Advent Service From St John's, 2022

 

The logs are chopped, the basket full,

The smokeless fuel heaped on the grate,

Mid-afternoon, some winters chill,

And water in the cellar lies,

And drives the mice to venture in.

The sky is dappled pink and peach,

The day has paused, there seems a lull,

And yet it seems the night can wait,

There’s music now, amidst the still,

Advent from St Johns which tries

To balance beauty with the din

Of modernism, which can’t reach

The parts that older carols can.

The prayers are said, the readings read,

A Spotless rose is spotless sung,

Perfection is not really dead.

Is that the old familiar pull?

When yet we know we have, of late,

Fallen short, against our will,

Or often had to compromise,

Can we sense beneath the skin,

Above our thoughts, beyond our speech,

The greatest truth - that God was man?

On Senility

 

Perhaps we go utterly senile

by way of escape. For the mind

is an otherwise constant presence, and ever-accessible file.

The evidence against us, which we endlessly seek and find

we long to discover erased and nothing left to remind.

And though life’s not really an endless trial,

yet our dreams and what is real mostly are misaligned.

 

Perhaps we go utterly senile

because we seek kindness, somewhere in exile,

from our own constant judgements against us, cleverly designed

to lead us nowhere, through brambled tracks, mile after mile.

 

By way of escape (for the mind

in senility forgets everything of importance, previously defined

by one’s relationship to it, and how it seemed for a while

significant) all that’s left behind

is an otherwise constant presence, and ever-accessible file

of nonsense and vague connections and thoughts which make us smile.

 

The art of confabulation, combining the non-combined

becomes our constant distraction as again we try and compile

the evidence against us, which we endlessly seek and find

is now entirely unreliable.  So, purblind

we are at last free, to reconcile

us to ourselves but lack the facility and so remain self-maligned.

And stuck in a habit we hardly revile

perhaps we go utterly senile.

Do Not Believe What Men Might Say

 

Do not believe what men might say

Judge only by man’s action

The atheist who goes to pray

Is seeking satisfaction

He is not just a hypocrite engaged in an abstraction

He is compelled to disobey,

His reason’s a distraction.

Do not believe what men might say

They’ll contradict another day

Do not promote protraction

Believing words designed to sway,

Judge only by man’s action.

Ideas conveyed in words through argument gain traction

Don’t encourage them to stay

By pressing for retraction.

The atheist who goes to pray

May sense he’s led himself astray

And feel the need to view his slip as some sort of infraction.

Let him be, he is distré

Is seeking satisfaction,

Balm. The greatest benefaction

Is to look away, 

Show no triumph or pleasure in reaction

And if perhaps you’re tempted, the vicar’s part to play

Do not.

On Power and Wealth

 

“At the beginning a man was wealthy because he was powerful — now he is powerful because he has money. Intellect reaches the throne only when money puts it there. Democracy is the completed equating of money with political power.” Spengler 

Though richer than the King, they say,

How he gained his wealth, who knows?

He gained great power, in some way, 

Money is power, democracy shows. 

Money is power and power grows

And power likes to play

Economising games, while all the time the money flows.

Though richer than the King, they say,

His wealth grows greater, day by day,

So his power. It's said he rose

From humble roots, and won’t therefore be led astray,

How he gained his wealth, who knows, 

Married it?  Power’s power, I suppose.

And rot and ruin and decay,

Are naught to those who would impose.

He gained great power in some way

And now he’ll crush and then betray-

Those on whom he once depended now he will oppose.

And sinking will be orderly, responsible and grey.

Money is power, democracy shows,

Democracy? But no one chose?

Yet this is how it ends, in self destruction, disarray.

Elitism triumphant, taunting, no one daring to depose

The despot flaunting common feet of clay,

Though richer than the King.