Epigrams

The earliest of these fourteen epigrams was written in March 2014 and the latest in May 2015. Regarding the second of the epigrams on Pope Francis (not my favourite person), Mr Justin Welby, who calls himself archbishop, on visiting the Pope in June 2014, and with the whole wealth of Christian art and symbol to choose from, presented him with a potted plant. And as regards the third, the Pope invited the Israeli and Palestinian presidents to the Vatican gardens in June 2014 to plant olive trees for peace; by July Israel and Hamas were at war.

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   How odd
That we who daily defecate,
With airs and graces imprecate
   Our God.

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   That such as I,

Coiled through with crabbish spite,
A latheman’s lacklust son,
Should prism the pure light
Of words, glossing each one,
   Splitting the sky!
 
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World-eyed Agamemnon slept

Tomb-enwrapped in dust-deep years;
Hellene logos, Christian light
Chest-protuding warfare kept;
Muslim trumpets’ brawling jeers
Struck Byzantium’s ramparts down,
Danube’s wheatlands in their sight;
Waking, Homer’s gods made frown,
Mourning shrines and polis sacked:
Agamemnon’s death mask cracked.
 
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   Moses, Buddha, Christ, Confucius,

Proclaim their teachings, firm as fact,
   Revelation’s not in doubting,
Salvation is to know and act.

   Sui generis their claims

Though not the myths of busy fools,
   Natural law, “thou shalt” and “not”,
Fruitfully nestles in their rules.

   Hence, unproven though some say,

Religion should be lived “as if”
   Things divine were true and not
“Because”, cannily liege and lief.

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“His going out is from the end of heaven, and his circuit even to the end thereof.” Psalm 18.

The universe is infinite

   Say some,
Expanding from a big bang point
   Say more,
So where’s the centre? Where are you?
   That’s where.

Where consciousness is self-aware

   Say some,
The universe itself is conscious
   Say more,
And self-awareness is the centre
   That’s where.

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Though all exceptionalisms I believed,

Such as the American, were for the dogs,
In fact I grandly believed in personal
Exceptionalism but illness cured me.

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Why strive to crowd your cave

With young, a girl, a son?
The grave takes all we have;
The young die, Death goes on.

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It used to be the Church of Semper Aeternum;

Now it’s the Church of Simper Aeternum.

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POPE FRANCIS

i.

The gaucho Pope with small hard smiles
Has scanned the road for anxious miles;
At last a cripple he espies,
And stops the car with urgent cries;

Camera-caught, he grabs his prey,

His hugs go viral straightaway:
At least Our Lord with no glib charms
Healed the victim in His arms.

ii.

In Rome with its trove of Christian art
Mr Justin Welby from the heart
Gave the Pope as a sign of hope
(Was it perhaps a New Age joke?)
A plant in a cellophane poke.

iii.

   In the Vatican gardens at Francis’ behest,
   Israel and Palestine friendship professed;
With weary glances olive trees were planted –
At once all hell was loosed and peace supplanted.

August 2014

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      Orwell:

“At fifty a man has the face he deserves.”
But what if at sixty his soul
Is covered in filth which will damn him
      To hell?

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EPITAPH

   What I did I did alone

Since none declared an interest;
   All my struggles at an end,
At last I rest: I gave my best.

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Woken at dawn by a blackbird’s song,

All ecstatic (and very long!)
I thought, young poet in your utter prime
You could not outsing this bird at its rhyme.

 

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© March 2014 – May 2015