A somewhat cynical yet possibly hopeful poem by my alter ego, Vilém Více, who lives in Prague, one of my favorite cities in the world.
Most agree that faith is a great solace
Through loss and grief it sure does console us
But let me say this about the “God” thing
If you do not believe that angels sing
And that the Lord’s wondrous glories await
Upon your arrival at heaven’s gate
I have this one sure fail-safe solution
Simply embrace the whole grand delusion
Deceive yourself and bamboozle your mind
That in your death you will actually find
All that religious stuff they say is true
That in an afterlife God will imbue
Enlightenment on you beyond belief
Glory be, wouldn’t that be blessed relief!
But if it ain’t so and it’s all a fraud
There ain’t no heaven and there ain’t no Lord
You will not know the difference anyway
At the moment of your dreaded doomsday
You’ll be in oblivion nothing known
Dead body and mind and vanishing bone.
So this is the conclusion I contend
It is of little import in the end
Whether you do or do not believe
So you might just as well self-deceive
It will banish those scary deathbed blues
I mean, what the hell have you got to lose?
Photo: Vilém Více (foreground) in Prague.