Four More Aspects After Messiaen’s Twenty

(Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus)

I

When Jesus was born

According to Olivier Messiaen

Who knows more about such things

Than I

God danced

A gigue.

His first child

Since banished Adam

And engendered by

A completely different

Process.

If it worked

Saving humanity

Would be a pleasure.

II

Adam was a fornicator

And Michaelangelo

Painted his genitalia

On the Pope’s ceiling.

This other one had genitalia too

(His circumcision is recorded)

But since that day

No one ever saw them

And if

He used them

For anything

No one knows.

III

One Saviour

For all that humanity?

Be reasonable, oh Lord.

If it were saveable

Or the process worked

Or You enjoyed virgins

That much

Then every virgin

There ever was

Could conceive

A saviour.

Let’s face it, Lord,

Either as is it’s saveable

Or that process

Doesn’t work.

IV

I don’t know what

I do wrong every time

God said

Viewing the debacle

It looked so nice

And shiny

Whirling

Out in space.