Horror and Humor

Horror and Humor
In the world of entertainment
Are sisters.
It’s all they can do,
The implausible monsters,
To keep a straight face.
Damsels in distress
Screaming their tonsils out,
Laugh hysterically between shots.

Elsewhere Horror and Humor
Never speak to one another;
They live on separate planets.
There’s really nothing funny
About hunger, rape, or ravaging armies.

Sexuality often joins her sister Humor,
They live and work together,
Share picnics and family fun,
Office parties and vacations;
But they never pray.
Nor do they meet in church
With Sister Faith.
She goes alone.
Men and women may laugh
With delight at their nakedness,
Its touch and sight and smell,
But there’s no kiss and tell in church.
If Adam finds no suitable partner
In his menagerie
his straight man –
God –
Doesn’t laugh knowingly.
Nor does the congregation.

But Sex and Horror tryst
And not only in slasher films.
Children defiled try to sort out
The sordid, tangled strands
Of love, anger, hate, affection, loathing, fear.
Adults too renounce affection
When they find it in bed
With Force
Coiled like a snake around its waist.
We wait for peace to no avail;
For a time of healing, but terror comes instead.

Speaking of which:
I notice Faith is often unwelcome.
Mine is pretty silly --
All that praising and thanking --
And the groveling.
I wish I didn’t grovel.
It lacks dignity.

Thanks for bearing with my religion;
I’ll try not to pray too long.
I know it’s tiresome.
It’s just the attempt
To speak the unspeakable
Explain the inexplicable
Unscrew the inscrutable
Unleashes a barrage
Of words and they keep coming.
“INCOMING!”
Perhaps it’s more like a deluge.
“MAN THE BILGE PUMPS!
HERE IT COMES AGAIN!”
Sometimes ideas flow too,
Incoherently.
I see connections everywhere.

The crucifixion, for instance,
Horror or humor?
Wasn’t his rout of the demons pretty damned funny?
Didn’t you laugh at their bare
Butts disappearing in the distance?
Weren’t you glad at your relief?
You find no humor at all
When you recall your fears and doubt?

How many times did he tell you
Be not afraid?
But you feared and now
You realize how groundless
Were your fears.
God was always in charge,
If only you had believed.

But it was horrible too.

A man’s dying on the cross –
What is beautiful about that?
How can you say,
“What a beautiful crucifix over the altar?”
It’s horrible.
But not half so grisly as
The man’s body stretched
By uplifting nails
And the downward dead-weight
Yank of gravity;
His flayed flesh;
Yellow, brown, red filth
Streaming from every orifice,
Shoulders, elbows, arms unjointed,
Head upside-down
Hanging helpless heavy.
The stench alone was unbearable.
The crowds jeered, of course.
What else could they do?
The sight of his bestial nature
Stripped them of human decency.

There is no comedy there.
Is it decent to remember
Or imagine
Or describe?
Is it better left unsaid?
If you dare you will find
Even sexual abuse in this
Passion Narrative –
His nakedness, the taunts and jeers,
The leering eyes of strangers,
And his helplessness.
What did they feel in their loins,
What stimulant,
As they stripped, tortured, nailed
And raised him up?

But we will laugh on Sunday
Tears streaming from our eyes
As we hear the good news.
Free at last, free at last,
Thank God Almighty I am free at last.

There is healing in his wings
Even for children.
Love and truth will meet;
Justice and peace will kiss.
The wolf shall be guest of the lamb,
And the leopard lie down with the kid;
Horror and Humor will sport together
As Faith and Sex slap hands.