I guess, O Lord, I needn’t dwell
On the particulars of my
Demise for certainly you’ve heard
It all (or worse) before. Absurd
Though it may seem, I need to tell
You that, as hard as I may try,
I find I’m sometimes haunted by
An almost wistfulness for hell.
At least in hell I knew the rules
Or, sensing there were none, could brave
The strange perverse dichotomy
Of feeling miserable yet free.
But in your tenderness for fools
Who dance so blithely to their grave,
You took it on yourself to save
This sorry bunch of molecules.
And now I’m too amazed by half,
So unequipped for simple joy
Am I, so endlessly surprised
By life. I’d never have surmised
That you, it seems, just for a laugh
(And endless love) would grace deploy
To turn this grown man’s little-boy
Proclivity for hell to chaff.
Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Dappled Things, America Magazine, the St. Austin Review, Amethyst Review, Pensive Journal, U.S. Catholic, The Society of Classical Poets, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of The Catholic Poetry Room.