Belshazzar
I never knew myself to have a Persian beard, now,
This is odd, this will need some explanation
So too the crown and concubines and all these
Half-drunk vessels from the house of God
Isn’t it 2023 or 2022—was I not, just now,
Pulling up in a Subaru or whatever it is I
Get myself around in? In fact I’m quite certain
My father was born in 1959 and hardly Nebuchadnezzar,
Though it is his second term as village president
(He ran unopposed this time) for the Most High God
Set him over it. TEKEL
Says the writing on the wall of my lordly mind, haunting,
TEKEL—you have been weighed in the balance
And found wanting
God I am always wanting
Wanting wanting wanting I am
Always wanting in or out of the balance,
And there is no wisdom in these Chaldeans
I have summoned to advise me, these useless
Fuckwitted Chaldeans with parlor tricks who break
My words with sticks and hurt me thus. How many more,
(I wonder!!) how many more misdeeds before my kingdom
Is divided, and given to the Medes?
Feature Image: Rembrandt‘s depiction of the biblical account of Belshazzar seeing “the writing on the wall“