By: Steve Henn
“My backyard birds sound better
than your backyard birds”
my brother posted on Facedump
what I wanted to comment
(but didn’t) was “you’ll never
reach enlightenment if
everything’s a competition”
I mean hey, maybe I’m wrong,
maybe God loves the fuck
out of sports – enjoys
seeing losers vanquished
in championships,
loves the glory
of the final adrenal rush
keeping the winners up
pouring champagne
on each other til dawn
Maybe God loves
a champion who gloats
Maybe God loathes
humility and simple
friendship, maybe
The nuclear arms race
jolts up God like
an eleven year old in front
of a tv-full of pro wrestling
And every time he sees
one human bodyslam another
he emits an Oooooooooh!
like he’s watching a fireworks show.
Steve Henn wrote Indiana Noble Sad Man of the year (Wolfson Press 2017) and two previous collections from NYQ Books. Lately he's published a few essays. Find out more at therealstevehenn.com.
"The quote is an actual social media post by my actual brother. My brother is a former high school athlete who has been very successful in a corporate career – so much so that he retired around age 50. Because I was responding to my brother at first, I got thinking about sports, and that got me thinking of athletes who give 'all glory to God,' and so on, and that got me thinking of how effed up it is to believe in a God who excites and feels glorified by one human triumphing over another. The poem is really not a critique of my brother, who is frequently kind and also a practicing Christian, but of that idea of a God who likes seeing 'His people' triumph over 'the losers' or 'infidels' or 'pagans' or whatever, as that is no kind of God that I’m interested in believing in. I found the mood and voice quickly and then the poem pretty much rolled."