How we need that good ol' gospel,
only the good ol' gospel will do;
or even a good ol' conversion,
a preacher that weeps a bit, too.
Not one of those trite off-the-street types
with strained and fire-voiced whine,
but a fireside, reborn-at-noon fellow
recently party to crimes.
Give me a fellow from Oxford,
a man whose wenching is done,
who retells his story for profit,
whose poems are hailed as the sun.
Enough of these predictable pastors,
these affordable five and ten grinds,
these preachers with sins too respectable,
those with their lusts too refined.
Some of them talk about heaven,
their shrill prattle infecting the air;
they would drive us, it seems, from this world,
to one—who knows if it's there?
1/15/88