"theist" poems
*"If you wake up this morning believing that saying
a few Latin words over your pancakes will turn them
into the body of Elvis Presley, you have lost your mind."*
He has often asserted that the thing is absurd:
that someone who does not (whether out of hatred, indifference,
lack of conviction, or frankly whatever)
accept traditional dogmas
is still, for some reason, capable of wishing that they could.
I think he is right; I’ve heard a staunch atheist say “If only
I could, but I cannot.” So, this is why he aligns himself
as an anti-theist: he simply
was never properly convinced.
This position seems (at least to me) well-supported,
for anyone can quite readily (and easily)
accept what their father or their clergyman has said
(especially as a child, not knowing any better).
Thus, to be an atheist
one must have first acknowledged supernatural power
and then later, after a bit of thought, dismissed it. In light
of this, I propose a toast to the Real Skeptic,
the one who was never really convinced;
of it. The one who, when celebrating the Eucharist,
wondered why God wanted to be eaten,
who , when receiving Christ,
thought of the extreme certainty by which other faiths'
devotees (Islam, Heaven's Gate,
Mormonism, Bon,
Cargo Cults, Shinto, Falun Gong)
live and preach – some even delighted to die.
Thoughts like these always made me feel uneasy as a child
because how could I hope to keep my little mind
from accidentally discovering fallacy after fallacy? So, here is a toast
to the Unconvinced, who can’t possibly help but not believe.
Oct 1, 2012
Oct 1, 2012 at 3:47 PM UTC
I have found a watch
Keeping time perfectly,
Beautiful gears and cogs click, shift, wound tight,
And the Theist beside me says:
"Such a thing could not come into being by chance!
Surely there is an Intelligent Designer."
I could shrug or nod but instead I look closer
At the watch
And the way it grinds its gears.
I see a bigger cog pinch a smaller cog;
I see something with teeth bite something--I can hear it now--
That is screaming.
And suddenly each second reveals
Another tooth, another claw,
The weaker parts are torn to pieces or swallowed whole.
The strongest survive for a while
Until time kills them too.
Death by life by death by life by death,
Pain impressed upon them all,
The only purpose to be heard: the passage of tick tock tick tock tooth claw; of time.
Unless (until?)
The clock wears down
And time ceases to exist.
I turn to the Theist beside me and say:
"Intelligent Design? No friend, it is Ethical Design
That demands an investigation."
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 7:00 PM UTC
All the worst things in life
Start with a:
A-social
A-theist
A-sexual.
A-bominations to be corrected, but,
And although, in the hands of a body
The blame must go
Tight-gripped and freely clasped
A smile hangs like a necklace.
For, they ask, what grows,
On what shore that glance a thirsting road
Where no artisan of wells
Lets run his craft
Burst with life?
What vines may couple, transect dead veins
Still in a bed of salt
But dead and grey shades of the true?
None,
It would seem, can carry the sweet
Of fertile seeds along the water’s edge
It is but passing as its plumpness
Withers and drops
Apart, epistle, a dogma.
This vampiric little heart takes no form
In Narcissus’ pool it does not
Glisten in the waters calm
Despite the furious mouth
And, gone, lost of all that made it whole.
I go back to the source of the
Grey valley flume
Unknown to impetus,
Cannot find its way in the endless roads
And paths in the sun-baked skin,
The wind may blow salt in my eyes though
The music of its basin fills my ears:
Waves breaking and pressing
On soft earthen lines, scrap-book memories
Faded at the edges like Polaroids
Unfold from the waves of purity
In the sand of an empty shore.
I peer idly into the glimmering stream
No red heart beating,
But a grey heart; one simply searching, pining
For a grey love to begin
And the world that I know
They belong in.
Aug 14, 2014
Aug 14, 2014 at 8:27 AM UTC
The men wept and the women wept, children, dogs, cats and grandparents wept
The theist, the atheist and the agnostics all wept
The politicians in their boastful and pristine offices wept
The homeless man with his homeless bride wept
Homemakers in their homes,
Chefs in their kitchens,
Workmen on their lunch breaks all wept
I wept and you wept, we wept together
Tears that fell all around us like burst banks and levees
The dadaists in Russia wept
The existentialists in the Ukraine wept
The absurdists and nihilists of France even wept
What a sight
The post-modern Christians and neo-vaudevillians weeping still,
The grounds of the deserts in the south that begged for moisture on a regular basis, wept
The slick icy glaciers in the far north continue to weep
My home was full of tears, as I believe was yours,
The news, too much to bear,
Words that cascade from mouths, wept
The shadows and the sun that cast them wept also
It was a sight to behold,
the moment we all discovered the true essence
Of empathy.
Dec 21, 2012
Dec 21, 2012 at 3:36 PM UTC
God: Something everyone ponders. For the theist "what if he doesn't exist?" and to an atheist, "what if he does exist?"
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 12:39 PM UTC
Why spend time wondering if
You're good enough for a heaven created
By the minds of men afraid of what they
Could not understand?
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 1:59 AM UTC
written while talking to a dear friend, Irene, who i met on my travels to Paris, and who i'm spotted with, in a photograph, by the Moulin Rouge, hunched in homage to Quasimodo, with Paul the wild haired australian.
i'm always depressed before composition
and the first whiskey to
stop me throwing up anything i might
ingest,
but then the seemingly graceless magpie
with its extended tail flies into eyesight,
then the blackbird, the crow, the seagull (huh?!
30 miles inland and a ****** seagull?)...
and then i open my eyes a second time,
take off the eyes that see lust gluttony colours
and shapes, and put on my x-ray spectacles
of looking at a white page and typing for a while...
and then a song crops up and it bothers me,
mortiis' parasite god from the album *the smell
of rain*, if there is such a thing as a parasite god,
we'll be constantly thinking about it,
it will be an ontological implant of ours to
then debate whether we're atheists, theists,
gnostics or agnostics... it would be a burden, indeed
an oversized tapeworm to put it mildly -
but then the other description floating about,
the entitlement of a title, akin to prince, knight,
sir, baron or baroness or even a marquis...
the lord of hosts... and with vain attempt at sounding
in blossom of a magnolia tree attentive of courtesy,
a host is someone who contains a parasite,
why would i want to contain a parasite of thought in
me, that would necessarily sway me from denoting
myself an atheist, theist, etc.?
atheists do indeed uphold the principle stated in this
song i mentioned mortiis' parasite god;
i among the jews a parasite of the host of
ancient egypt;
i mean, they always say they're atheists or whatever,
they want that little sticker at a speed dating gathering
*hello, my name is, queue (oh sorry,
Hugh)*, but when it comes to
defining what sort of thinking defines you as such and
such, it's vaguely satisfying to hear a presupposition label,
followed by a string of even more unsatisfying propositions,
and since i'm not a fisherman in that department,
i think i'll just stick to what i know, or at least what i think i know.
Mar 16, 2016
Mar 16, 2016 at 1:46 PM UTC
It’s such a shame
you are a Christian, despite what you have done,
You have taken bigger steps than most men ever will do,
And live a life that can inspire jealousy in the zaniest
adventurers, by
living on your own as a nomad
for half a year, creating art, meeting strangers, following your heart and gut,
And you put all the blame, all your self achievement
on a god, and I don’t understand.
No doubt I am an ignorant, selfish man destined to the pit of hell or some other place for my ludicrous skepticism to
most theist,
but it saddens me.
You lived a life and had a great spiritual journey—for even I
believe in some sort of spirit
(just not the one you do)
using your own self reliance, your own will and passion and ambition,
No doubt the perfect example of the American dream,
Going out alone in the desert and coming back with gold,
And yet,
You say you are a mere follower, like a lowly dog,
Chasing at a deities heels,
Praising him for all that he has done even though I am sure
without him it would have happened anyway.
It just makes me sad, that’s all.
I could never find a reason to justify altruism,
Or why I would ever want to deny the power of the self,
Who do you respect more,
the man who was born from ****** who had to fight
his way up to the top or else get
beaten down, trampled on, forgotten,
one who knows your pain and knows that only you
can get through it, ****** and dying you may be,
or the man who was born under the watchful gaze of a
strict parent, smiling willfully as the parent dropped bread
crumbs along their path, and god forbid the man ever
deviate from it?
I don’t understand it one bit,
We speak a completely different language.
Feb 8, 2012
Feb 8, 2012 at 1:07 AM UTC
He sat with Michaelanglo
a stirring butress, a rife old glutton.
Seething, the temple may be doomed.
And Jude, 'rich' as HELL,
beaming of priesthood. Cursed him
with mired lucher, saying... 'When do
you think our work will be done?"
The stars that shine about the church
over our heads are beauty,
in the Cistene Chapel are the same
stars that line the apothecary of our souls.
How then do we touch a theist?
With brooms over our feet,
with chicken bones to old to feed
to dogs, with lyes that burn the soul.
Tremulous attrition, and godless neoteny.
All munitions to the decks. For
Jude, the job is never finished.
And to a deity, man is completeness.
And the poet says to the unbelieved,
'Why so true?'
"No one will believe in God,...
if no one is in this Church."
The Sandbergs, the Blakes, the Jaynes's.
Here we have felt poetry, awakened to poetry,
and loved every minute of the poet.
What record could democracy create
by Judas? When does the account of
men try femine reason?
'Ill tell You',.. says Mr. Sandberg,
'Ill tell You!,...that naught one of us can forgive a
great poet.' And Jude, replied,... "Whom then
can I believe?"
Carl Sandberg leaned way back and answered,
'You can believe the Truth; she is warm
to the touch and cold for the feature of
treason.'
"Carl why then do we argue in 3rd person?" says
Jude.
Repling again, the Cistene Chapel is open
for marrage, the ceiling is finished because
no one can account for all of the stars, but who
has to pray with us for forgiveness.
My hands prean lust for wisdom with a
pen, my hands pluck keyboards as do
Aeolian Flutes. My heart is a broken sorrow
and my life is just a poet.
Carl has answered a question,
Jude has lies to tell, and a man will finish
painting the chapel with the sound of
Liberty bells.
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 8:31 PM UTC
*In the falling light of day
I read the old man a book.*
Stories of love, enmity, deceit
Jealousy, betrayal, sacrifice
All from one author’s mind
One penning hand
Some very short some too long
But nowhere do I find
He has taken a stand
On virtue and vice
Right and wrong
Belief faith
Destiny fates
Nowhere asserts
If he is theist atheist agnostic
Nor invokes god
Praise or curse him.
*I read and the old man nods
in the falling light of his day!*
Sep 24, 2014
Sep 24, 2014 at 9:28 AM UTC
I never believed in demons
Invisible or otherwise
Not the kind straight out of hell
Plaguing humankind
I would never perceive
Superstitiously
What I've seen in human eyes
Where evil dwells
By chance or spell
**** or stay alive
I'm not an atheist, nor theist
The absolute cannot be known
But I've seen such evil, behind eyes
Everywhere I've roamed...
........
Feb 16, 2018
Feb 16, 2018 at 8:08 AM UTC
You uproot me from my convictions
and expose my skin to air,
dusting away
with saintly tenderness
the accumulated crumbs of earth
with which I have buried myself.
I breathe
as an organism full of blood;
with the vigor of life
and the comfort of purpose.
I wanted to thank someone
for you;
as though, just maybe,
there could be something
beyond us, cognizant
of my microscopic existence,
sending me with grace
a signal of hope, blooming
out of the impossible soil of chaos.
I think I could be a theist
if I spent enough time with you—
a perfect and strange little blessing
to an imperfect and strange little life.
Sometimes I wonder
if someone put you here,
but it’s simply too human
to think the world beautiful
and believe it was there for me
to find it that way.
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 3:15 PM UTC
So I met a man, a composed soldier
In his tranquility, his voice firm and bold
Like the sound of thunder
An unshaken hill standing tall
Armed and armored in creed
And I longed to fit in his shoes
Jan 16, 2017
Jan 16, 2017 at 7:14 AM UTC
Born to be
-is a belief
born with gifts
-nature's choice
a Theist says God has a plan
an Atheist says Go with the flow
will Universe has an answerer?
sorry, my friend
I am just a questioner
Apr 11, 2022
Apr 11, 2022 at 10:32 PM UTC
grrooooming and backing wearing and ruff tide tearing ahhh I'm trying to catch onto the sentiment but it passes away from my lips, I am left in the trenches , I am left to take on my own tyoe of instrumental twist, taking in the twists, anticipating the next adventure, attempting to throw down into the river with the gators, smiling up at me, in theist little baseball caps,they reach out for their meat of th eday, st
anticipation, anticipation, the black uhuru has a unique sound to them, I feel like I'm listening to something very exotic, it is very alluring
anticipation, anticpation, just at the tip of a tounge, more tickling than precum, no, its a dip, its a small little cusp into river, yeah, into the river
anticipation, I cannot stand it, I'm getting sick of always making it work in my direction, I am tired of not being able to be tired, I wish that my mind would rest, but I feel like I am onto some sort of plan
the times stare ant me, and those who are closest to me understand a few things but there are others that they would not understand, not even my therapist understands, which really makes me feel crazy
Feb 4, 2015
Feb 4, 2015 at 5:54 AM UTC
*An atheist preaches God withal a theist
Durably preaching no God !*
Oct 7, 2016
Oct 7, 2016 at 2:52 PM UTC
There once was a theist, I hear,
whom thought he'd bend Gods leftist ear,
now feeling contrite
Gods deaf to the right.
the atheists thought that - quite queer.
May 25, 2018
May 25, 2018 at 10:48 AM UTC
I’d Like To Find Another Word For God
I’d like to find
Another word
For God, for named in scripture’s world
It is a word – a name – word just the same,
Quenching some, offending some,
Plain annoying to some sorts,
Explaining little, saying lots.
Lord, Almighty, the Creator,
Maker, Godhead, Yahweh, Allah,
Father, Son, the Holy Spirit,
Brahma, more, the Man Upstairs,
A thousand other
Endless names for one ground grand initiator.
Birthright, culture, parentage,
History, heredity and what they’ve led to,
What we’re bred to,
Simple leaning notwithstanding,
Pre-programmed we land un-manned.
I think highly of the theist and it’s opposite the non-
With no high regard for anti-s,
For the principle of love embraces
Fat and thin, uncles, aunties.
In the meantime,
Brain un-stymied,
With ideas and inner truths,
I continue in the use of
God, the word that makes some happy,
Giving comfort, consolation
While I seek some substitution.
What we want to know
Are secrets, keys, realities;
Of life, of death, of fate and how
To live consistently serenely in tranquility;
Long-lived and daily:
Life without anxiety,
Fulfilled with understanding.
I’d Like To Find Another Word For God 10.29.2017
God Book II; Circling Round Reality;
Arlene Corwin
Oct 29, 2017
Oct 29, 2017 at 6:39 PM UTC
Spiritual or materialistic,
theist or an atheist,
conformist or an iconoclast,
faith or reason,
puritan or hedonist.
These are the choices,
for the few,
the rich and privileged.
For the poor,
the teeming millions,
its about the daily grind,
mouths to feed,
bodies to clothe,
roof on the heads
and then if possible,
send children to school.
Sep 3, 2018
Sep 3, 2018 at 1:52 PM UTC