1. Alan
For seventy years you say
You watched the world grow better
As Gays were accepted, but the Bible
Reduced people's empathy.
I did not. I, instead, saw love grow cold.
I saw people grow insanely selfish and shallow
Conceited, cold, callous, callow. vain, superficial,
And at the very end, that's why I'm a Christian.
Every Atheist I ever talked to
Denied flagrantly there were morals which were universal.
And as the world grew starved of love
But had a full belly like at Sodom,
My neighbors grew cold,
And my peers colder,
And my family colder still...
I have all the evidence I need to know
That when the Bible was believed
And I mean truly believed
The world was, indeed, a better place.
I watch the world grow ever colder---
Yes, people enjoy more material things,
And have more sensual pleasure,
But at the expense of love.
For they are all selfish,
Like a D. H. Lawrence novel.
And cruel.
Rather it is Christians who were always empathetic;
True Christians.
But I can be empathetic only to a point
As I watch people destroy themselves
For worldly lust and lucre.
And all are lonely, Alan.
Do you not know the plight of my generation?
Everyone is lonely.
You grew in an era with the Law so therefore Love
And I without.
And so my generation is lonely
But yours wasn't.
2. Poetry Whispers
Muse upon one poem
For hours; if wise, its breath
Winding vicissitudes
Of a noisy brook—
For when it speaks
It is like the waters
Which whisper truth
In its most lifelike nature.
3. Aught Authors
Aught authors begin as dreamers
But then, when poesy tames their tongue,
They begin to stop dreaming, and see.
Thus, they cross the threshold into immortality.
For no program is found upon their tongue
But rather truths for all peoples, in every clime.
They shed their politics, and religion, and seek.
And then, if they are tamed, they find.
4. Seek and Ye Shall Find
Every sincere expression of faith
Has been devoid of religion.
Even Christ Himself, came and shook the Pharisees.
Remember that, brothers and sisters.
The Orthodox Faith is a faith of poetic expression
Nuance, and not simply simplicity.
It is an expression of all of man
As man tastes the fruits of the Divine.
There is only one LORD, and that is Jesus Christ;
But so many poets have touched Him
Never knowing He was the gate.
5. My Generation
I find myself so happy
I grew up with my parent's music.
I have youthful memories
Of Journey and not Nirvana.
There was something so real
About it... Also Sinatra
And Duke Ellington in my Twenties.
It's like I'm timeless,
As I have fond memories of old TV shows
And really could care less about modern ones.
I have no generation...
I am a little youthful
A little geriatric
A little middle aged.
I don't listen to Hip-Hop
But Elvis and the Eagles.
I don't even know who the modern bands are.
My generation is one man's
And it is mine...
I have no peer.
Maybe that is why I am a poet?
6. The Master Morality
If a man does anything wrong
Pound them into the dust.
What is wrong, is the milieu
We know, there is no objective "Right or Wrong."
Only what we make it.
Thus, we create, and we demand
Obsequiousness to the morality we created.
Which is to strive with all for the scraps
And to come out on top at any cost
So long as it does not break our laws.
7. The Death of a Poet
Little words in my Seamus Heaney book
Handwritten in the margins...
I had thought you kindred spirit
When you had said, "Poetry is the expression of Say."
But, upon reading the ancient cursive--
Which I both read and write--
It says, "The expression of Self."
Then I say, I do not write poetry but something new.
8. The True Patriot
The true Patriot believes in his own nation
But is a heavy critic of when it goes wrong.
9. Bat Caitie
Couldn't have been any older than 4
My childhood friends and I play in my
Bedroom. And, there is a specter we feared.
Bat Caitie... it had ears like a bat's wings
Ashen blue hue for skin, and vampire
Teeth. And this specter we invented scared
Me good, well into my old, teenage years.
We had an affinity for Batman,
And everything circulated around
It, especially the planes which would fly
Above, and once a low flying jet was
A genuine Batman plane. I didn't
Know that the further away an object
The smaller it would appear in the sky.
10. Wedding Band
The Christian, who waited thirty years
To marry, and therefore have love,
Doesn't wear his wedding band
In front of the audience of Circus Maximus.
But I, being the fool I am, expecting one Christian
To have consistency of character,
Thinking, "No man, who prayed
"Every day to have this good thing,
"Could be a fool enough to do this."
I had to shut my mouth, and the wicked were validated
In their beliefs. For, one man did not have consistency.
In fact, I thought I had lost my mind
And that time had warped me between two
Points between the present and future
Rather than dishonor this man's character.
I'm sorry friend, but I witness it
That even the man of God is unfaithful.
What more to say about the billions of other men?
Repent.
11. The Work of a Comedian
I critique paradise,
But I understand Wallace Steven's metaphor---
What does that say?
A false happiness---I never said I was happy---
Those are my thoughts.
What paradise can be made here?
Truly? If you made bad decisions like I have?
Sure, I am contented with poetry
And musings---
Would great riches or fame appease my desire?
No.
Would a womb?
Yes, partly.
Would the very paradise which your comedian critiques?
Hopefully so... for this life is vain and hollow
And though the mind's eye is the great thing
That has given me respite in this life---
Imagining the great game I could conjure
From my books, which men would be steeped in like real life---
I know a game supplants imagination
For now humans create their own stories
Through their games, and all knowledge
Is to exert willpower over others
And win their games and cheat.
12. Joy Fades
Joy fades, under the solemn breath of spring.
The microbursts throw the trees in raging waves
And the sleet falls in such a way, that is grey.
A man's wedding is but a day, and perfunctory
When the true sweetness of it, is laying at her breast
On the way home. No lust, but exhaustion.
For, boundaries were kept through life strict
But after that day, you can lay your weary head
Upon nature's comforting hills, and there rest.
Yet, the sorrow of the day, like so many,
Is it is an awkward day for all, and strange.
Joy should exist, but only angst. Though I've never had been
I understand it through literature, and see
The purgatorial affect of modern day
And wonder where joy has gone?
Some time ago, there was life in these bones
And friendship was deeply felt in my heart.
Then, I sinned---or at least the world knew of it---
And it shamed me... thus I walk with the knowledge
Of having sinned. Like many, I assume,
The gross abnormality of our purgatorial lives
Is met solely by the affect wrought by stained consciences.
That is why we no longer feel the deep joys
Or the deep sorrows, or the deep loves
But everything has a melancholy affect
Of neutral peace; except when moments come
They swell, and one wonders what it is...
This new feeling, but old feeling, this shared feeling
Though I've never been married.
13. Why You Should Read Poetry
I shall make a statement, not like a modern poet
Who'd string together a bunch of random
Sentences, in utterances of pathos, with no reason.
That is not poetry... at least not the good stuff.
No... one time it was said,
"Why not say it directly, and to the point?"
There is a little thing in a person
Who can completely understand...
Enough experience, enough contextual understanding
Any poem can be peered into.
Even Wallace Stevens, saying you couldn't,
I understood every line,
Though his theme of the exact minutia is correct;
There is minutia which cannot be peered into
And the poet's exact thoughts are unknown.
But, universal symbolism and Logos
Allows a common theme to be shared
And readers to see and share, and understand
One another in common language.
It was said, "Comparing a woman to a tulip,
"Another inanimate object,"
But, the woman in a dress looks like a tulip
And common language shows a flower is the most beauitufl
Of all God's precious creation, but woman is superior.
Thus, the living flower, which is not inanimate either,
Is compared to the woman, to draw forth that she is
Most beautiful perfection of all God's creation.
Poetry is about universal language, and symbolism.
It is about shared culture, and heritage.
It is about drawing from the common core of Logos
The things found and shared across all cultures.
A Japanese man who is angry about Tolkien's Orcs
Does not understand the Orcs are Huns
Not Chinese. Rather, he is angry, because for some reason
He places himself among the Orcs
Which are despicable creatures, are they not?
And in that, is another feat of imagination
How the common symbolism is lost
And the ancient languages obscured
By modernist attitudes in the arts
Where they are found lacking in the universal language
To understand that an Orc is evil embodied
And is not a racial Allegory.
As Tolkien said many times, he despised Allegory.
No, things are timeless. The Raping Hun is evil
Thus must be discarded, and their body unceremoniously cast into a pit.
The wicked nation--as is the universal, as war is a universal of mankind
And men blessed with peace, fail to understand it, until it arrives
And they see what it has done to their lands.
Or, like the Poet, they read the Bible in wonder at God's violent laws
And see the horror on troops faces for what they had committed on a battlfield.
So also, love is drenched in the poet's verbiage,
They pry and prod, and try to promote peace and love
Sometimes getting into naughty bits of imagination
To help the reader understand.
Sometimes they are a gadfly, and sometimes they are a monster slayer
Expressing the cold and uncouth nature of the world.
Sometimes they express national sentiments,
And politics, and sometimes they write from memories.
But, it is moral knowledge which poets convey
And without which, we have no moral compass.
Without the moral compass of Poetry
And the vein of imagination winked at by God
There is no common heritage for all peoples
But rather fractures of Sin upon Sin
Making war, and totalitarian style worship
Of a monolithic and unnatural abomination.
Do understand, poetry is the sentiment of authors
Through memory, through mimesis, through imagination
Through moral and political and religious and philosophical and psychological and sociological
Lenses, that draw together common symbols
Bringing forth the dusk's dawn,
So men do not stumble in the dark.
For there is no politics in poems... there is only the muse.
14. Casting Out the Nymph
Daphne, so serenely being beautiful in the woods
And wretched Hades sees you, and wishes to bed.
He touches, and chases, and holds you down good
But has no desire for you and he to be wed.
No, he just wishes to taste your fruits, and every man
You meet is possessed by the Satyr's dance
Of chasing good Daphne across the forest
For there is great Lustings in the land.
You go to the pub, the street the chapel
And there you find a satyr gives chase
My LORD, purge sweet Daphne of this feral
Thing, so she can be pure, and honest and chaste.
Not have her scarred memories of wicked, awful rape.
No... give release from this demon by Jehovah-Jireh great.
15. Casting Crowns
Prince,
Crowned peaceful Diadems,
Junipers new
Broomhill.
16. Dancing Satyr
Dancing satyrs, in the West
You know not what is best.
You do not know the universal tongue
Of symbols which man has won.
You know not good or ill
But rather, you cause men to swallow bitter pills.
Speaking to you, is hard or worse
For any common thing I share
You are not well versed.
Common language, common thought
The human animal, you know not.
So, some strange, new thing art thou
A Satyr dancing, stirs the crowd.
17. Amaris
My tongue stammers at you;
No words can I write to capture
The Godly radiance of your hue
When I saw you there in nature—-
Flush were your cheeks
And raspberry straw your hair:
I have roamed a desert so bleak
Thinking upon your face fair.
My dreams haunt me with other vines
But your fruit, is the most gladsome wine.
Merry the heart of this man, to come
And wisp him away from a world this burdensome.
Gladsome tidings do I hear meet
To hear your name called at the feast
Which I shall sit, and eat eternal fruits
Which upon my branches, let God prune
So I may find you, a winsome bride
And we shall walk side by side.
18. Spiritus Pythagoras
Genesis seems to be a metaphor of Evolution.
Sages like Pythagoras and Confucius find similar moral Laws.
There is much physical evidence of the Jews.
All things which are physical and moral, possess Laws which they must follow;
For nature, it is so it has being, for mankind, so they have joy.
The Bible, though not perfect, is substantiated on evidence.
Abraham influenced Mesopotamia, not Mesopotamia Abraham;
The Hebrews came from Mesopotamia, but only few men knew El-Yah.
The Gospels were written through eye-witness testimony; they are not legendary.
Why need a perfect scripture, if God is alive, and can reveal whatever He wants?
Listen in thoughts and prayers to the universal way:
We all know in common Homosexuality is horror
And Bestiality and Incest too;
It is not right, either, to malign the child's innocence with sex.
A man marrying his horse or sister
Is no more or less lawful than a man marrying a man.
It is common among mankind to wish to be satisfied by one bride, and women one husband;
This is our deepest psychical desire, and let no man fool you.
To lose this, makes one have no good.
19. The Academic Case
It's amazing how close the Academic story
Parallels my research, but add the various
Discoveries I've unearthed, it becomes 100%
Clear the God of the Bible is real
And the story of the Jews is historical.
Such discoveries as the Chariots off Neiwebu Beach,
The Lead Curse Tablet at Ebal--which shows El and Jah were always there--
And you erase the baseless skepticism
And High Criticism---as it's all based on a priori reason
And not hard facts---it's a compelling case that the Bible is 100% true.
The Chaldeans were probably always there,
Just like the Hittites, and probably the Philistines too;
It's just a lack of available data, which one discovery ought to shatter;
As they numerous times did, until they started being brushed under the rug and hidden.
20. Academic Success
I have moved them an inch, only to prove a mile;
They decided I’m dumb, but in the end I will smile.
21. All the Normal People
Love grows cold---
A virgin is shamed for being beautiful,
A boy is shamed for having no male lover,
A man is shamed for a small inconvenience,
Another man, his own mother wished he were never born,
Two women are shamed for being a drunkard and fool;
The child's parents speak this evil over them
And bring them to the stockades.
They raised the fool, did they not?
Where was the discipline?
Where was the kindness?
Hatred, calumny, greed, concupiscence,
Malignity, deceit, lewdness, selfishness,
Even a young boy was "Bisexual"
What world do we live in where this is so?
These are the "Good" people, mind you.
I cannot even imagine the Evil.
22. The Birdsongs in the Morning
The birdsongs in the morning
Sing their notes, ending on one
Like it were a nursery hymn.
The people used to sing like so.
And now they don't.
As a wise man once said, the peoples had music
In them at a time... and now they don't.
No... it's not that they don't, it's that they can't.
For the melody in their hearts,
And the common tongue is made to stammer
And is drowned out by busy work
Which makes them unable to understand a thing.
Maybe I'm just crazy, but I understand whatever someone tells me.
Maybe listening, and knowing, is all I ever had---
But the Birdsongs are less frequent now
And a rare blackbird comes by my way
Or a swallow or finch
I learned hard to listen to them, and communicate it to others why they sing.
So, maybe the world will forget it.
Maybe it will forget me.
But, I had music in my soul.
As a wise man once said.
23. The Worst God Imaginable
The worst God I can imagine,
Is the one pushed on the people
Forcibly, in order to create a "Perfect State".
It is the one of Philosophy, who is an architect
For a better world, the one taught
Through bizarre theories of pseudoscience
And flawed arguments of Design.
It is one that has the dictum of Morality
And nothing more.
The one substantiated by being a "Great Architect"
And Creator, but goes no further.
It is forced on people, and therefore abused,
And proven through diversions and rants
And esoteric lies.
"Oh, God must only exist if there is no evolution
"If perpetual motion doesn't exist
"If the world is flat."
It is a myopic god, a sterile god,
A god of fake Christians who ultimately will succumb to their lost faith.
It is not a robust God, manifested in the way we treat one another,
But a god of no virtue, only sufficed that we believe in it
In the most Anglo-centric way of understanding it.
It is the god honest Atheists hate, it is the god of most of Christendom.
It is the god that when encountered with true evidence for the faith
Immediately the tenets are abandoned.
It also does not like art, or activities, beyond devotion to the state.
It also shuns creative people, philosophers, and misfits.
Yet, it is, in all hypocritical effects, a god of Philosophy,
An unmoved mover
A great architect
A moral compass.
Not alive.
24. Am I Happy
Do I have stable friends and family?
Do I have work which I enjoy?
Do I feel encouraged to get out of bed in the morning?
Do I have my needs met financially?
Do I have my needs met emotionally?
Do I have a significant other?
Do I see the good in other people?
Do I treat others right?
Am I bitter about a past failure?
Am I emotionally secure?
Do I regret having done anything?
Do I feel the need to have sex with more than one person over a lifetime?
Do I see myself as a failure?
Do I have unrealistic expectations?
Am I gracious, kind and courteous?
Do I consider other people's feelings, rather than my own in most circumstances?
Am I self centered, and believe my feelings are more important than other peoples'?
Do I feel I have a crusade or jihad to wage, and make the world better?
Do I feel scared of people or situations irrationally?
Do I fear being alone?
Do I feel lonely most of the time?
Am I happy?
Do I feel good emotions rather than bad emotions more often?
Do my emotions control me, and cause me to do irrational things?
Do I have healthy respect for authority?
Do I hate anyone?
Do I feel condemned when someone tells me something unflattering about myself?
Do I feel judged, when someone notes a thing I wish I hadn't have done in my past?
Do I have intention to make myself wiser, and more knowledgeable?
Do I feel like I am a good person?
Do I feel like I am not a good person?
Do I feel like I am a bad person?
Do I feel like I am wise?
Do I feel like I know a lot of stuff better than other people?
Do I enjoy other people's pain?
Am I dishonest?
Did I answer the questions honestly, and did I interpret them honestly, knowing what is actually meant by them?
Am I a selfish person?
25. Piety
When Augustus reigned, Horus sung a pious ode to the gods
Asking for piety and performance of the beautiful rights of family.
What are the gods, but our domestic longings
For tranquility and faithful wives and strong children
And a world freed from the travesty of striving with our neighbors
And deprived of our love?
The modern scholar says, "Even Horus sang about the evil youth,"
Nay, he did, but it was ever so.
Impiety all around seeps into cultural fabric
And makes whorish wives and effeminate children
And what is this piety, but strength bred through the bands of love
So the chemicals of Euphoria reign in the lad, and make healthy bone
Sumptuous brain, and compassionate demeanor?
What are the gods? But this?
Nay, this is not what I worship either...
It is not. But, it is the effect of piety
To fill the lad or lass with love hormones,
And make their faces symmetrical, and their faithfulness pure
And their love strong, so they have courage to fight
And manly discipline to till the soil.
There is a very real chemical thing associated with piety.
This is not what I worship.
But, sing an ode to the piety of the gods
To restore the kingdom to its former strength
When peasant farmers defeated Hannibal
And Fabius and Marcellus
Shield and Sword, fended off the Canaanite hordes
With their effeminate gods, and ugly aesthetics.
It was defeated by Roman might
Because it was weak and feeble,
But soon, it would corrupt the culture once again
The pantheon of sin, and make effeminate children
And hedonistic women, and marauder men
And weak businessmen, where all strove to maintain
And none were filled with the chemicals of love, peace and joy,
Which make symmetrical face, strengthen the bones,
And makes the mind sharp and lucid.
This is not the God I worship.
The God I worship knows this,
And told us it, and said, "You did not do this,
"So I will die, and be in history, and crucified
"And restore to you these things, through knowledge
"And repay the sins of your youth."
26. Roman Law, Roman Grace, Roman Hell
Buy a catamite in the street;
Watch a gladiator become meat.
Rape a woman on your way to Rome;
Make a slave work, while you bathe at home.
Torture a peasant and draw and quarter
For being a witch, or evil doer.
"He said something which I don't like;
"Destroy his children, his home, his wife."
Satan is the absolute head of Rome
And will in his kingdom ask you stone:
"Do you wish for law or grace?"
And with either you choose, it shall be waste.
*This is not a satire of Catholicism, but of Rome and Byzantium.
27. The Race of Ham
Oh, Cush, you make war with America;
Blight, thou art Assyrian menace.
Egypt, thou art small, but Cush wishes
To appropriate your kingdom for his Master Race.
Nimrod, you are from the race of Ham.
Egypt, thou art also of the race of Ham.
No, I'm afraid Hebrew Israelites are Assyrian
And not truly Jews---
Though Moses had children to an Ethiopian
So there are true Israelites of every shape.
28. Hitler's "Genius"
There is no subtlety, but lucidity.
Everything built around a frame.
Everything scabbarded in facts
Without the moral compass of literature.
Great empires made, and held
While German Races subdued
Their dark skinned foes.
Naval power obsolete,
And the Autobahn made
Which would connect Chukotka to Portugal.
Hatred of Christ's ethics, and believes
In Aryan Christianity.
Not the Jewish Christianity
Which was built upon ethics.
Weak are servile, and should not breed.
The strong, the German, they should eat.
Art is about prospering the capable;
No other reason for it to be...
To crystalize it in a formulae
And will oneself into power.
For there is no right or wrong,
Only the Millennia.
Barbarism is justified
If it produces this Millennia.
The Jews and Gypsies a burnt offering
To the Vedic gods of Heathens;
For one must employ the might of magic.
To starve the weak, and give bread to the strong;
All it is, is about Germans eating cake at tea time
More than everyone else.
The renaissance was Jewry, and German Barbarism
Was the Jewel of Europe; enough to topple Rome.
In fact, Rome was eaten away by Jewry, in the form of Christianity;
So the Master Races did not breed.
29. Merry the Heart of God and Man
The LORD, in His omniscient wisdom,
Muses over Horace, and though never will He be grey
Until the Millennial Kingdom,---the Jewish one, not the German--
He quaffs the berry from a cup, and feels the salubrious echoes
Of a little wine. The Silks are far away, and cannot cross the ocean in hordes,
Youth and Lovers fade and grow ugly,
The grey hair will grow on a hoary head,
And at the last, sit under the Mulberry Tree and quaff a glass of wine.
Christ drinks from the cup of wine, and eats the finest grain
Plucked from the farmer's field.
He luxuriously dines with prostitutes and tax collectors
Eating roasted beef and suckling lamb stew and tilapia
Fire grilled, with cinnamon, ginger and mustard seed
Roasted to perfection in an oven, and he eats vegetables salted
And seared in oils.
He enjoys His twelve friends, and His maiden entourage,
Never getting drunk, but still with the merry heart of meed
He drinks His cup of wine, for the vine satisfies the heart of man and God.
For all other pleasures grow dim, Christ knows, because He
Gave Horus his muse, sex becomes gross, romance a dull passion
War and wisdom--for there is no more to learn about them
For all patterns repeat the same--are not to be mulled
Drink the wine at the feast, and taste the berry on your hummus and meat;
Recline with your old friends, and feel a platonic form of love
More precious than infatuation.
And drink a little, not to get drunk, but to feel a little social at the wine-gathering.
30. I Don't Believe It's A Conspiracy
I don't believe it's a conspiracy,
That Amos Miller's farm was taken---
Only a horde of lemmings running off a cliff
And that's not called suicide.
The teen who hears it, needs to be coddled
And the man thinks the King should have a right to sue
The pauper.
People cite facts which aren't true
And make webs of lies upon lies...
The web goes on and on
As people get radicalized by algorithms
And Nazis rule the world
Though they don't know they are.
People with beliefs identical to Hitler
Gate keep our knowledge,
And Plutarch and Pythagoras are wrong
So said the PhD.
And Hitler was a devoted Evangelical
Despite that not being the case--
Lemmings is what they all are
And you can't stop them
Without educating them.
Spooks scour the internet, looking for possible dangers
As they spy on me and you---
Why? They don't know...
They don't even know what they're protecting.
Black Rock spends a mint buying up all the properties
And so does China to pay off debts.
Students want loan forgiveness and reparations
Despite not having the foggiest clue how economics really works.
Faggots police the universities, and scour the internet for defectors in their milieu
And Republicans believe in a giant Lizard Pedophile ring
Which uses stem cells collected from children to do some unheard of thing.
Kris wants to beat them, but the old Sage knows only knowledge can.
Why did our thread get deleted?
Conspiracy? Or, are the FBI frightened they are the gestapo, and can't stop themselves?
They're complicit in mass starvation, and farmers being told to not farm their crop
Just like the Nazis before them, though they don't know they are.
No... the Christians are the Nazis, the Far Right Nationalists,
The Christian Nationalists,
But they don't actually know who the good guys are.
They're just moving on their migration, about to head over the hill.
And that's not suicide, because it might offend some gender queer.
31. Malik Nafir
Take the instruments of a foolish shepherd.
Do not visit the weak; do not heal the broken;
Do not seek out the young; do not feed the one that stande'th still.
Have war in your hand and eye;
Darken your eyes, have a slack hand.
Eat the fat of the flock, and tear their claws so they can do nothing.
You are like Death.
32. Feminists
Speaking with you, I've learned a few things.
You wish to have it all, but aren't wiling to give it.
You wish to be sexual, and make love
But only if you want it, but not your partner.
You think marriage is unsafe and affaire de coeurs are.
You'd rather go to where you will have nothing but
A little tickle on your clitoris, than have actual love.
If you do have something like love, it's hidden and gate kept by you, and always
Like a faucet, which you can turn on and can also shut off at will.
You believe all family conflict is abuse, and that any inconvenience
Is a reason to leave a relationship---for you said relationships are about your happiness only.
You believe monogamy doesn't exist, and that people are destined to be like feral cats
Chasing one another in the streets.
Everything in your life is about chemicals, like a drug, but not anyone else.
You're a major disappointment.
And probably the reason no one could find love or happiness for a while.
33. The Cicadas in 98'
Such fear and panic, that the brood
Was so large, it was in Central Pennsylvania.
There were two broods that year, in the East and South.
Just like this year, 2024---hey, I might even be graced by them.
I see man, in such a light, now realizing their short memories
And poor intellect, fearful of an Eclipse and terrified of Cicadas in the same year.
To me, it's like striking the hour at noon, where the big and little hand meet together.
But there is this weird milieu, where people spread strange omens
About things that are as natural as a cataract or as wholesome as a bride adorned for her husband.
Yet, strangely, they whisper, like some great thing were happening
And it couldn't have been predicted 3000 years ago.
It could have, actually... that's what they don't understand.
But still, like squirrels gone nuts in the forest,
They must scramble, and dig, and take cover and shelter
From a nonexistent storm.
Where was the terror, o Israel? There was none.
Yet, strange omens, and prophecies, and divinations---
I'd be far more frightened if I didn't see them.
34. Ellie
We were both young and dumb
And I had a lot to say.
You hung on my every word
And did question me a bit.
I told you I had an IQ of 130---
It was actually 157---
But it was pleasantest conversation
And I thank you for your friendship.
You told me I should be a poet.
So, Margarita pizzas weren't first made in Harrisburg...
Looks like I fell for a bit of false advertising, but it happens
Especially at 21.
35. A Discourse With Oliver
Oh, how you beat me in every argument--
One who perfectly speaks the words
Of an atheist, high and mighty.
I cannot account what God has done throughout history
Or what people have done in His name...
I can only tell you the good I've seen
And the good I haven't seen.
And I know you speak of long forgotten abuses
By a kingdom ruled by Byzantium
But, there is one thing that keeps me tethered to God...
It is that you are not a good person;
And your entire philosophy vanity and complete despair.
You speak of atheists who don't rape---
Maybe they don't, but maybe they do---
Rather, atheism is just this conglomerate of things
And opinions of there being no god
And religion has done all ill throughout the world.
I just know differently, that in the human animal
There lurks an absurd cruelty...
And the only thing I've ever seen take it out
Was not religion, but the Power of Almighty God.
I've seen shifting storms, and winds, and great cruelty abound;
I've seen great wars and great famines and great diseases
All done in no religion's name...
I see it all, and find it pointless.
Because at the end, you are not a good person
And neither am I.
In the end you cannot set all things right.
You find Atheists are moral, I do not.
I'm stunned by their disgusting habits.
You say religion has done disgusting things--
When in my lifetime has it; at least Christianity?
I saw it reign over hearts and minds
And turn people to ways that were more benevolent
And without it, I've seen culture shift more selfish and more self centered
And willing to abandon all love, for the pursuit of pleasure.
And I see no good in this world
And if you tell me this is all there is,
I will hate you. With the very core fiber of my being.
Not with a violent hatred, wanting to wish you harm
But with a seething love and compassion
Knowing that if you do not wish to live for eternity---
For you only understand this world, and I agree eternity here would be hell---
You do not know the depths of love, you do not know the depths of love
As I do. For I could live on for eternity with God's peace, and that is why I believe.
And in that transcendental flame, I've seen good.
I've seen good, I've seen good, I've seen good;
Not only in myself, but in others.
I've seen a world with God, and a world without Him
And I say, the world hasn't gotten much better without Him.
No, it's only gotten worse. More selfish, more deceitful
And all the things done in the Middleages are done by washington beurucrats
Who don't believe in God one Iota
And I realize, it's just humanity in his simple nature
That causes such pain, as atheists do the same;
It is not religion that removes that from our heart.
No... it is God. And God alone...
The same God who's spoken to me through my Bible
The same God who's healed the blind and deaf
The same God who's raised from the dead
The same God who's turned rivers to blood
And the same God who cast away the child who did great evil, and caused great suffering;
And turned his eyes black as the pit of coal.
The same God who gave me the milk of His word, and the wine of His joy
The same God who has defended me through and through.
You make convincing arguments, for a dead philosopher's God,
But the God I worship is alive.
He breathes, and fills, He keeps.
And I do not wish to be the evil man I once was;
And only God can stop that.
And maybe that shows a weakness in me...
But I don't doubt you'd find that same weakness in many others.
Men who hate God, and say they don't rape because they don't want to...
Men who say they don't murder because they don't want to...
We'll see what men do without God...
And I already see its shocking effect on the world, and the depths of sorrow and despair.
For, why do I believe?
It's because of God's forgiveness.
And then the power to be a better man.
And, this world's sorrows, which are infinite, which as a man who's made errors in my life
I do not wish this world to be my only home.
And that may be weakness, but I think it is actually the greatest strength a man can have.
36. The Wooing of the Wise
Two owls woo each other in the Eve;
David and Goliath fight on the Western Horizon;
They call to one another, to find if they are mates.
The raptor's body flies off the pines
In a large flutter, as it sees me walking.
37. The Roses and Veronica
The Roses and Spring breeze carry your scent like a forest;
The Veronica is blue upon the tourmaline lawn;
I love you, my dear beloved, my dearest,
So with this poem will I muse and I fawn.
38. My Clumsy Words
My clumsy words, they are mine.
You may see them, and compare them
To my predecessors---
Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, Blake
Eliot, Pound, Stevens,
Dickenson, Poe, Longfellow, Whitman,
Spencer, Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer,
The heights of Beowulf, the depths of Tennyson
The mysticism of Yeats,
Coleridge's luxury or Ferguson's wit
Seamus Heaney's or Wendell Berry's or Robert Frost's earthy tones.
But I write them, and they are mine.
39. The Boat-Tailed Grackle
I shout, "'tis a vireo I see, so rare
"It loves to hide in the reeds."
No, 'tis not green.
A Boat-Tailed Grackle
A rare bird indeed,
With triangular tail feathers;
The tan variety I had seen.
Twice even in the same day.
It stood on a branch, making melody in the woods
As the children played their hide and seek;
It's trill and chirp was magnificent.
40. Pyrrhic Victory
The New Atheists wants my religion
But not my God.
They want the assumption of Humanism
Without the power to uphold it.
I say, that's the worst form of Christianity
Is one circumcised from faith
But perfunctorily doing its rituals of communion and baptism,
Preaching its platitudes and politics
And worried more about worldly problems
Than a man's soul.
I know, because that's the kind of church I grew up in.
They want a form of Godliness,
Which denies the power therein.
41. Byron's Bane
A poet's poet, Byron's bane,
Discusses math, metaphysics and seeks out fame.
None know what to say
For a poet's poet is here named.
Harold Prufrock, you speak so gay
Of chemistry and Christ and Translations lame.
All his identity, is the pen
And his brilliant verse which none do wend.
A little brilliant but so malapropos,
He speaks about things which he does not know.
He does his art, and chases the kite
The thunder strikes it, oh what a silly wight.
What fool, what scoundrel, what antichrist
He steals his sermons, he steals his wife.
Me? I know nature and love and not much else.
My themes are what please me, and are heartily felt.
Muses come, muses go... the women come talking of Michelangelo.
Be a baneful dullard lot...
If I win some fame, will I rot?
A small penury from my quill
Will jaunt me, haunt me, be my thrill.
For to eat a little, this is all I can say...
Not to bore you with my songs all day.
A pedant be what a pedant be...
Let me, peacefully, enter into history.
Not with war or gun or germ
Just as a man, whose pension earned.
My homilies are on fortune, ill and good
On heavenly treasures and heavenly food.
No comprehensive philosophy do I here spare,
Just my prying eyes, which I do wear.
Great is the people's unhappy lot
Which ill fortune seems to be their cause.
No love, no place, no fortune, no fame
The peoples only wish to play their games.
They wish to have an end to law...
They wish all were selfish, glib and raw.
A sociopath the peoples wish to be
They wish to cum and boon with glee.
They care not about love or peace
Only that their clit and glans have sting.
So I do say, the world I shun...
I shall let them have it, and they have won.
Just leave me to my solemn task
To write what's true, what's first what's last.
42. Song of the Goober
I am a goober
How 'bout you?
A goober is a fool.
I ain't no wise man,
Ain't it true?
I am a goober,
How 'bout you?
I may have had a thing to say
But mighty fine, I'll make you gay
If you listen and learn and hey
I don't have much, just a pen, this lay.
I am a goober,
How 'bout you?
I am a goober, and a fool.
I ain't no wise man
How 'bout you?
We all just goobers
Through and through.
The wisest among us ain't worth dirt
He's just a fool with some fancy words.
We are all just in a hurt
To find some genius, and with it flirt.
I am a goober
How 'bout you?
I am a goober, such a fool.
I ain't a wise man
And you ain't, too.
We're all such goobers
Loop-de-loo.
I sing the last verse of this song
If I'm lucid and pretty strong
It comes from God not cholesterol
It comes from He, and not my wrong.
I am a goober
How 'bout you?
How do we know a thing is true?
I am a goober,
How 'bout you?
I ain't a wise man
But listen good.
43. Benjamin the Donkey
I am Benjamin the Donkey
And I remember when
There was peace among the peasants
And men were truly men.
I remember when women were very wholesome
And the black man had honor too.
There was malaise and violence somewhere
But it touched so very few.
I remember when the Church was mighty
Like our Public Schools that day---
Now all our institutions have been given to decay.
I am Benjamin the Donkey
But I say it was really nice;
Now all our citizens are frozen in a block of hatred's ice.
44. The Salamander
Oh, it is real, said Bulfinch...
Yet the ecologist says 'tis not.
The brat in college says,
"It matters not, 'tis a fable
"Therefore to be disregarded with the trash."
The historian said the Salamander
Was born from the flames
To ancient imaginations
Because it would flee out of the fire.
I, I do not know, because the world is lying.
45. Plutarch's Census
ΗΗΔΔ
Myriad Myriads was
Translated into
Latin wrong. How could millions
Die on battlefields with just
Three Hundred Twenty Thousand Roman Citizens?
46: Calvinism
I have seen, over my few years
Men destroyed by scripture.
I have seen men go astray
Who were once very good.
I have seen children abused
By preachers, and women raped.
I have seen the sick cast into hell
Because there was no voice of wisdom.
I do not know why some men
Are pursued all their life by truth;
And for some reason they listen.
I do not know why.
And some men, never hear a sound word
Until it is far too late.
I do not know why.
I do not know why,
Those professing to be sound
Believe the word of God
And do not try its wisdom.
They preach a false gospel
That is so popular right now
And try to win souls like a cult
To bring men into the fold
By simply telling them,
"I'll lead and you blindly follow."
I have seen men destroyed by shepherds
Priests, evangelists, even the Holy Bible itself.
I do not know what protects one man
And damns another.
But, I have been bequeathed with a full Gospel
And I know the truths of scripture with my every absolute breath.
I know every moment in history
And have compiled it, and tested it
And seen it's true. I have tested every Word
Spoken by my LORD, and found them faithful.
I do not know how it came to me,
And not to many of you.
47. Dialogue with a Postmodernist
Lost is the art, the sacred art I want it, so I make it
Speak in the nuances of the soul I believe it, so it is.
Speak the truth, in passages of the purple hoar of the mountain crest I want it, so it is.
Bring silence, whispers, and see what is real I make it because I want
to.
48. Theodicy Answered
Oh, why is there such pain
And anguish in the world?
If not to cry out, "There must be a better one!"
How do we get there?
Christ, Christ has the answer...
"Live well, believe on Him, and rest on His divine Power."
49. The Destruction of the Temple
First, there was flourishing, and peace in every corner of the world.
Then, the LORD reigns in our hearts, but His holy ordinance dies in our hearts---
Then, a fire explodes of hypocrisy in worship--so unholy--and it burns the people with sin.
Then, there is the repair. But it becomes costly, and wears down the soul.
Because hard times come, the rocky soil of your neighbors and friends wane, so with it yours.
And new politics arise, which must be made room for, and out with the old politics of Christ.
Then, fewer and fewer are found upon the Earth, to be blessed or holy, and one starves for company.
Then, at last, the faith is sold to the Roman City, as it sits in disrepair.
Then, at last, all the devils and demons come,
And throw what is holy upon the floor and break the stain glass windows.
And that is how the Church dies.
I use nosisms, but do not mean me. As a Christian does.
50. My First Evangelist
My dad told me all the hard stuff.
There were hermaphrodites.
That catholic nuns used to get pregnant
And commit infanticide.
That the church was full of hypocrites.
Sometimes I wonder if that's not the evangelist we need
Is one who's not a prude, but tells us things
From a based perspective.
Sure, my dad blasphemes every day watching the ball games;
Sure, he's a little bit rude and can be bullheaded.
Sure, he says a lot of the same things every day
And there's the lament of America...
But even that lament of America has helped shape me.
The fact that my country isn't perfect
And I think those pillars of true faith
In the face of strange realities
Is what Christians need.
So, I am that evangelist
As certainly Christ is true regardless.
Why? Because He spoke what was our conscience
And even the Old Testament--if you can be truthful--
Speaks, as we truly do have it in our hearts to destroy the malignant.
©2024 B. K. Neifert
All Rights Reserved
Poems Spring 2024
Published
B. K. Neifert 