Collateral

Tell them twas not all in vain

The long dark hours in freezing rain

Tell them it was naught for gain
Of wordly things but higher realms

That meant we had to take up arms
Gainst enemy whose face we paint
So we can push that dagger
And watch his brains splatter

And imagine twas for greater good.

Tell them dread not freezing seas
If we must die and die we must
A tomb with whales swimming above
Is more serene than cities stained

And forests raped we've left behind.

So smirk behind that oak tree desk
And watch as blood stained table chess
Becomes alive and consumes the fire
Of angel saying we all must die.

Who...

"who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,"

[but before then, in midnight Silver Chair, were frightening unbearable unbared truth]

who, when tiredness and wine drew out the blood-liquid

from their capillaries-fingers

like tingled yellow crystals to prick and tear from inside

when hope withdrew like tired shells

of echoed songs of rejected thoughts

of chambers null and void and pointers

foxes pubs and drawl; "echo, fox" and public brawl

speckled truth; speckled, ken?

never return, heading town, meadow port and all the cherubim draw their unseen swords, where not even the oxen shall cross their fjords...

who indeed, will call me by my true name

or to whom can I read out the scroll,

my seeming complaint

till we have faces

till we can bear to look in the mirror

of shame tired pain and care

Name

Not in my name you cannot write
Or whine or make wine or right
The wrong suffered, my might
You cannot utter, my sight

You cannot claim, the night
Is just darkness to you, I AM,
But you are not, you are nothing but
Dust and wishful thinking in time;

And in shame.

The slight delay in exhaustion, the crime
You left late for combustion, the brine
In sea flats walked barefoot to isle
Of maybe or something or still breathing

That thing you call you, and cry in dark
You try as might, and fight in dark
You fight or flight, and run in dark, 

You, and it's always you, 

And I.

Sunday

Today I planned to leave my sins in Munich

But no hearing of confessions offered,

I will take them back with me,

Like an extra piece of luggage

Yet already I feel a bit relieved

Having heard other people's stories

In church, in the Olympic Park, in the hotel

Joyous people, victims, ordinary doers

Somehow, despite the horror of the 12

-- and, with an eye to the North West,

many more besides --

I feel a bit more human having been here today

I think of the mascot

Spitzer bought for his daughter 

Then walk the dunes in my mind

By the olympic lake

All tranquil yet reflecting

Death we all face

And evil in its wake

We all try to escape

Yet all who walked here today
Were human of the sort
Kazantsakis projected on
The Sky he tried to

Conjure in mist,  being
His own imagination
Yet providing relief
For his own doubtful belief.

So here we stand, all human

All fragile like tarps and tents

Extended in Olympic Park.

All making tbeir mark

Even if not celebs with hands

In wet clay but with prayers

Rising uphigh with hands held apart

In wet record of time.

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Shan

twas shan o’ ye tae dae that
tae mock yer tongue that’s
no for ye tae mock cos
it’s no yers, ne’er will be

how wid ye feel

ye daft ---- if ah hunt

yer kin doon

ken, yer kind and aw

Belief

What is worse:

To imagine someone exists
Or deny someone who does?
And well, does He?
We believe in Napoleon
Precisely 'cos he didn't fly
He only ravaged Europe
-- with learning, according to some --
And sent his men to die
Across fields frozen; that part,
No one seems to deny.
We believe in Julius Caesar
Because he didn't claim to heal
But he did know how to kill
-- yet also, more than his peers --
To put sword back in its sheath.
And then we have Christ
Whose life two millenia ago
Seems accepted by most
But the details of his life
And more so, what followed
Are a stumbling block.
There is authority in his speech
But miracles, by their nature
Are difficult (or impossible?) to believe.
It needs a second childhood,
A second birth.
One we hope, springs not
From stupid laughter
But His wise mirth.

( see Chesterton https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2012/09/06/his-mirth/ )