Surely They Can’t All Be As Bad

Am I to take this indisposition of arthritic pain
a token warning of your august munificence?
One shoulder hurts so much I cannot raise the
arm, not to supplication-able levels anyway,

and I am afraid I cannot bend to pray, my back
and knees will not allow such latitude. Suffice
to say I’m damned, I guess. Yes, I know didn’t
pray before the pain became this bad but that

would beg the very question, why let pain take
the sway it does when you’re not going to relieve
it anyway? Was that circumspect warning shot let
through the head meant to convert the masses

back to your way of thinking? And what are the
sad alternatives we are supposed to be shrinking
from? Burning in Hell would be a sinecure compared
with this. Hey, surely, they can’t ALL be as bad...
© 25 April 2007, I.D. Carswell