Nothing passes

He had absolutely nothing
Inside his head,
So he decided to become
A theologian.

His head was like
An unbroken eggshell
With no egg inside.

So there was plenty of space
For vacuous dogma
To rattle around
The soft echo-chamber
Of his untenanted skull.

His vocal chords, however,
Were well-developed,
So he was a great success
As a theologian.

His vocal chords
Were elastic,
Stentorian,
And lacking
In any species
Of self-doubt.

So he became a priest as well.

If you are a priest
It helps enormously
If you have an empty head
And well-developed vocal chords.

He could articulate
Periphrases without focus
And circumlocutions without content,
Such was the felicity
Of his decibels.

In the end he rose
To become the grand international
Head of his church.

But then a strange thing happened:
His church ceased to exist.
It had no members -
Not even him.

And no-one noticed its passing.

If you are standing
By the side of a busy road
And nothing passes,
You tend not to notice -
Even if the nothing is noisy.


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