A Good Book

This new trend in my writing is entirely your fault.

It's a good book, don't you know.

They keep it in bars.

In stained-glass rooms,

That you won't spend long in.

The hotel room's church,

To the pilgrim, these days

But they've seen so much sin.

But they can't,

Or they won't -

But they sleep in the room with the book.

It's a good book, don't you see.

The words are written in blood,

And the pages, through the ages

Have been bound in human skin.

The price we pay to hear of sin,

Off our backs and from our veins,

Into the book, so good and pure,

That came and changed it all so much,

And made it wrong -

Wrong to touch, now that's a change,

But it will come and you will burn away.

It's a good book, don't you feel.

But there's no way to use it.

The platitudes in here aren't real,

But they still flow in beauty.

It tells me that I shouldn't love,

But if I don't I'll go to hell,

It shows me where the devils go,

As if I had a soul to sell -

Painted strangers, seraphims,

The devil with his cheeky grin,

A father kills his only son,

But soon, thank God, the book is done.

It's a good book, I know.

Too good for us.