Biblical Babel

Sixty-six chapters and sixty-six books
(please, Catholic brothers – no dirty looks)
were needed for God to make known His plan:
the gift of salvation and future of Man.

Yet sometimes it seems rather cryptically stated;
poor Israel must wait and will wait (as they’ve waited).

Isaiah took sixty-six chapters to tell it;
for two-thousand years has the Church tried to sell it –
must Christ and his teaching thus languish in mystery,
waiting offstage in the wings of His history?
(Wings of the cherubim, angels, and vultures
now beat down upon us, uniting our cultures
as tech surges up in a dizzy parabola
micro in management, global in formula…)

Sixty-six chapters to say it in Greek,
Aramaic — or Latin (whatever they speak)
while the somnolent audience scrolls on their screens
in apocalypse trance over zombie machines.
The scrolls are unopened, the parchment still sealed
the slot-machine handle refuses to yield;
as the sixes line up towards the threshold of seven
the virgins sleep late in the Kingdom of Heaven.

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IMAGE CREDIT: Jeff Kubina at flickr.com

Weakly Devotional

the-first-shall-be-last TISSOT

The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it:
because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation,and shall condemn it:
for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon;
and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
Christ’s words from Matthew 12:41,42

It’s Sunday again for you cloistered patricians
aloof from the madness, the magic and myth;
who trust in your wisdom, investments, physicians
unready to answer forthwith:

“Why bother with worship – in church or the zoo –
why weaken the links with a dull set of tools ?”
you ask yourself over your high-end Tarrazu,
bemused at the fables of fools.

You’ve bartered salvation for New York Times articles,
sipping on bitterness (shade-grown organic).
You settle for molecules, atoms and particles
unfairly-traded,  satanic –

while you celebrate emptiness, general futility
musing on nothingness, sure of specifics
ensconced in your kitchens of pampered gentility
flirting with atheist physics.

Those simple plebeians:  you’d love to enlighten them
help them, like you, to become a free-thinker
but you remain tasteful, for boldness might frighten them
reeling in fairy tales: hook, line and sinker.

Yet somebody, somewhere has uttered your sentence
(though you abhor judgement, let’s read it again).
Sheba and Nineveh, versed in repentance
await you – not whether but when.

The darkness is brewing unholy filtration;
the wine of the harlot approaches the rim;
your guilt is augmenting in slow percolation;
you shrug it all off on a whim.

The souls of Assyria rise from your paper
they watch in amazement, prepare your abyss.
Your coffee now brims a more sulfurous vapor;
oh sinner – there’s something amiss:

The crypts of Marib and the tombs of the Axumites
shudder and groan while you’re reading the Times…
(immune to the words that some Christarded  poet writes
mixing psychosis with rhymes.)

Royal Sheba will chastise your erudite unbelief,
smug self-importance and cynical talk.
Then she’ll sigh with immense Ethiopian grief
and her Highness Queen Bilqis will balk –

It is Sunday in Babylon.  What if your sunlight ends…
why are there mobs in the streets of the nation?
Shall you have breakfast – or calculate dividends…
what would you pay for salvation?

Baal improved

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IMAGE CREDITS: faithofthefathersreadings.blogspot
faithcrc.net

To a Progressive Poet

Your poems read as staggered prose;
the rhythm of the words escapes you.
One assumes, un-mused, you chose
a free-verse prison to run into.

You are modern. And it shows
in lack of structure, meter, beat.
Your emperor, set free of clothes
meanders on unsteady feet

exposed as naked, fending blows
from anarch subjects bored to tears
by cryptic, existential woes
and dreary imagery. One hears

within the verbiage you compose
a load of godless free-form tripe.
The lyrical ebb achieves new lows;
the scent is somewhat over-ripe…

Flux Danger

Más Repostería, por favor

 

keep-calm-and-repost

I’m going to shamelessly self-promote for a while.


Why
? ( you may ask)…
Well… if I don’t self-promote, who else will do it?
Therefore I will be re-posting original poems in the coming weeks
until I get tired of doing so.

As always, loyal and devoted connectees,
you have the RIGHT to be OFFENDED
(or bored).

 ☠ ☭