All the things God could do, all the things he doesn’t: stop earthquakes and disease, world war between first cousins… Complaints at God may seem rashly impertinent– But so what? Life shows God clearly omnimpotent.
*****
Not much to say about my rude little poems, except that a lot of them get published in Rat’s Ass Review, whose Spring/Summer issue has just (optimistically) been published – thanks, Roderick Bates! And also, well, I guess I was proud of the poem’s last word, though I’m definitely not the first person to think of it.
One sunny morning, strolling in my garden, I stumbled, and my foot crushed something’s head. “Me dammit!” I exclaimed, “I beg your pardon”, Looked down, and saw my Serpent lying dead.
Now this was most vexatious, for I’d planned That this poor snake would implement my scheme To give my little friends a helping hand, And lead them gently from their childish dream.
The Serpent was supposed to tempt the couple With luscious fruit that Eden’s trees bedecks; My chosen agent, sinuous and supple, Would lead the pair to knowledge – and to sex.
Omniscience can have its limitations, And even Godly schemes may gang agley. I’d once envisaged teeming populations, But this, perhaps, was better, in its way.
No Spanish Inquisition, no Crusades, No slaves, and no Industrial Revolution, No mining sites where once were leafy glades, No factory chimneys belching out pollution.
No nation-states, no border wars to settle, No Holocaust, no tribal genocide, No Rap, no Hip-Hop, Punk or Heavy Metal, No hamburgers with coleslaw on the side.
No guns, no bullets, no demented shooters, Since nothing could be made, except of wood; No mobile phones (thank Me!) and no computers … I looked on all of this, and found it good.
Yet what of those who should have lived hereafter? No Homer, Shakespeare, Mozart, Botticelli? No P. G. Wodehouse? (I was fond of laughter, Though, being God, I didn’t have a belly).
Descendants all, but only if they had ’em. (No Michelangelo, no Sistine Chapel?) My mind made up, I called to Eve and Adam: “I wondered if you’d care to try an apple?”
*****
Brian Allgar writes: “As a devout atheist, I felt it my duty to shed some light on the truth behind the Creation myth.”
Brian Allgar was born a mere 22 months before Adolf Hitler committed suicide, although no causal connection between the two events has ever been firmly established. Despite having lived in Paris since 1982, he remains immutably English. He started entering humorous competitions in 1967, but took a 35-year break, finally re-emerging in 2011 as a kind of Rip Van Winkle of the literary competition world. He also drinks malt whisky and writes music, which may explain his fondness for Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony.
I had a friendship, more than passionate love, for you; we could have been so good, easy, together. But there’s that issue of your strong religious thoughts, whereas I let my thoughts change with the weather.
I… well, and who’s the I you think that you address? I ramble, googly-eyed, my arms elastic. There are so many sweet but sadly firm believers. I’m – more than atheist – iconoclastic.
*****
If you’re used to iambic pentameter the meter of this poem feels just a little off, with its lines of alternating 12 and 11 syllables, i.e. alternating hexameters and feminine-ending pentameters… not quite comfortable. Which is perfectly in keeping with the relationship described. And I don’t remember precisely which long-ago not-quite-girlfriend I had in mind when I wrote it; I’ve been attracted to more than one charming female, wonderfully calm and sane except for some unfortunate religious orientation or other.
I’m reminded of the 19th century Punch cartoon of the two guests at a dinner party: She: “And what is your religion, sir?” He: “Madam, all men of sense are of the same religion.” She: “And which religion is that, pray tell?” He: “Madam, men of sense never say.”
Which is all very well for friendship, but hardly a solid basis for a deeper relationship. You’re better off if you hold out for someone philosophically compatible, unless you (and they) really don’t care. In which case, you’re philosophically compatible!
‘Friendship, Not Passion’ was originally published in Lighten Up Online, edited by Jerome Betts.
Where do they go, those children asleep? Do they roost, or do angels put them on shelves? Or do they go home, to some place they keep locked far away from us and themselves, Or an alternate universe? In, out, up, down? Into a not-place, past care and past fear? Past love and past tired, past smile, yawn and frown into subtracted space, full of not here?
And where do they go, the dead? We say we can’t know where they go, just that they’re gone. But the crow says, There is more to know that you don’t know – says, Better ask instead where do we go, when dead?
*****
This almost-regular sonnet was originally published in Bewildering Stories (thanks Don Webb). I thought it might be nice to emphasise (after some of irreligious poems) that I am not an atheist (except in the eyes of the organisedly religious). I am a Militant Agnostic: “I don’t know, and neither do you.”
Michael R. Burch writes: “This may be the first poem I wrote. I read the Bible from cover to cover at age 11, and it was a traumatic experience. But I can’t remember if I wrote the epigram then, or came up with it later. In any case, it was probably written between age 11 and 13, or thereabouts. It would be kinda cool to be remembered by a poem I wrote at such an early age. Plus, it’s short, so readers would probably finish it!
I have been using Google results to determine which of my poems are the most popular on the Internet. Some of my poems have gone viral, appearing on hundreds or thousands of web pages. That’s a lot of cutting and pasting, and I like to think people must like a poem in order to take the time to replicate it. This epigram, which I wrote around age 11 to 13, at one time returned over 405,000 results for the last two lines, and over 51,000 results for the entire poem. The last time I checked, it still returned over 292,000 results. I was especially pleased to see one of the first poems I wrote, and possibly the first, go viral. If I wrote anything earlier, I don’t remember it.“
Michael R. Burch has over 6,000 publications, including poems that have gone viral. His poems have been translated into fourteen languages, incorporated into three plays and two operas, and set to music by seventeen composers. He also edits TheHyperTexts.
There flows in my veins the most ancient of ardours: not power, or love, nor yet worship of God; the fight that each tiniest baby fights hard as fought earliest man: “Understand!” Pry and prod with unquenchable flame of the world-disregarders for Truth! – be it complex, destructive or odd. If this fire is from Heaven, then Heaven I’ve earned; so write on my grave: “This stone too shall be turned.”
This teasingly paradoxical little poem was originally published in the Shot Glass Journal, a thrice-a-year journal of 20-30 American poems and an equal number of international ones. Why the name? Because this is a journal for short poems, none over 16 lines. Most of the material they publish is free verse, but they like to have a full range of styles in each issue… which is good news for formal poets.
If it’s Sunday, maybe I should post a religious poem… Of course, the trouble is my
Newgrange – prehistoric Irish site aligned with the winter solstice
ambivalence about religion. I side with US statesman and orator Henry Clay: “All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty.” And if there’s a difference between history and religion, I’ll take history any time.
Genocide in Canaan
Gave God’s land to the Jews;
But genocides in other lands
Are Yahweh’s big taboos.
Buddhism
All life is suffering,
Yes, all our life is pain;
Then I must be a masochist –
I’d love to live again.
Norse religion
The first gods killed a giant,
From his skull to make
The sky, and mountains from his bones –
What lies! No talking snake?!
Christianity
Jesus wasn’t Jewish
And his killers weren’t from Caesar;
At least, so Paul said after
An epileptic seizure.
Islam
There is no God but One,
Perfect in every way;
All creatures do His unknown will –
So there’s no need to pray.
Mormonism
To teenage Joseph Smith
An angel showed gold plates
On which he read ‘Jesus Was Here’ –
It got him lots of dates.
Modern Paganism
Pretentious modern pagans
Confused by mystic spoof
Have got no clue what Stonehenge was
With its old Newgrange roof.
Atheism
I don’t see gods on clouds,
I don’t hear angels sing;
There’s just one question bothers me –
How come there’s anything?
About the use of form here: flippant comments, as in the above poem, are well served by simple quatrains with a bit of bounce to them. Iambics are not in themselves bouncy, but in this pattern of 3 feet, 3 feet, 4 feet, 3 feet they work fine. There’s not a lot of thought in any of the verses, just a set-up and a quick jab. The form works well for its purpose.
Form in Formless Times 