"impious" poems
Daughter of Jove, relentless Power,
Thou tamer of the human breast,
Whose iron scourge and tort’ring hour
The Bad affright, afflict the Best!
Bound in thy adamantine chain
The Proud are taught to taste of pain,
And purple Tyrants vainly groan
With pangs unfelt before, unpitied and alone.
When first thy Sire to send on earth
Virtue, his darling child, designed,
To thee he gave the heav’nly Birth,
And bade to form her infant mind.
Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore
With patience many a year she bore:
What sorrow was, thou bad’st her know,
And from her own she learned to melt at others’ woe.
Scared at thy frown terrific, fly
Self-pleasing Folly’s idle brood,
Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy,
And leave us leisure to be good.
Light they disperse, and with them go
The summer Friend, the flatt’ring Foe;
By vain Prosperity received,
To her they vow their truth, and are again believed.
Wisdom in sable garb arrayed
Immersed in rapt’rous thought profound,
And Melancholy, silent maid
With leaden eye, that loves the ground,
Still on thy solemn steps attend:
Warm Charity, the gen’ral Friend,
With Justice, to herself severe,
And Pity dropping soft the sadly-pleasing tear.
Oh, gently on thy Suppliant’s head,
Dread Goddess, lay thy chast’ning hand!
Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,
Not circled with the vengeful Band
(As by the Impious thou art seen),
With thund’ring voice, and threat’ning mien,
With screaming Horror’s funeral cry,
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty.
Thy form benign, O Goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic Train be there
To soften, not to wound my heart.
The gen’rous spark extinct revive,
Teach me to love and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,
What others are, to feel, and know myself a Man.
3.5k
Still falls the Rain---
Dark as the world of man, black as our loss---
Blind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
Upon the Cross.
Still falls the Rain
With a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat
In the Potter's Field, and the sound of the impious feet
On the Tomb:
Still falls the Rain
In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain
Nurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.
Still falls the Rain
At the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.
Christ that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us---
On Dives and on Lazarus:
Under the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.
Still falls the Rain---
Still falls the Blood from the Starved Man's wounded Side:
He bears in His Heart all wounds,---those of the light that died,
The last faint spark
In the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,
The wounds of the baited bear---
The blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat
On his helpless flesh... the tears of the hunted hare.
Still falls the Rain---
Then--- O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune---
See, see where Christ's blood streames in the firmament:
It flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree
Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
That holds the fires of the world,---dark-smirched with pain
As Caesar's laurel crown.
Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
Was once a child who among beasts has lain---
"Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee."
3.3k
Spriralling down profanity
Standing on the cliff of blasphemy
She looked for angels inside of demons
Where God's decree was nowhere to be found
She had faith in what she saw
Preachers and believers
Insolence and deciept
Their words of judgement reaching out to cage her in
Threatening punishment
Imploring her to forgiveness
God, there is sacrilege
This world is rampant with hypocrites
Her heart is full of your love
Yet desires the forbidden
The unsanctioned
It harms not a soul, not even her own
But holds her happiness down the one path
That strays just a little from the rules
God, who loves the impious preachers and believers
The patient and forgiving
Can these two paths not become one?
Where the blood in her veins runs by His decree
Every breath she takes is with His grace
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 8:57 AM UTC
O LOVE! O LOVE! WHY ARE YOU EVER DEVOID OF LOGIC?
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; [email protected])
Mankind in its pathetic folly entice you in a dint of stupor
Knowing not your true colour and texture
Endeavoring to achieve glory in your mastery
With the so limited human capacity
In grey faith that you are a cradle of bliss
But O love! Why are you ever crooked?
Young men and women in strength of their sinews
Toil day and night in ******* of humanity
Praying and whining incantations with the hope for optimal love
Ornamenting their bodies with diamond and bronze
Fibre and silk ornamented to helm of providence
In the foolish quest for love equillibria
But in full stretch of your vice, you impish love
You catapult all away to the shifted goal posts
O love! O love! Why are you ever ruthless?
You hate the learned but you favour the strong
You hate professors but you favour the soldiers
You hate the rich but you favour the agile
You hate the lawyers but you favour the footballers
You hate the pastors but you favour the ruffian
You hate the whites but you favour the Negroes
You hate the groomed but you love the ragamuffin
You hate the chaste but you favour the mistress
O love! O love! Why are you ever illogical?
Love, I revere you for wickedness and irrationality
In all of your history you scored sum *** laude
In the duo as blend of your domain, Look;
You never dwell in a genuine companionship
You like where the couth will interject;
Amidst fornication between married and single ones
Amidst adultery in the triangle of foul compassion
Amidst miscegenation between black and white
Amidst infatuation between the whole and the lame
Amidst conjugal appetite between the old and the young
Amidst concupiscence between house master and houshelp
Amidst immorality of married master over the wallowing servant
Amidst libidos between literate teacher unto the peasant pupil
Amidst disordered passion among the sly lesbians
Amidst impious ********** among the suave gays
O love! O love! You are the most wicked force!
Love I am told; your colour is red
You may be red or you may not be red
But all in all, you deserve poetical veneration
For your herculean ability to bend the most wise;
In your force you made sagacious Shakespeare to bend
In your force you made Princes Diana to bend and bend
Bending downwardly stooping for Afawoyed the moor,
In your stupefying dint you made Napoleon de Bonaparte
To bend and bend downwardly stooping for Josephine
Josephine a famed she-Casanova in the gone Paris
Among the then humanity and the then animality,
In your impairing machinery you set sons on their fathers
In the roman empire of Antony and Ceaser
In the scramble for Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen
Beauty of her aquiline nose heavily hovered perhaps
In the eyes of the Roman beholders
The father and the son only to sent the empire
To the love forlorn smithereens!
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 5:08 AM UTC
an impurity
inherent or invasive,
identity, purpose, all unresolved,
substantive, long-lived, minute sized,
flexible, formed, yet more,
clearly shapelessly, so well visible
we'll disguise it
to survive it
without passport, an émigré
illegally legal border invasive,
but somehow more knowledgable
of the unmapped byways within,
more than me - how can that be?
never motionless, indeed,
always hurried, even when energy gathering,
despite it's detailed timetable,
detailing plentiful stops and
interminable unexplained
screeching wailings,
it has no smooth gliding,
nor rumbling grumbling halting,
to a final destination imprinted
this impurity,
a beheaded brainy horseman
searching for what,
I'm not permissioned,
unquenchable questioning,
all I am allowed is
sensory
surceasingly, unseasonably seeking
the undresser,
the verisign
of veritas
eyes mirrored reversal internal,
you can't understand why finishing
this poem is so hard
because you don't want to
confess this
impious impurity,
no étranger, it is but
copious insecurity,
of the all of you,
the ecstasy of
the rushing,
the upsetting,
universal unique to us, you,
unholy, ecclesiastical, catholic,
that impurity is just
the heart pumping the
mottled blood of
life coursing through your words
and out your fingertips,
onto those
stained drumsticks
used
to play the keyboard alphabet
about an
out-of-tempo
impure ecstasy
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 11:33 AM UTC
Brown and black mark the day
of the deceased, the celebration
is in full swing and the band awaits
the midnight gown. The masks
have plucked the stars, so let’s begin.
Before the fountain drowns the
accordion’s laughter, take a second
to bow before the corrupted sighs.
Lick the ash and bleeding thorns,
there is never too less for a soul.
She will summon your darkened half,
so stitch your tears to the body and go.
Remember the routes that your sins
have carved, so ignite your last wish
to lead you beyond the world undone.
They speak in impious ink, the leftover
froth denies to be swallowed, but
stand there to help them gulp down
the lifeless. Help them tear the flesh,
help them gnaw at your breath.
©️Rooh
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 8:10 AM UTC
Let you not say of me when I am old,
In pretty worship of my withered hands
Forgetting who I am, and how the sands
Of such a life as mine run red and gold
Even to the ultimate sifting dust, “Behold,
Here walketh passionless age!”—for there expands
A curious superstition in these lands,
And by its leave some weightless tales are told.
In me no lenten wicks watch out the night;
I am the booth where Folly holds her fair;
Impious no less in ruin than in strength,
When I lie crumbled to the earth at length,
Let you not say, “Upon this reverend site
The righteous groaned and beat their ******* in prayer.”
1.5k
Once you were a twittering butterfly
And seduced many other insects
With your beautiful wings
And sweet sayings
The insects knew you were a caterpillar
And a shameful lie teller and disgraceful yeller
You changed your colour and proud of your valour
You seem to be a chameleon and went into oblivion
You became an owl and speaks like a fowl
And didn’t change your impious soul
You were devoid of any worthy goal
And thought that every other bird was a fool
You have became a saintly crane
And standing on a single foot
To you life seems to be a circus feat
Every creature knows that you are a great cheat
Dec 27, 2010
Dec 27, 2010 at 6:52 AM UTC
Why this quietness?
Why this seriousness?
Why this modesty?
Has the old lizard
Grown another tail?
Oh, my immutable love,
The impalpable pure-scented
Dawn that impales my thoughts,
Have thou reached an impasse?
For the clouds have gathered
And there is nothing more
To expect but the storm,
My sliding helpless slick rhythm,
Thy words are always covered with
Stitches of honey in my heart,
Who is this impious imp?
Rivalling with my angelic heart?
Indeed, you love is wet and slippery.
© PRINCE NANA ANIN-AGYEI
Email: [email protected]
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 6:41 AM UTC
Hear, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock
Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock;
While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold
Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold;
And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs
That nurse the grape and wave the grain, are theirs.
Yet better were this mountain wilderness,
And this wild life of danger and distress--
Watchings by night and perilous flight by day,
And meetings in the depths of earth to pray,
Better, far better, than to kneel with them,
And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn.
Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder; the firm land
Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand;
Thou dashest nation against nation, then
Stillest the angry world to peace again.
Oh, touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons--
The murderers of our wives and little ones.
Yet, mighty God, yet shall thy frown look forth
Unveiled, and terribly shall shake the earth.
Then the foul power of priestly sin and all
Its long-upheld idolatries shall fall.
Thou shalt raise up the trampled and oppressed,
And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest.
1.2k
In a far land known as Pakistan,
in the little town of Prym
Impiety was criminal,
And blasphemy a sin
A Christian woman stood accused
Of impious words and deed-
Did her words insult the Prophet?
Or did her neighbors hate her creed?
Tried and condemned for Blasphemy
in the little town of Prym,
The Christian woman waited,
for the stoning to begin.
The townspeople all gathered round,
pious Moslems one and all.
They chose their weapons from the ground
and awaited Imam’s call.
When suddenly the sky grew dark
The Sun obscured from view
A Nickel Iron stone from space
One, without sin, just threw.
In the place where Prym once stood
is a crater deep and wide.
There is no more impiety.
and no more fratricide.
Take to heart the lesson
Let hatred be unknown
Or next time He who is without sin
may cast a larger stone.
Nov 26, 2011
Nov 26, 2011 at 8:28 PM UTC
The problem
With
Poli-
Tricks-
They mention every
"God"
But the only
God-
And they wonder
Why their lost in
Misery-
Ashamed
In darkness
Falls- evolution
In schools
Meaning no
(Morals)
Their standards
Are that
man's a
Monkey, using
Euthenics( reviving ****** in their
Man-made
Mural's.
Eat your cereal
Live life as if we have the
B
L
I
N
D
E
R
S
ON-
Though my eye's are
Uncorrupted ( not seeing through misty nighttime glasses)
Breaking to the other
Side
Of the
Fog-
Science correlates with dios
And dios with science-
Yet popular belief
Is a tool
Of diablo's
Machine.
Reaching into the dome
Of the great
City-
Where America
Is astray
With the globe
In the horned one's
Mean's.
Has the man who said
There is no
God
Just walked out into nature-
To see the spectacular
Creation
On a universal
Scale?
Yet their bucket's of
Disbelief have been
Shown beneathe the
Veil
Where the impious
Are stale
And their
aspiration
Is
None!
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 3:05 PM UTC
You have a poem;
Spring brings you poem.
I think Anthony must be your court's poet;
a serf turned grateful for his god-gave muse.
Genuflect he's to this Fürstin,
trip he does, too, over himself
getting you water
both up and down the stairs;
when presenting his poetry,
rebuts extended portension,
yes, pausing liking um-ing, tsk;
and all so when reaching for his dagger
to cut our darkness away,
does seem dance with shadows
like fire was a pomethean bane.
Still he gets it from his sheath,
brings it to her bloodless yet
dulled from the escaped swings
of misaimed blows into shrubs.
Wants me to call him Reichsritter.
I’d indulge him but he’d still
have to synthesize faith from
some avian metabolism,
(it’s known that poets’ health’s all
flat feet, weak livers, shallow lungs,
and consumptive coughs);
or, better yet, find knighthood
in the books read for your sake;
nay, I too must keep honest to you.
So does he, you know? thinks
sincerely that there’s the stuff of art
passed to him when he entertains you;
doesn’t think himself the lordship you insist,
thinks he’s groped and somehow scalded
himself upon the empyrean fire,
and bows recedes away feeling just
a bit impious.
*That’s it though! :
You’re a young seraphim took earthly shape,
faring the angelic order’s routine errand
to forget absolute, embrace listless hate,
then forget it again.*
Well, isn’t this where Anthony missteps?
cries wolf, burns midnight oil,
clutches his stomach in pain.
The ‘seraphim’ draft is just a wish
for your eternal life, please believe.
Every comet and season makes him
just as mouthful and excited.
A heart of love and head of art, tsk.
We can’t judge the heart
and the head
together can we?
Regardless,
a court poet essentially a jester,
pinned his poem
to my chest.
So, meine Fürstin,
you have a poem,
Spring has brought you a poem.
Mar 21, 2012
Mar 21, 2012 at 5:44 AM UTC
Thy country, Wilberforce, with just disdain,
Hears thee, by cruel men and impious, call'd
Fanatic, for thy zeal to loose th' enthrall'd
From exile, public sale, and slav'ry's chain.
Friend of the poor, the wrong'd, the fetter-gall'd,
Fear not lest labour such as thine be vain!
Thou hast achiev'd a part; hast gain'd the ear
Of Britain's senate to thy glorious cause;
Hope smiles, joy springs, and tho' cold caution pause
And weave delay, the better hour is near,
That shall remunerate thy toils severe
By peace for Afric, fenc'd with British laws.
Enjoy what thou hast won, esteem and love
From all the just on earth, and all the blest above!
1.1k
The highest of all with serving rounds
never ending desire of expectation bound
Hating qualities of whom they despise
trying to get approval impious surmise
They follow and try to please all in sight
watch carefully as they over load on trite
Compelling the audience with their drunken imperfections
watching them tumble over barrels and start theorize direction
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 2:34 PM UTC
It takes the sky to make me feel small anymore,
Ridicule from orange light
To make the ghost town fill the bluing coast.
Single silhouette, the wailing breath,
A trailer park becoming fast and
Coming near the closure of her home.
Drinking quickly stars,
The eating face of face-consumers
Touch the late-night masters, late at night-time shoppers:
Impartial is impervious, but he is much the more impious
After years blaspheming from rejections.
The magic circles spell out years
Of demons that have failed to come--
Have failed to wake the hands
And slap the machine like deviant memory can.
Hand into the cup into the hand:
Same business.
Dec 13, 2010
Dec 13, 2010 at 7:21 PM UTC
The day is grey, the clouds hang low, and, in the air, a winter chill.
Upon the beach called Omaha an old soldier stands; a promise to fulfill.
Full Seventy years ago this man, weighted down with gear and kit,
raced across this wet grey sand, and, by some miracle, remained unhit.
Friends who’d survived that longest day, and all the long days after it,
had purchased the bottle held in his hands. As the last man standing
he had charge of it:
His eyes, watery from the wind, Looked at the bottle in his hands:
A Dom Perignon Brut Champagne, the 47’ vintage year.
He thought about his comrades gone. Surely they were heroes all
Who spilled out from the Higgins boats to breach the Hun’s Atlantic wall.
He felt the presence of the ghosts, all those who fell upon this shore.
Boys, really, almost all eighteen, who’d died
answering Freedom’s call .
He tore the foil with old gnarled hands; His Arthritis made a chore of this.
Thin wire held the cork in place and was so difficult to untwist.
Once free his placed his thumbs upon the curved underbelly of the cork
The cork shot free across the sand and bubbly foam
chased after it.
He was not a religious man, it seemed impious for him to pray
Though he recalled so many had, that day they bled their lives away.
How best to honor these fallen men? Who had pledged their lives, each to each.
It was then he turned the bottle down and poured the contents
on the beach.
Some would declare it sacrilege to let that vintage go to waste.
The old soldier smiled and felt at peace.
He’d seen the vintage of 26’ poured out in buckets
In this very place..
Jan 10, 2016
Jan 10, 2016 at 3:15 PM UTC
I am the poet of the dark.
The red heart deep in me,
has stopped beating steadily.
Am I goddess of the dark.
Who watches you, in the night.
With the look of a darkened stare,
trying to find beauty in me.
My eyes painted black,
see what they hidden in their minds
by immortal eyes, just like mine.
I am the night mist
lurking in every corner.
Gargoyles.
The cathedrals.
I wander in the dark skies,
where the eyes of crows shine.
In the dark.
I will never find the light.
My wings of a dark angels.
My loneliness
devours the hours,
waiting for the day is done.
Cover of night waiting to fall on me.
Where night dreams fall,
without arousing my already broken heart.
My verses written
with blood.
Runs like a warm rain.
In abandoned buildings,
where I had given myself to the darkness.
Disease left by beings,
that destroy the world.
With their impious rage.
Who are the strangers?
Or are am I crazy?
Leave me alone with my sorrow, because the dead is crying.
After all, someone needs to die.
Then it's me
Goddess of Darkness
Casaria.
Let me light my fire,
in the land of dead souls.
I lie down on the tombstones cold and left alone.
Left by beings of young and old.
Let me sing dark lullaby's.
Don't come close to me.
The world is sick and twisted.
Maybe there is more cursing needed to be done.
Someone needs to die.
Then it's me.
Being the Dark Goddess.
May 20, 2013
May 20, 2013 at 12:13 PM UTC
*You say she doesn't love me, that I should forget about her.
But, do you even know what love is?
Do you have any idea what you are asking me for?
If God tells me to forget her, I'd tell God no.
And if in punishment for my impious blasphemy he snatches her from me, then I **** myself, go to heaven and take her from him.*
Dec 7, 2015
Dec 7, 2015 at 12:58 AM UTC
I found the best piece of me
Alone, Shivering in the dark
(Three centimeters tall)
Hunched over, on all fours
Eating it's heart...
It's face was vacant
With dead eyes that flared like sparks
A silent tongue, so blatant
(I'll hear your confessions)
Body, skin and bones, covered in scars
It seemed somewhat impatient
For I just stood there in awe
Inept and perplexed
I stumble over, kneel down
And surrender, to it's impious words
(I forgive you)
Who will slay this thing?
Who will play the butcher?
And end my suffering?
(No)
You will not feast on me today
I will not be your backwards slave
(I won't, I won't)
This is not a threat
For I, I ****** the minds of the masses with the fingers of liberty
I've screamed for all the women I've never been but hoped I would be
I can't change, I can not change
Oh, how I've tried a million times
How I've endeavored to rise above my
Imperfections
Struggling, twisting myself within the vine
Of rejections
I'm not perfect, I'm not a beauty queen
I'm just me...I'm just me...
I'm proud of who I am
I am proud of me
I Just want someone who understands
( We're all prisoners here)
I just want someone who will listen
(All shapes and sizes)
To witness these dull eyes of mine glisten
(Forever chasing the sun)
To hear what I have to say
To tell me it's okay
To cry...
(If god is my father then I am an orphan)
I am afraid
To show my true feelings
(I can hear you judging me)
They're laughing at me
They wont go away
My reflection staring back
Like shattered pieces.
Dec 25, 2014
Dec 25, 2014 at 3:06 PM UTC
Veiled
by Michael R. Burch
She has belief
without comprehension
and in her crutchwork shack
she is
much like us ...
tamping the bread
into edible forms,
regarding her children
at play
with something akin to relief ...
ignoring the towers ablaze
in the distance
because they are not revelations
but things of glass,
easily shattered ...
and if you were to ask her,
she might say—
sometimes God visits his wrath
upon an impious nation
for its leaders’ sins,
and we might agree:
seeing her mutilations.
Originally published by Poetry SuperHighway. Keywords/Tags: veil, veiled, religion, faith, belief, mothers, children, war, God, wrath, destruction, violence, Armageddon, Apocalypse, end times, last days, judgment day
Apr 16, 2020
Apr 16, 2020 at 1:00 AM UTC
We sully women who think,
unbowed and without corsets
to prop or hide whatever fuddle
we've told them exists.
We need not be told, all
of us. No is not an abstract
concept, it rides no waves
of uncertainty, no great barriers
or walls need of climbing.
Verily he told her she must
cover for not to be mistaken for
impious. Shell-shocked and
sullied she bides her time between
bites to plot her spiritual escape.
Aug 10, 2016
Aug 10, 2016 at 8:05 AM UTC
Deter my mind of thoughts of you,
expedite the process of reproaching;
before sick in love my sacrifice I promise.
Tell the chilly incessant buds of hate-
to blossom in the land of crimson.
Beg the merciless Son of Venus;
to withdraw his embedded arrow.
Deter my eyes from the sights of you,
truncate the weeds in the walls of my garden;
before all is covered in the ivy caresses of your burden.
Tell the sun to draw its blinds-
to darken the places in which you shine.
Beg the doctor for a poison;
to desecrate the altar in which I find you.
Oh, for me, I pray
Do not stray to the impious mischief that can be-
your compelling ushering of passion.
Feb 10, 2014
Feb 10, 2014 at 2:08 PM UTC
From Publius to Marcus
Marcus, I owe you an apology:
I named you Antinous to Gaius’s Hadrian,
Not in jest, but with a curse to the gods,
Wishing ruin on your treacherous shade.
...
This farm, this land, was my charge
Long before you donned your Janus mask,
Feigning peace while sowing strife,
A weevil gnawing at the heart of my grain.
...
You bring chaos to these fields,
A blight worse than drought or rot,
Corrupting Gaius with your impious charm,
His fields now fallow under your shadow.
...
While I toil, bone-weary, in the searing heat,
Tending your fields and mine,
Sweat and soil my offering to kin and gods,
You claim the harvest I’ve sown.
...
My altars brim with piety,
The Capitoline triad blesses my soul and soil,
Yet you, sweet Antinous, reap my plenty,
Lazing in the shade of my labor’s fruit.
...
No more. I sever ties with you and this land.
Keep these fields—a fitting pyre for your folly.
I forge you a parting gift: a wreath of thorns,
Culled from the ruin you’ve wrought.
...
Woe to your plow, doomed to rust,
While I seek new fields to tend.
My seeds will bloom under noonday sun,
Your name forgotten, your shadow undone.
Signed, PERTINAX
Jun 17, 2024
Jun 17, 2024 at 11:57 PM UTC
If you observe occurrences in Nature
(The way a stone ripples the water,
The arc of a cormorant descending toward its prey)
You will note a precision in the movements
Which is utterly Pythagorean in its pattern
(Not that the natural world is without its inconsistencies;
The progress of a conflagration, for example, seems entirely random.)
It would seem that such a thing is good;
No, more than that, entirely holy,
All that is necessary and sufficient to prove beyond doubt
That which is equally necessary and central to our belief:
A plan--His plan--which governs all things under the sun.
Such notions, I have found to my considerable dismay,
Do not sit well with viceroys and archbishops,
Who have a vested interest in the maintenance of certain mysteries
(To be fair, they are not evil or necessarily even impious;
They are men, nothing more or less,
And have to navigate perilous, unmapped straits
Between the secular and the sacred; at their appointed time,
They will have their own commissions and omissions to answer for.)
Nevertheless, none of us can escape the certainty
That the root of our faults can be found at our own doorway,
And I cannot deny that the attempt
To reduce God’s works to a schematic of formulas, diagrams and triads
And then, preening and squawking as a peacock,
Trumpet the results to the world
(As if the mystery of faith would be no more
Than a handful of equations and charts)
Is simply the manure of arrogance, the flotsam of sinful pride.
I have had, these past few weeks,
Considerable leisure to pray and reflect;
My thoughts have not drifted, curiously enough,
To the great and sweeping, the grand and all-encompassing
(Perhaps that is due to the whys and wherefores of my current predicament, Perhaps due to the narrow window of my enclosure),
But rather to the most pedestrian of things:
The clarion of the wind in the trees prior to a brief summer storm,
The lover’s dance of the hummingbird and the lupin,
And I am comforted (and, I confess, a bit amused)
By the notion that Our Savior may take a moment from his labors
To watch them as well.
Dec 20, 2016
Dec 20, 2016 at 10:26 AM UTC