Diatribe Against the Dead

Albrecht Dührer

The Martydom of the Ten Thousand

Diatribe Against the Dead

The dead are selfish:

they make us cry and don't care,

they stay quiet in the most inconvenient places,

they refuse to walk, we have to carry them

on our backs to the tomb

as if they were children. What a burden!

Unusually rigid, their faces

accuse us of something, or warn us;

they are the bad conscience, the bad example,

they are the worst things in our lives always, always.

The bad thing about the dead

is that there is no way you can kill them.

Their constant destructive labor

is for the reason incalculable.

Insensitive, distant, obstinate, cold,

with their insolence and their silence

they don't realize what they undo.

~ Angel Gonzalez ~

Odium Theologicum

Albrecht Dührer

The Four Holy Men

Odium Theologicum

1
They met and they talked where the crossroads meet,

Four men from the four winds come,

And they talked of the horse, for they loved the theme,

And never a man was dumb.

The man from the North loved the strength of the horse,

And the man from the East his pace,

And the man from the South loved the speed of the horse,

And the man from the West his grace.
So these four men from the four winds come,

Each paused a space in his course

And smiled in the face of his fellow man

And lovingly talked of the horse.

Then each man parted and went his way

As their different courses ran;

And each man journeyed with peace in his heart

And loving his fellow man.

2
They met the next year where the crossroads meet,

Four men from the four winds come;

And it chanced as they met that they talked of God,

And never a man was dumb.

One imagined God in the shape of a man.

A spirit did one insist.

One said that nature itself was God.

One said that he didn’t exist.
They lashed each other with tongues that stung,

That smote as with a rod;

Each glared in the face of his fellow man,

And wrathfully talked of God.

Then each man parted and went his way,

As their different courses ran;

And each man journeyed with wrath in his heart,

And hating his fellow man.

~ Sam Walter Foss ~