The Anti-Messiah

Luca Signorelli, The Preaching of the Antichrist.

Orvieto Cathedral (ca. 1500-1504)

Into this wild abyss the wary Fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,

Pondering his voyage . . .

—Milton, Paradise Lost 2.17–19

Clogged clarions untrumpet Him

Sealed angels unsing Him

A thunderless God A dead God

O Bomb thy BOOM His tomb

—Gregory Corso, “Bomb” (1958)

Lest we forget, He’s human, too, the Anti-Messiah,

Ears jutting from his unappealing head.

Oracular!!! Gear? Sure, pants on fire.

He’s lost all sense of what Mommy said,

An astronomic Atacama to the south;

A Kalahari on the Other Hand—

Death Valley, but, really, not to boast,

Saharan seasons on the Skeletal Coast,

A veritable Gobi Desert of the Mind,

Where all but Bulldust’s hard to find.

O Beelzebub, there’s so much sand!

Above in the cerulean sky a gibbous moon

Grins in the germfree afternoon of Hell,

And nought to quench one's thirst but Number 5 Chanel!

Is there no end to this parched pondering

That can at most cause Hunnish monks to sing?

(What, too, if a real Messiah should come,

Saying, “Get lost, you goddamn bum!”?)

Friday, March 20, 2026