When you are profoundly drunk enough, you know
the inefficiency of everything,
and your personal insufficiency. The difficult door
resists, like the eye of the needle, the key on the ring
you so carefully, so sedulously fumble for
among so many wrong choices. You propitiate, so,

the God who doesn’t believe in you; the fool
He wanted: the brainless automaton whose socks
must be so sedulously removed, who thinks
“Did I get home safely with money?”, whose damned bed rocks
under a pendulum ceiling. And all those drinks,
full bladders, and empty nights, are your soul’s school

to study profanity: How very deep
your failure is, and the failure of everything
God made since he made Paradise.
You must simplify your life and your key-ring
to live like this. But, Lord, would it not be nice
if no one had to drink himself to sleep?