THE HOLY GHOST
Of Three-in-one and One-in-three
The Holy Ghost's the one for me.
The Perfect Man and His Old Dad
Are just too daunting and too sad
And why does One require the Other
And is the Devil the delinquent Brother?
I'm so confused; it's a crying shame
To make my heresy to blame
For all my crippling weight of Sin
That lets the ghouls and monsters in.
The HG sits outside the fight
And basks in peace and Holy Light.
Where did it come from? Nobody knows
But its attraction grows and grows
It doesn't carry the reputation
To lose or suffer refutation
It doesn't have a fancy shrine
In need of polish, rain or shine
It doesn't carry a million names
To fumble with in verbal games
Its ghostly print is like dark matter
Everywhere a spitter-spatter
Now you see It now you don't
Will you want to? No, you won't -
We desire our gods mysterious
Whether or not they see or hear us
Across this endless universe
The obvious truth gets worse and worse
There are no answers, clear or not
We keep on searching each ink blot
The HG hums above our scurrying
And stands aloof from all our hurrying
I find it good to search above
For signs of unconditional love
Acceptance of my troubled soul
Becomes my final battered goal
The Ghost survives its afterlife
It just floats out there, without strife -
It's all I'd hope to find in God
However distant, even odd.
The Father is too much to tangle
The Son puts people through the mangle
But here's a Deity to toast -
Here's to the matchless Holy Ghost !
MARCHING SONG OF THE ATHEISTS MILITANT
We're done with God the Father
We're done with God the Son
And God the Holy Spirit
Is more the Holy Song
We're done with human prophets
And done with human priests
Who treat us like their cattle
And we their human feasts
We're done with meditation
And bloody sacrifice
And praying on our bloody knees
And dying at least twice
Don't dangle us with heaven
Don't lecture us on hell
We'll dream our own hereafters
Before they ring the bell
And when they ring the bell, my friends
Our struggles all will cease
We'll reconcile our godless selves
And close our eyes in peace.
We're all for eco-funerals
Our phosphorus back to Earth
So cut us up and feed us
To birds in sky rebirth
ENOUGH ALREADY !
Enough of this ergo sum!
Enough of being the baffled hominid !
I've played the part the required decades
And at the gates I stand
Call upon God to finally reveal Herself.
I am tired of groping in the dark
Of being the thwarted brain -
I'm family, aren't I ? Don't I carry the divine DNA?
I'm supposed to have been created by those much-vaunted hands, aren't I?
It's time to come clean, God, no more lurking ambiguously in deserts,
Echoing nothingness as a pastime.
You're so-called God
Alias God
God alias God
God alias gods
We've played with all that for long enough.
In the miserable five minutes I'm given on Earth
Flying through the party noise and flickering lights of the mead hall
From darkness to darkness
I'm reaching my hand through the wall of eternity
Smashing through stony incomprehension like a karate pro
Knowing perfectly well that on the other side there'll be nothing to hold onto
Just a cloud of unmirrored smoke.
Damn your trillion eyes
Damn your unfathomable intentions
Damn damn damn your cool indifference
I'm out here shivering in the cold of space
And you take my breath away.
There's a second left for a sign
For You to move in a mysterious way
- no, don't do that to me -
I want a smidgen of answer
To illumine my last moments
Just a clear dawn ahead
A snatch of the chanting of things
An echo as the silence settles in the cave
An echo of the echo
A glimpse beyond
Just one moment when time stops counting my heartbeats
When I'm seeking the centre
And all is beatifically still.
Is this what I'm about
As your eyelids stay closed, God ?
"What goes ninety nine clunk?" "A centipede with a wooden leg." English children's joke, possibly nineteenth century.
What goes ninety nine quadrillion
Ninety nine trillion
Ninety nine billion
Ninety nine million
Nine hundred and ninety nine thousand
Nine hundred and ninety nine
Clunk ?
God wandering the Universe
Her progress in majestic train of Thought
The Word with
The Word was
Sempiternal
Unceasing
Flowing across the scarcely imagined spaces
With a wooden leg
Me.
I am the last-minute improvisation
The wind-torn branch lying by the trail
A function at last
Clunk.............................................................
…...................................................................
….......................................................clunk.
They also serve who only stand and clunk.
Wait your turn you dumbass, wait and clunk.
How typical of God to break a leg
And stick me conscious in the rhythms of creation
Sentient enough to suffer,
With brain enough to wonder,
Contemplate his fate as wooden leg !
Shedding a mote of dust a century
Barely noticing the loss
Rejoining the chaos
Tick by tock
God pulled into the station
Across the Bridge to Nowhere
Verbing Herself to a stop.
The ride had been endless
The ghost train crossing the desert
Its mournful whistle
Echoed and echoed
Wheels spinning a slippery tale
Squealing to set your soul on edge.
We spilled out onto the platform
Wild-eyed and hungry
Haunted by the memories
Dissolving in the smoke.
People were waiting
Sitting with shapeless bundles
Barely stirring.
This was not their train
It never would be
Theirs the stopping train
Somewhere out there
Rusting in a siding
Waiting for the God Express to sweep by
Majestic, unattainable.
They did not look at us
We were not their business
We did not know how to look at them
We were the passengers of God.
We climbed back aboard
Weary to the bone
Stared through the dirty windows
At the featureless expanses
Night was falling
The whistle called upon its vast experience
And slowly slowly
The Bridge to Nowhere
Pulled away to find its track.
GLORY
Humanity stood at the crossroads
A place of decision, suicide and question.
"Tell us why," they said.
Their voices were hoarse from chanting.
"Tell us why. Don't stay ever silent" they cried
"Not for ever."
"Glory" said God,
"Glory".
Glory shone around.
"Which way we go is Hell
Ourselves are Hell."
It came as a question.
"Glory" said God,
"Glory. I AM the way."
They sought to ask the question
In a code that leaped the chasm.
They were lonely, and faced death.
"Glory" said God.
