While the flight attendant,
having loaded the meal cart,
is monotonously, monotonously pitching,

the Christian God
steers
every
streetcar,
prescribes
every
Christian
(that applies to non-Christians alike),

so that one is pressed down with a mound of hardships,
while another is blessed and basks in prescriptions,
аминь /ah-MEEN/.

Meanwhile, children and all clear of dross,
enter heaven bypassing the thorns,
and Peter, the staunchest of Capricorns,
beckons them in.

While I'm being skeptical
of the attendant's offerings,
other passengers engrossed in the drama,

God, as He is,  
palms off beings to the workings of karma,
albeit also—****!—asymmetrical...

There's a gap, oh yeah, there's a gap
between you             and              me.
There's a bridge, oh yeah, there's a bridge
between me and you. Sounds like rap.
So far, in what I've said there's nothing sinuous
'cause I'm using very simple language,
not some future perfect progressive,
nor some future perfect continuous.

This gap, this nasty, nasty gap
between you             and             me,
is just the same that cuts off you
from You and me—from Me. Ah, snap!
But here's the deal: while inhibiting
your reptilian brain, you want to clean
your human brain of all the crap,
and if God wills,
you reach a kind of present infinitive.

It is common knowledge in village Woop-Woop:  
Gnyaneshwar penned "Gnyaneshwari" in one fell swoop,
but later on, after drinking some coconut juice,
he jetted off into mahasamadhi* —whooz!

As a tractor operator from the very place  
equated mahasamadhi to returning—with grace—
one's worn-out ticket to Heavenly Lord,
his face was gilded by last twilight rays.

Mid-supper, the milkmaids from the very hickst  
included "Gnyaneshwari" into Brodsky's List,  
though Brodsky didn't stop his resting in peace,
for he'd grown tired of exhorting lay-deez,

provided that their choice wasn't that bad.
Gnyaneshwar had penned "Gnyaneshwari,"—poor lad!
He had a hard time bringing it home to folks
who had a penchant for not connecting the dots.      

About the said Gnyaneshwar—if only he knew
that in less than a millennium, a random dude
would quote "Gnyaneshwari" in one fell sway—
otherwise, he'd have surely whispered: "I stay."

*mahasamadhi can be viewed as a non-violent suicide

This Earth is home
to eight billion visionaries.
Their revelations begin
with a baby's first cry,
and then their missions unfold,
each
their own messiah.

At times, prophecies concur,
forming fleeting alliances:
where no one sows salt,
mushroom colonies strike—
each member with its stem,
a cocked tricorn hat,
and live performances.
"Now my turn—gimme the mike!"

Every oracle's merit
is gauged by impartial Something
beyond face,
beyond sounding.

In a restaurant
he was studying the menu:

~ Raw emotion with blood
~ Medium-rare emotion
~ Stir-fried emotion
~ Deep-fried emotion

Emotions, refined with thought,
had to be preordered
years in advance

in a separate annex.

...For attention is a kind of field of rambling mathematical dots;
they ramble all over the body, emotions, feelings, and thoughts;
the dots, having rambled away, come back with a certain catch;
attention is a coveted prize for various centers of force;
robust frontal lobes are required for good attention control;
too rarified an attention will make you a gullible fool,
and overmuch concentration will make you an idiot, too;
the line between folly and idiocy isn't so clear-cut;
Divine assembles the dots into a congruous kaleidoscope;
Divine alone sends them flying into a congruous kaleidoscope;
one humbly offers attention to Him for this very end;
this yields more beatification than slaughtering a buffalo herd;
the sacrifice of attention is better than donating to church;
attention, may have to do with skittish bosons of Higgs;
controlling and refining attention is a primary duty of man;
relaxing attention in Her is by far the greatest of joys.
And now, you can attend to your half-eaten Buffalo wings.