Epistle Ll Poem by Morgan Michaels

everything's interconnected:
sex and procreation unlinked
then faith in immortality is shaken-
how nervous we get!
for faith relies on earthly correlates
via blood-lines and genome, does it not?
question that and you question
the point of life itself.
there go the churches and temples.
there go coercion, guilt, shame.
there go the shifting backdrops of existence
so depended upon as cues.
there goes the price of gasoline.
there go advertising and the press.
there goes television and magazines.
And, approaching the Pascalian paradigm
we even begin to wonder what
on earth we're doing this for-
getting up in the morning and so forth-
since the distraction of willing bondage
(willing and necessary)
supplants the need and eventually even the urge
to think-the task of the nimblest,
the only act with governable outcome.
Think architecture-'frozen music', as Goethe called it-
yielding pyramid, parthenon, Hagia Sophia
(we're all in this together)
of ritual-purpose, but nonetheless
the product of thinking
and logic-the mathematics of language
the language of men amenable to logic-
God! what if the god-like task of thinking
was the primary end of humankind
instead of hamburgers and overtime?
and looking for someone to breed, pay the bills
in exchange for sex?
What if....