Sometime During Eternity . . .

The poem opens at a deliberately unspecified date: It is merely “Sometime during eternity” (Line 1), when “some guys show up” (Line 2) in an undisclosed location. The poem’s beginning is important in two respects. First, this opening immediately sets up the satirical and irreverent tone that remains consistent throughout the entire poem. Second, the speaker’s casual vocabulary (“some guys”) and lack of concrete detail infuses the opening with the characteristics of oral tradition, which ties to one of the poem’s themes about how stories take shape and are passed along in different forms over time (See: Themes). The speaker describes how “one of [the guys]” (Line 3) comes from humble social origins and does not appear to be anyone worthy of especial notice. The man in question is merely “a kind of carpenter” (Line 5), who appears to be from “some square-type place / like Galilee” (Lines 6-7). These two hints regarding the man’s identity—the fact he is a carpenter and comes from Galilee—suggest that the man is Jesus, and that the “guys” (Line 2) with him may be his disciples.

Jesus—or the Jesus-figure, since he is never explicitly identified by name—“starts wailing” (Line 8) and makes some startling claims. He says that he knows “who made heaven / and earth” (Lines 10-11), before announcing “that the cat / who really laid it on us / is his Dad” (Lines 12-14). In these lines, Jesus reveals his messianic complex, as he is claiming both deep metaphysical knowledge and even divine lineage. The speaker recalls how Jesus claims, “It’s all writ down / on some scroll-type parchments” (Lines 17-18), which have been left “lying around the Dead Sea somewheres” (Line 20)—a reference to the ancient religious manuscripts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. In spite of Jesus knowing of the location of these Scrolls, the same cannot be said of the many generations who will come after him, as the speaker admits, “you won’t even find [the Scrolls] / for a coupla thousand years or so” (Lines 22-23), as they will not be rediscovered until the year 1947 (Line 25). The speaker suggests that these rediscovered Scrolls may not have much significance for many people: “[N]obody really believes them / or me / for that matter” (Lines 29-31).

Jesus’s words are greeted with skepticism and disapproval by his contemporary audience. They react by accusing him of being of potentially unsound mind—“You’re hot / they tell him” (Lines 32-33)—and as a reaction against his outlandish claims, “stretch him on the Tree to cool” (Line 35), which is a reference to Jesus’s crucifixion on a wooden cross. However, the speaker remarks that there are many people who eventually believe in Jesus and what he represents, as they turn his crucifixion into a sacred religious symbol: “And everybody after that / is always making models / of [the Cross]” (Lines 36-38). These believers accept Jesus’s claims and venerate him by “always crooning His name / and calling Him to come down” (Lines 40-41). Here, the use of the capital H in Him reflects the transformation of Jesus from being only one amongst “some guys” (Line 2) at the poem’s opening to being embraced as a god by many people: “as if he is the king cat” (Line 44, italics Ferlinghetti’s).

The poem concludes on a note of irony and ambivalence. The speaker observes that, in spite of his believers’ pleas, Jesus “don’t come down / from his Tree” (Lines 47-48). He instead remains no more than an immobile figure on the Cross, albeit a strangely compelling one: “looking real Petered out / and real cool” (Lines 51-52).

In the poem’s closing lines, the speaker acknowledges another story about Jesus that is now circulating “according to a roundup / of late world news” (Lines 54-55) and based on “the usual unreliable sources” (Line 56): This story claims that the god the believers are venerating is “real dead” (Line 57), suggesting that the entire mythos surrounding Jesus is merely a story that got out of hand.