Warning…
I’m in an odd, quirky kind of mood. I’ve been sick, I haven’t slept well, my house is quiet, and it’s raining. A bad combination. Plus I watched ELF this morning (and have been quoting it ever since). So it is in that frame of reference that I present my first and only attempt at writing a poem. I wrote it awhile ago when I was in the same quirky, odd kind of mood.
(Picture some grand Shel Silverstein drawing below. It will help. Maybe)
IF SINS WERE ASSIGNED A SMELL
–by Me.
My son at a Yellowstone sulfur pit last year.
If sins were assigned a smell
Would we be more apt to tell
The lying tongue get
You’re no longer a threat
Because you stink like fish scales?
If sins were assigned a smell
Would we bid a final farewell
To stealing and cheating
That reek like dung heating
Attaching to hair and nails?
Which sins would you mostly avoid
If they smelled like a skunk quite annoyed?
Greed, wrath, or envy
Pride, lust, and gluttony
Just to keep smells from being deployed?
What would happen if odorous mists
Escaped from you each time you hissed?
The temper once wild
Would become rather mild
For nose peace you would gladly resist.
If each time you partook of your vice
Friends sniffed ‘round your house for dead mice
The adulterous want
Would no longer taunt
And the next time I bet you’d think twice.
If your neighbors could smell your transgressions
Like garlic and fifty-nine onions
Rotten eggs, and wet-dog
And a old, marshy bog
Would you give away all your obsessions?
So whenever you’re tempted to sin
Try to think of the stench within.
It may help you to pause
And get rid of those flaws
And instead plant a fragrant garden.
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