Drowning in the Jordan

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supper
detail from Supper at Emmaus by Carravaggio

Drowning in the Jordan

Dead of winter, and Josh drinks alone –
His birthday today, and the years have flown.
Thirty today, and what has he done ?
Never been married, never had a son.
He feels he’s achieved far less than he’d oughta
Whittling the wood while his life’s getting shorter
“Gimme a break, an’ I’ll set the joint humming,
I’ll give unto Caesar just what he’s got coming !”

“I’m gonna
Rise with the dawn to pray and sing,
I’m gonna
Rise with the dawn and bless the poor –
They’re gonna raise me up an’ crown me king,
An’ when they think me beat, I’ll be back for more !”

Dead of winter, and Josh drinks alone –
All night he’s preaching in his slurrey drone.
He’s wasted round here, his vital mission –
There’s plenty to hear him, but none to listen.
Already he’s had two more than he oughta,
Knocking it back as though it were water.
He bangs down his grail with an angry thud –
“Gimme another, cos this is my blood !”

“I’m gonna
Find me some fishermen, and practice how to talk,
I’m gonna
Find me some fishermen and go from town to town –
I’m gonna cross the waves if I have to walk,
And if you wanna stop me, you’ll havta nail me down !”

Dead of winter, and Josh drinks alone –
This world is a bitch and it needs to atone.
He’s got his sermons and hymns to dispense –
He’s telling his stories, but they don’t make sense.
“Why won’t you bastards listen like you oughta ?
Why won’t you hark to the lessons what I taught yer ?
The love of money is the root of all malign !”
But the barman doesn’t care as he charges for the wine.

“I’m gonna
Work with my hands till I raise some sparks,
I’m gonna
Work with my hands till they heed what I tell,
One day so these palms are gonna bear marks,
An’ if you don’t believe me, I’ll see you in Hell !”

Dead of winter, and Josh drinks alone,
He’s got his second wind, he’s rolling back the stone –
Says he’s gotta leave and join the cherubim,
To do unto others like they’d better do to him.
He knows he’s delayed for longer than he oughta –
Someone’s gotta be the Devil’s holy thwarter,
Someone’s gotta sow so the reapers reap their seedful,
Someone’s gotta help all the camels through the needle.

“I’m gonna
Quit this hick town and walk the Earth,
I’m gonna
Quit this hick town and bang my drum,
I’m gonna walk out and show them what I’m worth,
I’m gonna walk out till kingdom come !”

The Advent Carol

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advent

The Advent Carol

Who’s behind the first door ?
The solstice is behind the first,
The time the winter Sun is at his least.

Who’s behind the second door ?
The Sun again – the Sun reborn,
Who ushers in the great Midwinter feast.

Who’s behind the third door ?
The Holly and the Ivy are,
The evergreens who never drop their cloaks.

Who’s behind the fourth door ?
The Mistletoe ! The Mistletoe !
The green and living soul of sleeping oaks.

Day-by-day, let us remember –
These are the days of December.

Who’s behind the fifth door ?
Osiris, Mithra, Herakles,
And Zarathustra – age-old gods and myths.

Who’s behind the sixth door ?
The same Gods and their Virgin Births –
And each is born upon the 25th

Who’s behind the seventh door ?
The ancient and be-sandal’d Greeks,
Engaged in boozy Bacchanalia.

Who’s behind the eighth door ?
The ancient Roman copycats,
Engaged in likewise Saturnalia.

Day-by-day, let us remember –
These are the days of December.

Who’s behind the ninth door ?
It’s Nicholas, the bishop-saint
Who secretly leaves presents for the poor.

Who’s behind the tenth door ?
White of beard and furred of robe –
It’s Odin ! God of gifts and God of war.

Who’s behind the eleventh door ?
It’s Yuletide, when the Wild Hunt charges,
Through the sky and through the feasting halls.

Who’s behind the twelfth door ?
That’s Sleipnir, Odin’s flying steed,
Who lets him drop down chimneys when he calls.

Day-by-day, let us remember –
These are the days of December.

Who’s behind the thirteenth door ?
It’s Father Christmas, dressed in green,
While feasting heartily and draining beer.

Who’s behind the fourteenth door ?
Dasher, Dancer, Thomas Nast,
To bring about the reigning of the reindeer.

Who’s behind the fifteenth door?
The Ghosts of Dickens’ Christmas show
That even bustling London has its pause.

Who’s behind the sixteenth door ?
It’s Haddon Sundblom, illustrator,
Painting Coca-Cola’s Santa Claus.

Day-by-day, let us remember –
These are the days of December.

Who’s behind the seventeenth door ?
It’s Prince Albert’s Tannenbaum –
He’s bringing back the good old Christmas Tree.

Who’s behind the eighteenth door ?
It’s lots and lots of Christmas Cards,
Showing scenes of seasonality.

Who’s behind the nineteenth door ?
It’s Oxford Street illuminations,
Well-dressed window-shopping costs us nothing.

Who’s behind the twentieth door ?
A Turkey ! Waiting for the chop
With roasties, Yorkshires, bread sauce, sprouts, and stuffing !

Day-by-day, let us remember –
These are the days of December.

Who’s behind the twenty-first door ?
It’s robin redbreasts in the snow –
Though never three together, as a rule.

Who’s behind the twenty-second door ?
A Crib from a Nativity,
As seen on stage in ev’ry prim’ry school.

Who’s behind the twenty-third door ?
Her Majesty, with speech in hand,
Addressing all the little folks to carry on.

Who’s behind the twenty-fourth door ?
It’s Christmas Number One ! Our song !
We know the words, so once more sing along:

Day-by-day, let us remember –
These are the days of December.

And finally, the twenty-fifth,
So open up and see –
Why look, it’s Mum and Dad, and Gran,
And You, and You, and Me.

Cattle Prattle

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large bison
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Cattle Prattle

Are Water- and Cape- the more closely related ?
Who knows ?
Why are those ‘true’ while the Bison are ‘false’ ?
I say they all are true buffaloes !
You label the grouping as polyphyletic,
Like ‘shrew’ –
But what does it matter their genes, when we’re talking
Of big things with horns that go moo ?

So pedants and cladists may mutter and sleight,
But Buffalo Gals, won’t you come out tonight ?

And did you know twenty-five cities and towns
Disagree ?
And how many towns in the States are called Bison ?
Well well, only three !
So don’t try and tell me I can’t call the bison
All ‘buffaloes’, mate !
Cos Buffalo Soldiers and Buffalo Bill,
And Buffalo Springfield and Buffalo Twill,
And the Buffalo Wings at the Buffalo Grill,
Tell me you’re way way too late.

So pedants and cladists may grumble and snide,
But Buffalo Gals go round the outside.

Taking Care of Business

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Taking Care of Business

Machines have always given lip.
We used to use the rule of thump
To make ’em jump-start with a jump,
Until their clutches got a grip.
So have things changed ? Not on your nelly !
When they claim ‘does not compute’
We kick ’em with a hard reboot –
It’s just a diff’rent sort of welly.

The Case for Privacy

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abus brand close up closed
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

The Case for Privacy

The things you don’t know about me
Would surprise you,
I know –
Or at least, I would hope so.
If I thought that you knew,
If you’d even a clue,
Of the things about me
That I daren’t let you view –
Or if upon learning
You showed no surprise –
Then you’re far too discerning,
And worldly wise.
I know how I’d feel
If I thought it could be
That you find the appeal
In the same crap as me –
If I thought it were true,
Then I think we’d be through –
So I swear, never share,
What you secretly do.
We can laugh and engross,
And pretend we are close,
And gossip on who’s seeing who –
But keep a firm grip
So you never let slip
All the things I don’t know about you.
And maybe then, maybe,
You won’t get to see
All the things you don’t know about me.

Decline & Fall

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The Course of Empire: Destruction by Thomas Cole

Decline & Fall

The Romans faced decline, they say,
A hundred years or more,
Before the Goths stole Rome away,
All in one day.
It wasn’t just a day, of course,
With forces building at the core
Throughout the hundred years before.

So were there Romans in that fray
Who watched the turning of the tide,
The steady slide, the slow decay ?
And were they powerless to stay
The endless slump of getting worse,
The creeping curse, the seeping sore,
The gradual fade to grey ?

Or did they never smell the rot
They’d got ?  Perhaps too decadent,
Too drunk to see their own descent,
Too busy in the hay.
They maybe missed the skulking spore
Until the joists had given way,
And brought Rome to the floor.

But that was then.  We’ve surely learned
How Rome was burned from within as without –
The morals shine and loudly shout,
And history shall not be spurned.
And yet.., I sometimes look about
And wonder where we’ll be in, say,
A hundred years or more.

Basecamp

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phone

Basecamp

Wherever you have got, and how you got there,
Is less than I could care – you come, you go –
And sometimes you will telephone from out-there.
You’re somewhere else, and that is all I know.
And so I’m left back here, back in your old life,
To vaguely wonder where on earth you haul –
And if you can remember what’s my number,
Then maybe I shall someday get your call.

In Finity

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landscape nature sky person
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

In Finity

“I’d rather believe in an absolute something
Than trust in an absolute nothing at all.
And thus I choose faith in an undefined coming,
Than ponder the empty and chanceful and small.”
But how can an absolute anything be
In a finite and singular universe host ?
And as for an absolute nothing, well see,
That nature abhors of a vacuum the most.

Four Thousand Million Years in the Making

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boom
image by Shattered Horizon

Four Thousand Million Years in the Making

Unbeknownst to exis’tence,
Who lived in bodies, firm and dense,
There looked upon with apprehence –
An unknown entity.
Beings of a diff’rent class,
Not formed of solid, liquid, gas:
For not one atom had they mass,
But weightless energy.

When they looked upon the Earth
In hill and cave and brook and firth,
They found the rocks had given birth
To life most tangible.
Life alive as mould and trees,
And slugs and crabs and honeybees,
And frogs and crows and chimpanzees,
With tooth and mandible.

“This is outright blasphemy !”
They screamed in thought-like energy
“For never life can ever be
Built with a hard physique.
And they live at such extremes
In ocean depths and fissure seams
And in another’s fluid streams.
With mutant-gained technique.”

Terrified by solid life
They blew apart this world-midwife,
For only there could such be rife,
And now it was destroyed.
Rock and lava shattered thence
And sped across the void immense,
Without a single thought or sense:
A thousand asteroids.

Thus were ended carbon forms
In fumigating magma storms,
Biomass now dusty swarms –
Extinction voracious.
But all this life is hard to kill,
And even in the deathly chill
Of outer space, it’s clinging still:
Patient and tenacious.

As the debris drifts afar,
So come the tuggings of some star
Upon this frozen reservoir,
And bring about a thaw.
Let them countless orbits make,
And with an endless time to take –
One bacterium shall wake,
And life resume once more.