Music

Thou shalt not play music;
Playing music, you say to the world,
“what joy is intended in being human”!
There is the blasphemy, the blasphemy:
God created man, more particularly woman,
Not to be joyful but fearful,
Not to be celebratory but miserable,
Not to be saying I like this or that,
I want this or that, this or that pleases me
Or does not please me, I have a heart
That throbs to certain things,
And turns away from others, a mind—
Ah, the ultimate blasphemy, this having
Of a mind—that picks and chooses,
Makes evaluations of things given,
Finds some useful, others driven
Not by god’s edict but Authority’s dozes,
Such as guitar is western and evil,
Harmonium also western but safely medieval.
Or, that yes we need women for
The production of men, after which
They were meant to be swathed
And put away in a den
Where no light of life may infect
Their ordained obedience with the corrupt
Brew of music or dance.
Say to the Satan who reads and writes,
Who questions and interprets,
Who protests and raves,
That god’s purpose is forever in this:
Men are masters, women slaves.
That one book alone stores all
Truth; and the centuries since then
Denote the fall of men and women
Into the thinking of their own modern
Thoughts ; thus is the chalice dethroned
By multiple pots that brew
Individuals with fire and desire,
Till there are no more slaves for hire.
Shoot, fire, shoot, fire,
Fire, fire, fire, fire.