You may cover the stench with a potpourri—
while you gag, as you finger your rosary.
Sacrosanct nourriture…
or decayed pourriture?
(Other patrons might label it Popery.)
Though the tepidly Protestant matron
of a church that is stagnant and state-run
does not care about Luther,
We’ll bother to truth her
with Calvin or Knox as our patron.
Though the Vatican’s bottomless coffers
make some very un-Lutheran offers,
I would rather talk Tetzel
(with beer and a pretzel)
and drink with the rebels and scoffers.
We forget that the birth of the Kirk
was a vicious, un-Catholic work
One recalls Bloody Mary…
and Knox was no faerie.
His doctrine drove Satan berserk.
Many chairmen, deficient in wit
who on flimsy theologies sit
with no justification
hate predestination,
reviling it more than a bit.
Barthelemy (in French: St. Bartholomew)
was unpleasant, as most of the martyrs knew
Roman Catholic correction
or violent deception?
In heaven, they’re getting the overview…
People gag, and then murmur the rosary
seeking solace in incense or potpourri
you must pardon my French
but this damnable stench
smells like nothing so much as like Popery.
♗♗♗♗♗♗♗
Rastafari live ! JAH bless all the Haiku, dem. Haile Selassie
October 31st is a night to celebrate – to celebrate Absolute Truth.
It is a night to grasp the sinister magnitude of the predicament fallen humanity is in.
It is also a night to recall one’s childhood with truly sepulchral melancholy and nostalgia.
I have noted, in my years of this earthly pilgrimage, the degeneration of Halloween from what it was in childhood. I recall less commercial pressure to consume. There was more child-friendly fantasy when I was growing up. The culture had not yet begun to harden into a crassly consumerist rigor mortis yet – or maybe I didn’t notice that part of it so much. Am I just idealizing a vanished past? Possibly, yes… but the push to turn Halloween into a cannibalistic slasher-film is a real phenomenon and also a discernible symptom.
I am disgusted with the spectacle of Halloween in the USA. But I hold a grudging respect for what looks like a passing victory for death and the grave every year on the last gasp of October. Which brings me to Reformation Day:
In honor of St. Martin Luther,St. John Calvin and St. JohnKnox, I proclaim the ongoing triumph of the Reformation. October 31, Reformation Day, is a national day of celebration in Germany, Slovenia, Chile, and Scandinavia – and it should be here as well.
The wages of sin is death(the bitter) but the gift of God is eternal life(the sweet).
The night is still, and the frost it bites my face I wear my silence like a mask and murmur like a ghost…
Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat: the bitter and the sweet
The carefree days are distant now /I wear my memories like a shroud I try to speak but words collapse, echoing, echoing….
Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat: the bitter and the sweet
I wander though your sadness Gazing at you with scorpion eyes: Halloween, Halloween…
A sweet reminder in the ice-blue nursery Of a childish murder / of hidden luster – and she cries:
Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat: the bitter and the sweet
I wander through your sadness Gazing at you with scorpion eyes: Halloween, Halloween…
Today some reflections on All Hallows Even AKA Halloween AKA Reformation Day along with poetry by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
I also present to you my brand-new global graphics® line of festive Mark-of-the-Beast skulls for the season. (They may be purchased as a set or separately for 30 shekels each).
October 31st is a night to celebrate —to celebrate Absolute Truth. It is a night to clearly grasp the sinister magnitude of the predicament fallen humanity is in. We are a species terrorized by death every day – not only on the last night of October. Yet, since we are conditioned to fear and repress the reality of mortality in our sick culture, it gathers subliminal intensity only to surface in a collective psychosis and hypoglycemic spending orgy every Halloween. Consumer marketing strategies enhance and augment, in a soulless way, this national delirium. Our vulgar seasonal spectacle is now made in China.
I have noted, in my few years of this earthly pilgrimage, a distressing degeneration of Halloween from what it was in my childhood. I recall less commercial pressure to consume – whether nutritionally worthless [pre-diabetic even] sugary treats or morbid costumes and plastic props with murderous connotations. Halloween was less of an unrepentant death-trip then, it was less graphically gruesome. I remember my mother helping me turn my childish costume fantasies into reality: I was a robot, I was a bat, I was the Mummy ( I wear my memories like a shroud…) trailing Egyptian linen many autumn moons past. There was more child-friendly fantasy when I was growing up. The culture had not yet begun to harden into a crassly consumerist rigor mortis yet – or maybe I didn’t notice that part of it so much. Am I just idealizing a vanished past? Possibly, yes… but the push to turn Halloween into a cannibalistic slasher-film is a real phenomenon and also a discernible symptom.
Strange that it is most pronounced in the decadent industrialized Western Democracies where the majority live quite comfortably. Poorer nations that live in closer proximity to death seem to glamorize it far less, it seems to me.
I for one am disgusted with the spectacle of Halloween in the USA. But I hold a grudging respect for what looks like a passing victory for death and the grave every year on the last gasp of October. How do I personally war against the dumbing- down/bloodying-up of Halloween here in the Land of the supposedly Free? Like all other grouchy sensible old men, I rail to my family about how it used to be. I give out treats that won’t worsen the pre-diabetic tendencies of the nation’s children. I compliment all the Princesses, Animals, Witches, Robots, Fairies, Superheros and Star Wars defenders on their costumes. I ignore the obnoxious older kids who look like Freddy Kruger or worse. I sometimes slip a gospel tract into the child’s bag. (Yeah, that was me – go ahead, get mad…)
In honor of my three patron saints, St. Martin Luther,St. John Calvin and St. JohnKnox (all recently canonized by His Holiness Pope Ratzinger), I want to proclaim the ongoing triumph of the Reformation. October 31, “Reformation Day“, is a national day of celebration in Germany, Slovenia, Chile, and Scandinavia – and it should be here in the US of A as well. It is a day to thank God for the liberation of His Word from hieratic pomp and empty ritual. It is a night to clothe yourself in liberty and consider the fall of nations along with the fall of the leaves. It is a night to see the light of unstoppable Truth glowing in the eyes of every Jack-O-Lantern you behold. It is a night to comprehend the shining of Christ’s victory in the face of the marshaled powers of the grave. The wages of sin is death (the bitter) but the gift of God is eternal life (the sweet).
Halloween by Siouxsie and the Banshees:
The night is still, and the frost it bites my face I wear my silence like a mask and murmur like a ghost…
“Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat” The bitter and the sweet
The carefree days are distant now I wear my memories like a shroud I try to speak but words collapse, echoing, echoing….
“Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat” The bitter and the sweet
I wander though your sadness Gazing at you with scorpion eyes Halloween……Halloween
A sweet reminder in the ice-blue nursery Of a childish murder – of hidden luster, and she cries:
“Trick or Treat – Trick or Treat” The bitter and the sweet
I wander through your sadness Gazing at you with scorpion eyes Halloween, Halloween
CONNECT/HOOK 