brimstone breath threats

The silence of Hell is not
that you can't hear the screams - you can
it's that they're the screams of people
who are getting their ears put out - or
rather, pokered in (though I'm sure
they'd rather not) by a serious, horny
redskin fan from way back in the day, way back

when he made light

look good, and even God
agreed with that. Now
he's still so sore
butt hurt from that one time
more than 40 days ago

in the desert with the Lord who said,
"Step off! If you want to fall. I'm fine
up here." It was hard.

A brutal fail, built on expectations stretching
millennially, and as smug as millennials
today, so sure: this long-awaited crack
at the kid would

pay handsomely. All the lakes of fire torture porn
and brimstone biz had back then (barely just, even
then) started making the rounds. Jesus said

"What the Hell? I could use some more powerful imagery. Gather
round, people. Hell is a hell of an acid bath. Don't believe
me? Pluck out your eye! Toss it in for a closer look! Don't like
what you see? Pull the other one, toss it in as well
as you like - but the hand that hath plucked thine eye

out has sinned. Cut it off!" You have to understand, people
were dying, here. He had the crowd, rolling round in
paroxysms, right in the palm of his hand, as he did

his bit pushing right to the point of schisms, and past it.
They were streaming with tears from the howl, but
- humor that dark just doesn't translate well
to our age. The sarcasm
was just,
but lost
between lines, as tends to happen on the printed page. Even with
the Word of God, that's

just how it is some days.