Somewhere, deep in the Abyss, In mid-December – could it be That there exists a little glow of bliss Upon a tree ? I like to think of Lucifer himself As stringing fairy lights, With a tot of mulled wine for his health, And whistling Silent Night.
I bet he hangs up baubles, just like us, And choc’lates from afar. I hope he really makes a fuss When topping with the star. Do the demons gather round as well, As the season is unfurled ?, With a Ding Dong Merrily in Hell, And a Joy to the Underworld…
…why, thank you AI. And a very Daply Merveys to you, too !
A new god is stalking the wintertime solstice, He knows who you are, he’s checking his list. For Greenland and Finland, a new holy war – And pilgrimage grottos in every large store.
So want, children, want – believe in the glamour – Your faith is his power, your wishes his manna. So buy, parents, buy, dash yonder and hither – He’ll lift not a finger, yet always deliver.
The church is dedicated to a saint I’ve never heard of – To a Supine of Sardinia (or possibly Southend). A mural might have shown him once, before they scraped the dirt off, While the stain-glass is a patched-up jumble showing “Christ with Friend”. A reliquary hold his middle finger, so the wall-plaque claims, And possibly an eyeball, (though it may have been a sprout.) I asked the local vicar what his story was, but he just blamed “the heathens” And said Supine was a martyr to his gout.
The organist was more forthcoming, gushing over miracles – Like turning water into thirst, or plague into the pox. He brought a locust back to live by breathing on its spiracles, And made an old Ionic column weep, and found lost socks. He even taught a fish to swim, and once out-stared a snail, And he claimed that worms were demons when they crawled from out the earth. He went upon crusade – and found, then lost the Holy Grail, And he prophesised the world would end the year before his birth.
I wondered why no other churches recognised the man ? Have we all become so cynical, insisting on the proof, Until we haven’t got the space to celebrate an also-ran ? Why, the next thing, we’ll demand on prophets only telling truth ! But in the end, he met his fate when challenged on a cliff, When he said that God gave wings to all those strong in their belief. And so he died for faith – and just as real as any myth, Now he’s patron saint of bucket-men, (or possibly false teeth…)
When I wrote this, I thought it was too flippant. So I wrote the fourth verse to give it a bit more weight. However, on reflection it feels like an anti-climax, so I cut it off and present it below:
Relegated Relic
The church is dedicated to a saint I’ve never heard of – And yet somebody still knows him – and today that’s me, and you. And there’s plenty more I could have told, and I barely know a third of All the things that come attached to him, (regardless if they’re true). And I wonder if they’ll still remember me, a thousand years from now ? And if they do, what strange, outrageous feats will I perform ? So raise a prayer to Saint Supine, who made a convert of a cow – And celebrate the pilgrims who have wandered from the norm.
The Horsehead Nebula, as photographed by William Mccarthy
The Morningstar
It’s a little known fact, but so they tell, That the Devil loves astronomy. And when he steps away from Hell, Away from the caves of his citadel, With their ceilings of monotony – Then the one thing that he wants to see Are stars in infinity. Is it a part some evil scheme ?, Or simply that the Devil, as well, can dream ?
I wonder if he can visit them ? Or can he only gaze from Earth ? I’m sure he understands each gem, As much as the Star of Bethlehem, And over aeons watched their birth To their glorious end, and brought him mirth When friendships were in dearth. Has he lusted for their gleam ?, Or has he simply been condemned to dream ?
The Bible doesn’t mention much, Except as signs, or points of light. Or else, Creation Week and such, But science there is out of touch – Like Joshua, needing time to smite, Commands the Sun to halt its flight – He knows that that ain’t right ! So is it to score one for his team ?, Or simply cast away that crutch, and dream ?
There is surprisingly little astronomy in the Bible – there is the basic flat-Earth cosmology which both their smarter neighbours the Persians and the Greeks had already debunked, but not much stargazing it seems. There are numerous references to the Moon, but always in passing – none of them suggest anyone is actually looking at it. Job has mention of Arcturus (or Leo, or Ursa Major), Orion, the Pleiades, and the Chambers of the South (possibly the zodiac, or Centaurus and Crux), but oddly no mention of the very prominent Sirius or Cassiopeia. For a desert culture, you would think that those big skies would feature far more…
The Devil’s Parlour, an AI confection created using Leonardo
Cusp & Foil
Despite its very un-human appearance, Brutalism is not of the Devil – Hell is not open-plan nor split-level, But rather refined in its elegance.
For Satan loves him a good bit of moulding, And finds the Gothic suitably striking – It’s churchiness is much to his liking, With shadows and alcoves with secrets withholding.
He relishes how it is so un-chaste – A messy farrago, where carvings cavort, So clearly theatric, but not overwrought. He’s rather old school in his decadent taste.
He champions all human endeavour, He hungers for art, and lusts for pleasures, Encouraging people to greater measures Of genius accidentally clever.
Now God, he think, is a philistine, And Jesus just sees a building as walls, While Paul doesn’t care for the awe of St Paul’s – They can’t see the passion within the divine.
The rage of the counter-Reformation Is nothing but pigments on canvas, alas. They hear no angelics within the Mass, Nor thunder within a preacher’s oration.
But Satan knows humans are flesh and blood, Like gargoyles hanging from rafters and nooks – They may be grotesque, but we cherish their looks ! For Adam was formed from the dust and the mud.
But Heaven, he finds, is a Brutalist hell, Raw and unfinished, with Puritan spartan Enough to frown and hush and dishearten – At least the Pit has some tales to tell.
The Pearly Gates are some steel-and-glass doors In a weather-stained wall, not old, not new, With nothing to say to those who pass through To where ceilings hang low above beige-grey floors.
It makes good sense, though, that Hell with its fires Has flames in its tracery, flickers of polychrome, Bringing a warmth to Lucifer’s home – For beauty is something that even the Devil requires.
Technically, both philistine and spartan are racist terms, but since the people who identified as such are no longer around as groups distinct from their neighbours, these are victimless crimes.
Appropriately enough, this grim render was produced by AI.
Brutalism on a Cold Dark Night
Was there ever an architecture Better suited to the psychopath ? A soulless, sucking void of arrogance From a concrete aftermath. Revolted by the human touch, They strip us down to a naked shell – Forget the creepy Mansard roofs, When this is the door to Hell.
Architecture that loves to unnerve us, Streaked with grey and urban rot. It stalks us down the side streets, As its slabs are looming into shot. Ashamed of beauty un-grotesque, It’s where our inner demons dwell – Forget the spooky moonlit tombs, For this is the door to Hell.
But worse, is the way this architecture Spreads its gloom across the globe – All local style is crushed beneath the bulk Of this alpha xenophobe. Abhorring even a glimpse of nature, Condemning us all to a prison cell – Forget your wrought and iron gates, For this is the door to Hell.
The jumbos joined the battlefield, To put the steeds to fright. For what use were mere horses In the face of so much might ? But the other side were not done yet, This wouldn’t be a rout – They launched their secret weapon As they rode their mammoths out.
So the jumbos and the mammoths Clashed upon the battlefield – They flared their ears and trumpeted, And neither side would yield. They reared-up on their hind legs high, They broadsided and barged, And they shook the ground beneath them As their ten-ton leaders charged.
But what with all their bellowing To war and kingdom-come, It soon become apparent That these hunks were not so dumb – They targetted the riders, Pulled them off with probing trunks, And skewered them upon their tusks, And flayed them into chunks.
They stamped upon the humans, And they kicked them from their path, Till they were the last ones standing In the bloody aftermath. And they touched their heads together in a truce, And sallied forth – With the jumbos on to Africa, And mammoths heading North.
How do scarecrows scare crows ? Who knows ? They seem such feeble foes. Do they even work, do you suppose ? With their hessian nose and wooden toes, These crucified guards in hand-me-down clothes Must scare the birds that thieve he rows. But corbs are smart, and their learning shows As they crop the crops while their wardens doze…
Somewhere, in a parallel taiga, There they are – they never died. The woolly rhinos guard the Eiger, Symbols of the Russian pride. Standing ground against the polar bear, And hauling Santa’s sleigh, And touring with the country fair – In brown and never grey –
But not this Earth, and not this tundra – So it goes, and so they went – The climate changed and they went under, Leaving bones from Greece to Kent. Their naked cousins still exist, I guess, Though less divine – We won’t find them near Inverness Or swimming in the Rhine.
The maps of old were full of monsters – Terra incognita ! Back when the darkest continents Were mysteries of consequence. Wherever our landlocked pencil wanders Faster than a cheetah, Then here be dragons, rest assured, And natives with the heads of birds.
The maps of old were full of empty, Till we filled them in. We went and saw, and came back sad, That there were no beasts to be had. We’d spare imagination plenty, But behemoths were thin – We’d no leviathans to spare, Just boring humans, ev’rywhere…
Rhyming Couplets 