Post by amelie on Feb 25, 2004 22:39:32 GMT -5
Sin Eater
I Taste the fetid flesh
In the stale bread,
And dried blood
In the tepid water;
The dab of salt, sour
As shame and the tang
Of sick, sweet guilt
Gagging in the throat
As a lifetime of
Vice and corruption
Is devoured whole.
I am sin eater;
Nourished by foulness,
Plucked from open shroud;
The cadaverous chest,
A pallid, marble veined
Altar table for my
Macabre sacrament;
A few pennies for your sins
And I atone for the impure
Soul and wasted prayers;
To Sanctify and ease passage,
In barter with God,
Hiding the contraband
Of a lived life
That cannot face scrutiny.
I will be your scapegoat;
Become the vicarious
Pariah, acting the part
Destiny has prescribed;
Faithful to my script
Like an outcast Judas;
The deus ex machina,
Swinging from low rose
Clustered branches;
Coins tinkling in
A parody of soft music
As the feet sway in rhythm.
I do not crave forgiveness;
Nor cross desert or forest
To seek craven redemption,
Cringing at the lapping shore,
To assuage the burden
Of our petty peccadilloes
With meaningless litany:
By the Stones, by the Wind,
By the Fire, by the Tree,
From the dead man's sins
Set me free, set me free!
I will name my soul;
I will be Judy,
In remembrance,
And will not atone
For myself, alone;
But embrace the inferno
Explanatory Notes.
Sin eating is a medieval practice whereby the sin eater, a person not known to the family, would perform a ritual over a dead person’s body. The sin eater would eat a piece of bread and take some water and salt that was laid on the dead person’s chest. In so doing the sin eater would take into himself the dead person’s sins, leaving that person free to enter heaven. The sin eater would receive money for this but would then be cast out of the home, often accompanied by abuse and stone throwing. The sin eater could free himself of the sins he had taken in by going to a body of water, and making a casting gesture, and saying:
By the Stones, by the Wind,
By the Fire, by the Tree,
From the dead man's sins
Set me free, set me free!
This practice has similarities to the Hebrew ritual of the ‘scapegoat’, whereby a live goat over whose head Aaron confessed all the sins of the children of Israel on the Day of Atonement, was then sent into the wilderness to die, symbolically bearing their sins.
I Taste the fetid flesh
In the stale bread,
And dried blood
In the tepid water;
The dab of salt, sour
As shame and the tang
Of sick, sweet guilt
Gagging in the throat
As a lifetime of
Vice and corruption
Is devoured whole.
I am sin eater;
Nourished by foulness,
Plucked from open shroud;
The cadaverous chest,
A pallid, marble veined
Altar table for my
Macabre sacrament;
A few pennies for your sins
And I atone for the impure
Soul and wasted prayers;
To Sanctify and ease passage,
In barter with God,
Hiding the contraband
Of a lived life
That cannot face scrutiny.
I will be your scapegoat;
Become the vicarious
Pariah, acting the part
Destiny has prescribed;
Faithful to my script
Like an outcast Judas;
The deus ex machina,
Swinging from low rose
Clustered branches;
Coins tinkling in
A parody of soft music
As the feet sway in rhythm.
I do not crave forgiveness;
Nor cross desert or forest
To seek craven redemption,
Cringing at the lapping shore,
To assuage the burden
Of our petty peccadilloes
With meaningless litany:
By the Stones, by the Wind,
By the Fire, by the Tree,
From the dead man's sins
Set me free, set me free!
I will name my soul;
I will be Judy,
In remembrance,
And will not atone
For myself, alone;
But embrace the inferno
Explanatory Notes.
Sin eating is a medieval practice whereby the sin eater, a person not known to the family, would perform a ritual over a dead person’s body. The sin eater would eat a piece of bread and take some water and salt that was laid on the dead person’s chest. In so doing the sin eater would take into himself the dead person’s sins, leaving that person free to enter heaven. The sin eater would receive money for this but would then be cast out of the home, often accompanied by abuse and stone throwing. The sin eater could free himself of the sins he had taken in by going to a body of water, and making a casting gesture, and saying:
By the Stones, by the Wind,
By the Fire, by the Tree,
From the dead man's sins
Set me free, set me free!
This practice has similarities to the Hebrew ritual of the ‘scapegoat’, whereby a live goat over whose head Aaron confessed all the sins of the children of Israel on the Day of Atonement, was then sent into the wilderness to die, symbolically bearing their sins.
