The Land of Nod
Faith is like sleeping.
What dreams we conceive there
We always believe there,
Where no doubt may creep in.
But be not mistaken
By heavenly seemings
And wishful sweet-dreamings;
It’s time to awaken.
As Genesis 4:16 informs us, Nod is located on the East of Eden.
The Testament of Vacuum
But there is no loving god, my friends,
There is no final judge to make amends.
My friends, there is no loving god.
There never is, there never will be, never was –
For all there ever is, is us –
But who then cares ? Well, no-one does,
We are all the love that there can ever be.
We are both the saviour and the deity –
Formed in our own image and desire,
Because, before he ever was, we are.
Gods’ Breath
Cry out your name to the wind,
As it gathers and flies,
Let it carry your name on its wing
To the edge of the skies.
Cry out your name to the wind,
And the wind replies –
“I am Aneurin, I am Belinda,
The unseen and wise.
Now I am Cormac, blowing, blowing,
Davina rising, Ezra free –
Soon to be Fortune, waiting, growing –
Filling the sails at mill and sea.
I am the storm and the maelstrom twinned,
The harbinger-bringer, the hurricane eyes !”
So cry out your name to the wind,
And your name shall rise.
The Memory of Woods
Ashes to ashes
And ashes to beeches,
Ashes wherever
The passing breeze reaches,
To scatter and nourish
The bluebells and oaks,
Whose branches are neighbours
And flowers are folks.
Ashes have grown
And ashes have fallen,
But not before raising
Their saplings from pollen –
We sleep with the ivy
And grow with the lime,
Whose roots are in mem’ry,
And crowns are in time.
A Litter of Angels
And if I ask, she might commence
To stroll with me upon the croft,
And though I know she’s happy hence
To never cross our friendship’s fence,
I pray she’ll learn how much I wish I’d doffed
My shy concern, and share those eyes so soft –
And with this burn, I call on Providence
That we may chance discern
to glimpse that fabled herd aloft.
For surely must her ’mazement form
As pigs come gliding from the west,
And may she gape in wonder warm
As grunting gammons flock and swarm.
Atop the trees, the sows are in the nest.
Upon the breeze, the shoats are cherubs blest –
Such hogs she sees ! These razorbacks in storm
Shall rend her heart’s decrees
and forge sublime within her breast.
And ev’ry time their trotters pound
For ham-thrust launch, so ardour springs.
And ev’ry volant-piglet’s sound
Of flapping brings such sighs profound.
These airborne swine, these porkers shot from slings,
These boars divine, these swooping, free-range kings,
Such hope they mine when soaring heaven-bound –
These aeronauts porcine
shall speed her love on bacon wings.
Corona Borealis
“Come and let me love you, let me gaze upon your face,
Stranded on this lonely isle makes folly of such grace –
You shall wear my coronet, to sparkle in their eyes.
Naxos is no place for you, but up there in the skies.”
So promised Dionysus unto Ariadne fair
As she took his hand in marriage and his crown upon her hair.
After all these years marooned, this prison with no bars,
A wine-god comes to save her and to place her in the Stars.
Alas, first came Orion with his hounds and bovine foe,
Then Perseus and Hercules with entourage in tow,
And Booties and the Argo with their own supporting acts
Left precious little room up there for third-rate myths and hacks.
So only Ari’s crown could then be squeezed between those hunks.
The moral: never trust upon the promises of drunks.
Pride & Vanity
If Gluttony is diff’rent enough from Avarice
To warrant a sin of its own,
Then how is Vanity denied ?
Is Gluttony not simply greed
Of a specialist and ravenous kind ?
And yet it claims to need a sep’rate plus-size Deadly bride.
So a fascination with one’s looks – why, surely this
Is sin enough to stand alone ?,
Wanton in its slow and catwalk stride.
Is Vanity not a diff’rent breed
Than mastery of the hand and mind ?
She needs to fight for a Sin of herself, an Eighth on par with Pride.
Some would add-in treachery and cowardice –
And lo, our list has grown
With these bonus sins we haven’t tried –
For ev’ry virtuous life we lead,
There’s even more to leave behind,
And takes us ever further from our short and handy guide.
Perhaps, when staring into the grim Abyss,
It’s not the time to tut and moan
At just which name should be applied.
But if there really is a need
To see these twins be redefined –
“I Am” belongs to Vanity, “I Can” belongs to Pride.
Of course – each deadly and elicit bliss
To which our mortals souls are prone
Is coupled with a better side –
A saving, which has been decreed
To counteract such moral grind –
Is Scruffiness a virtue, then ? That seems undignified.
But honestly, the whole thing seems amiss –
If anything, this thought has shown
How Vanity is quite cock-eyed.
Yet still she struggles to succeed
To stand alone, not left behind,
As proudly Vain – and thus of course she’s still consumed by Pride.
After the Aftermath
I heard a cautious plucking
Of a rubber-banded string,
And a nervous, tuneless whistle,
And a doorbell’s lonely ring.
While the birds were oddly quiet
Till a starling risked a ping,
And a chorus of the grazing ewes replied.
As note by chord by tonic,
So the melodies returned –
For all we needed silence,
They cannot, will not be spurned.
We’ve lost them many times before,
But somehow never learned –
On the day beyond
The day the music died.
I heard the constant background hum
Change key,
To slowly raise the dead –
From tinnitus to the thrum of industry,
In C,
Inside my head.
From the tapping of the plumbing
To the footsteps that I tread,
Even my heartbeat was a drum
Which would not be denied.
Hypocrites
Many believers, I know, are heretics,
Spitting in the face of their Lord.
Not that they would credit my judgement,
Not that they would ever spit.
But their God, their God of love,
Is a god of hate with a jealous sword,
And His book, their book, is a pompous monster,
That they know is a monster, if they’d only admit.
Burning witches,
Slaving slaves,
And all because their Saviour saves –
But many believers, I know, are lovers,
Who love the world and who love its people,
Its ev’ry people, without exception,
When giving their time, their strength, their soul
To the homeless, hungry, the troubled and lonely,
Inspired, for sure, by their Sunday steeple.
Point to the scriptures, they shrug about ‘context’,
And get on with giving, and charging no toll.
Gays and women
Welcome here –
Despite each prophet, priest and seer.
Many believers, I know, are heretics –
And thank God they disobey !
Pray, God, turn all of your faithful to hypocrites,
Help them to spit, and to show You the way !
Novotel Warrior
Gideon, Gideon, scourge of the Midian,
Judge of Manasseh and tough as obsidian.
Beating the wheat, he’s a young man of might,
So Yahweh descended with orders to fight:
To turn back the raidings of Midianite,
And break down the altar of Baal.
The idol he smashed, but to Yahweh a snarl –
“Prove you are greater than this god of Gog –
Keep the fleece dry when the dew tries to sog.”
Almighty proven, the lad must take charge
He raised up an army, but thought it too large,
And kept only soldiers who drank like a dog.
Now here’s an adventure to savour !,
To pass a long and lonely night
Within a small, strange room –
Never mind about the Saviour,
Read about the epic fight
As Gideon brings Midian to doom !
Gideon, Gideon, hiding his light in a jar,
Outnumbered by far,
But winning the night with trumpets and pluck
If only, if only the tale were all told,
Of the faithful and bold,
Of defending their homeland with Yahweh and luck.
But next came the slaughter, as wholesale as usual,
All egged on by Yahweh at mercy’s refusal –
When allies were wetbacks, he butchered the sods.
Then forty years later, his reign was still feted –
He died in contentment, unpunished and sated
As he took many wives and he praised many gods.
Now here’s a tale of confusion…
To pass a cold and friendless night
Within a sad, sparse room –
What moral should be our conclusion ?
The lonely will not find much light
To lead them out of an early tomb.
I’m not sure which Syllable to stress in ‘Manasseh’, being one of those words I’ve seen written but never heard spoken, but my subconscious wants it to be the second one, perhaps influenced by ‘molasses’. If it turns out to be the first then the second line won’t scan very well, so I guess will need to be changed to ‘Manasseh judge’. Ah, the vagueries of English…
Rhyming Couplets 