A while back, I heard for the first time the term, “barndominium,” as a barn or storage facility on the first floor and housing on the second floor. Also, the term refers to the housing as “extra” housing, not a primary residence. In the case I heard, it was for boat storage and extra housing for when the kids or other guests visited. Of coarse, such an outhouse is subject to a commensurate amount of bullshit. There is a saying, “Eat, drink, and be merry,” which sometimes appends something to the effect of life being short. The popular wisdom in this usually connotes, “Enjoy life, it’s short.” The original aphorism is from the Bible, and its admonition has the exact opposite meaning: Don’t be seduced by worldly wealth for one’s own purpose when the world offers rich opportunities to do God’s work in an often unjust and merciless world. This poem is my take on this original scripture and meaning.
Barn Dominion – Owed to Luke 12:16-21
And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” Luke 12:16-21 (NIV)
He thought too himself
I have
So so much
What am I
Too due
For me and mine
And how sow
Billed a barn
I’ing the prize
Enough
Cache for owed age
A tenuous spell
As money pact
A dicey bargain
With grave ends
Take life
Easy
Eat, drink, and be merry
Tabling banquets
That fit
Fore heaven
Unearthed
The juice of strange fruits
Drunk
Preparing rapturous receptions
With fooled for the gods
Fleeced by unshared fetes
As wolves in sheep’s clothing
Their soul refrain
Their see’d
Look at
Me
We
Jōb creators
Meting their maker
The lease of these
And awe that was ever axed
Turned out
To be a lode of crop
As foolish as conceivable accede
Temped by a bettor weigh
As faith lies
Vacant
To what
Could have
Bin
Sow, sow much
