory is in Colorado, and quite often much more is told than need be told. Nice telling Richard, but I would rather be in the back seat listening to that answer than living the real ones! Good job on this.

If I made you smile today then I did my job!
~* Mysteria *~

RSWells
Member Elite

since 2001-06-17

Posts 2533

5 posted 2001-07-09 10:00 PM

SY; Thank you sir. A bit different this.

CPAT; I am again encouraged by your words.

Interloper; Yes a friend you are becoming.

Mysteria; What can I say, it's the unpredictable me.

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