REVELATION: three, seven – the Kingdom of Heaven

The key to unlocking both glory and shame.

Philadelphia knows He’s arriving in newness

inscribing on foreheads His city and name.

(Though it could be on tee shirts or baseball caps, true –

unless someone takes time to decipher the text…

is it Greek? Aramaic? Amharic? What next?)

Don’t be mad – it’s not me but old John who’s to blame.

Of names and on numbers of Savior and Beast

I have lately been pondering, trembling, wondering

mushroom-cloud raptures in mind’s eye a-thundering.

How will we get to that marriage-day feast?

Will my garment be ready or filthy with fall-out?

(The song says His blood will make clean if we call out

in faith for forgiveness, in humble repentance

believing that grace will abolish the sentence.)

You may wish my rhyme to be likewise abolished.

Bear with me. Forgive me, I grant it’s not polished.

I speak what I feel and I write when I’m able;

which brings us to heavenly thoughts gastronomic:

what dishes we’ll meet as we dine at that table-

strict Jewish? Angelic? Or pre-Abrahamic?

Shall they serve us from silver or common ceramic?

Being clay to the potter, an unfinished vessel

I leave all these questions for others to wrestle.

Yet there’s still one more realm I explore in conjecture:

the sounds at that gathering.  Classical?   Rock?

Unending revivalist Christian refrains?

Shall we headbang in heaven with glorified brains?

Psychedelic/Psychotic…? or  Handel and Bach?

(Lighten up. It’s the end of my bible-school lecture.

You’ve seen a few rooms of my castle-in-air,

and we ALL know it’s reggae they’re playing up there…)

Bernie Sanders hatched a scheme
to rant an old progressive theme.
He left the greening mountain heights
to bellow forth for Social Rights
descending to our nation's valleys
milking the faithful at his rallies.
Mr. Sanders sold the farm,
sounded socialist alarm;
Trading professorial tweeds
for bloviating human needs.
He set the lefties all a-twitter
bartering the sweet for bitter.
He glared through academic glasses
at the doubtful working classes
wondering why they failed to note
just why and how they ought to vote.
Sanders patched up race-relations
fixing holes with reparations,
working up his magic wonder:
horsey voice of righteous thunder
till the clouds hung heavy and gray
portent of a darker day...
Warming up leftover Hope
he spared no change for hangman's rope,
sputtering on, he blew a gasket
redistributing our basket
scolding, bellowing, pumping fist
and waving fingers from the wrist
like politburo retro-chic
a tousled old white-headed freak.

I wonder sometimes
why droll observations;
recollections of a personal and
sometimes confessional nature,
(interesting enough in themselves – if well-written),
get called “poems” when broken up by
weird line spacing. Nothing against
descriptive prose –
but I don’t think it is truly
Poetry. You can call it that
if you want; I don’t
mind.