Verse5

Verse:

Page 5:

WE TOLD YOU SO

Ex Rhodesians round their barbie

Shouldn’t vilify Mugabe.

He’s granted them the best of favours,

A sort that every racist savours:

The opportunity to crow,

“We told you so! We told you so!”

He’s given credence to the myth

Propounded once by Ian Smith

That every black man’s just a fool

And far too primitive to rule.

Mugabe, oh so well degreed

And yet incompetent to lead!

Your reign so stupid, long and vicious

To ex Rhodesians proves delicious,

To Malcolm Fraser now they crow,

“We told you so! We told you so!”

ELEVATION

Don’t like bishops. Fishy lot. Blessed are the meek my foot!

They’re all on the climb. Ever heard of meekness stopping a

bishop from becoming a bishop? Nor have I. ( Maurice Bowra)

Bishops disingenuously

Are wont to claim, bare-facedly,

Never to have sought preferment.

It doesn’t though take much discernment

To work out that for most, not least,

Their move from lowly parish priest

To bishop is, in fact, much sought for,

Aspired to, grabbed at, even fought for.

Good Lord! What else would elevate

The so profoundly second rate?

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

It isn’t money that’s the root

Of all that’s evil, says astute

St Paul to Timothy in scripture.

It’s love of money merits stricture.

Those who fulminate and bitch

About the wealthy and the rich

Do so out of envy more

Than out of love for those who’re poor.

There’s nothing wrong with being rich

and therefore no excuse to bitch.

The poor, the rich, those in between

Are only pigs if they are mean.

Money’s neutral, wealth is fine

It needn’t turn folk into swine.

When put to good or loving use

It merits praise, not cheap abuse.

Be prodigal, don’t bitch then,

Nor envy those considered rich when

In fact you’ve more than got enough.

Give loads away. Go spend the stuff.

This is what it’s given you for.

The truly blest are those who’re poor,

This Jesus said and really meant.

Wealth is good - if given and spent.

JOHN PRYORITIES

In St Augustine’s Church it’s rare.

To be called away from Evening Prayer.

The daily office must be said

Unless there’s someone all but dead

Requiring sacramental care:

Holy Unction’s love and prayer.

Imagine then a priest’s surprise

On being called from prayer to rise

By a phone call from the Registrar,

That’s claimed “important”. How bizarre,

Vainglorious, arrogant and odd

To call a man to self from God!

John Pryor! The Bishop’s right hand man,

Crosier, minder, action man:

His phone call (of no weight at all),

Yet illustrates how far the fall

Of most of “the authorities”.

They muddle their priorities.

“God-Almightiness” within,

Pryor, prior to God the sin.

DOWN TOWN

In jeans, pot-bellied down the street

Stroll grey Don Juans on trainered feet.

Divorced from children, home and wife,

They’ve made a soapie of their life,

Pretend to youth, romance and fizz

Deny that life is what it is.

Hand in hand and chest apuff,

They fondly flaunt a piece of fluff

Who’s half their age or even less,

In love, that’s lust in fancy dress.

Honour, trust and rectitude

Displaced by brute erectitude.

RUMBLING FROM THE RANKS

In growing older as a priest,

Of all my problems, not the least

Is how, without the merest trace

Of anger, to accept with grace

The rise of men of little sense

To eminence and prominence!

The dullest dogs are made archdeacon,

The dim of wit, the feeblest beacon,

The egotist and own drum’s drummer,

Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber,

The Venerable Father Clod,

The execrable Father Plod!

How hard to honour and defer

To twerps whom Bishops much prefer

To brilliant, wise, successful me!

Could Jesus mean in his decree

Of first as last and last as first,

That worst be best and best be worst?

EVANGELIST

With polished scorn and sneering wit

And Darwin’s work for Holy Writ,

Supremely confident, without

A second thought or single doubt,

Richard Dawkins pushes science,

With evangelical defiance,

Down the throats of all believers,

Dismissed as fools and rank deceivers.

Science’s evangelist!

A smoothly handsome atheist.

In glibness, certainty and style

Surely just as suavely vile

As those whose certitude he hates,

Pours scorn upon and mocks and baits.

We all perceive with little trouble,

The man’s a pulpit ranter’s double. (2003)

FOR THE REVEREND GAIL BRYCE

Of Gail, says Anglo-Catholic, Father Dick,

Black soutaned, biretta-ed, slick,

The Pope’s devoted friend (to say the least),

“She only thinks that she’s a priest.”

Of Dick, declares the Pope, old Mr Ratzinger,

At error quick to point the finger,

And foe of heretics (to say the least),

“He only thinks that he’s a priest.”

Who cares a jot what Dick or Pope might think?

Not Gail, such views she’s certain stink!

But Dick, who gives the Pope’s behind such licks,

Is surely in some sort of fix!

A PARISH PRIEST’S LAMENT

How happy is the artisan

The labourer, the working man.

He downs his tools at end of day

Forgets his work, to sport and play,

To let his hair down, booze and feast.

Not so his troubled parish priest!

His work is never left behind

But dogs his footsteps, fills his mind,

Is even taken into bed

To fill his sleep with gloom and dread,

And turn to nightmare every dream.

Never, ever does it seem,

To let him go, or loose its grip,

Be abandoned or let slip.

It clings to him, the poor sod,

As desperately as he to God.

FOR REBECCA & TIM AT THEIR WEDDING RECEPTION

Rebecca, Tim, it gives us pleasure

To dance a happy Gaelic measure

In your honour on this night

So wintry raw, so Scots, so right.

In our Scottish tartan rig

First we’ll dance a pretty jig

And then with pounding, kilted thighs,

With sparkling eyes and eldritch cries

With hoots, hurrahs and wild “och ayes”

We’ll fling decorum to the skies

And dance in dithyrambic glee,

In corybantic ecstasy,

A dance such fun that only clods

Dullards, dunces, plonks and plods

Would ever look their noses down at,

Disapprove, deplore and frown at.

Once we’ve given the dance a run

We’ll ask your guests to join the fun,

To kick their heels up, shout “och-aye”

To take a risk and have try,

In your honour, lovely bride

And of the groom you sit beside.

You both, I’m sure, will take great pleasure

Will long recall, remember, treasure

Our dancing of a Gaelic measure

With wild abandon and with pleasure

In your honour on this night

So wintry raw, so Scots, so right.

GOLDEN WEDDING : JOHN AND PAT

To be not squashed or sat upon

From fifty years espoused to John,

Demanded Pat’s inspired resilience,

Strategies approaching brilliance,

Humour, cheek, a strong right arm,

All balanced though by love and charm.

To be not squashed and splatted flat

From fifty years espoused to Pat,

Demanded John’s best savoir faire,

Tact and gastronomic flair,

Attentive face, selective ear

And yet a heart that holds her dear.

They’ve loved each other with panache,

With, spirit, gumption, fire and dash,

Stony crags they’ve scrambled over,

And now their bums are set in clover.

Though here and there still lurks a nettle

To try their love and test their mettle.

We thank you Lord that they’re so able

To tell their love around their table,

In lovely food and heady wine

For friends so often asked to dine.

This like their Lord, in Palestine

Who too made love of bread and wine.

SHEPPARTON EXAMINED

Can Shepparton, so dry and dusty

its locals’ pride arouse?

Well yes, they boast to all their friends

its herds of plastic cows,

That eat no grass, are eco-friendly

and chastely never mate,

In spite of which they still, somehow

appear to propagate.

Can Shepparton so featureless

have tourist pulling power?

Well yes for kiddies love to climb its

tiny Eiffel Tower,

Feed pelicans and buy big Macs,

and Kidstown go to see

When Mum and Dad come here to buy

cheap fruit from SPC.

Can Shepparton’s town planning

lay any claim at all

To be progressive? Yes indeed,

it boasts a Shopping Mall,

And soon will have a brothel too

with pimp and homegrown whores,

And shops that sell erotica

to propagate their cause.

Can Shepparton, dry Shepparton

make other claims to fame?

Well yes indeed, its drunken yobs

have earned themselves a name.

On weekend nights they roam the streets,

hurl vomit and abuse

They fight and knife and vandalise,

are morons on the loose.

Yet surely sunny Shepparton

can offer rather more

than plastic cows, drunk yobs and whores

to help the spirits soar?

Well yes, its population

distinctiveness depicts,

For rural cities rarely boast

so rich an ethnic mix,

Its Macedonians, Turks, Iraqis,

Poms, Albanians,

Its Kooris, Poles, Ugandans, Irish,

Greeks, Iranians,

All colourfully co-exist,

with very little tension,

Delighting in their differences,

declining from dissension.

Another city feature that is

something much to treasure

Are gum-treed, flood-plain, tracks that bring

its citizens great pleasure.

There’s bushland at the City’s heart,

goannas, possums, roos,

Miner birds and lorikeets,

galahs and cockatoos.

The city’s centre boasts as well

an even better basis

For heart-felt civic pride, though,

a well-treed, green oasis,

Where fountains play and magpies sing,

and flowers beam and sway,

The setting for a warm-bricked church

that’s open every day,

To citizens of all persuasions,

be they rich or poor,

Beggars, donors, sinners, saints,

and what is even more,

Where virtues not of yob or whore

or grabbing cash are vaunted,

But aimless lives are shown to be,

perhaps, with meaning haunted.

A saving grace of Shepparton

is St Augustine’s here,

All Sheppertonian folk of sense

hold it very dear.

Can Shepparton, so dry and dusty

its locals’ pride arouse?

Well yes, they boast to all their friends

not herds of plastic cows,

That eat no grass, are eco-friendly

and chastely never mate,

In spite of which, against the odds,

they still proliferate,

But rather St Augustine’s Church,

north of Maude Street’s Mall,

Where even Christ himself, it’s rumoured,

makes a daily call.

VERSES ON THE OCCASION

OF THE 30^th ANNIVERSARY OF HIS PRIESTING

Tall, myopic, bald of head

Grey the once fierce beard of red,

This bashed in priest at fifty nine

Presumably is in decline.

But though his face is lined and creased,

And thirty years he’s been a priest,

Take thirty years from fifty nine

You’re left with only twenty nine,

Arithmetic which means a lot:

He’s longer been a priest than not.

For thirty years of fifty nine

He’s focussed love in bread and wine.

A cause indeed for celebration

Merriment and jubilation,

And succinct words in prose and verse.

Though cursed be verse that isn’t terse!

And yet relentless ticks the clock,

And so it’s time for taking stock,

For thinking, searching-out and knowing

Where he’s been and where he’s going,

The sort of man and priest he is,

His prospects, hopes, and fears to quiz.

He mustn’t though be too revealing,

Self-exposure’s unappealing.

Experienced and worldly wise,

Few things take him by surprise.

He’s well aware priests don’t succeed

Who’ve not in bishops’ pockets peed!

Although much given to fun and frolic

He can be, sometimes, melancholic.

The grievous “tearfulness of things”

Sometimes a numbing sadness brings.

In many ways he’s grown in grace,

But still feels far from God’s dear face.

Old certainties have crumbled rather,

Too distant still seems God his Father.

And yet he knows this isn’t serious,

It’s part of faith, not deleterious.

At fifty nine he better copes

With questions, doubts and flagging hopes.

Why this should be he’s not that sure

Except that certainty’s allure

Infects the most the insecure

And age, for that, provides a cure.

He cannot bear fanaticism,

Intolerance, judgementalism.

Those who send the lost to hell

Deserve consignment there as well.

Restrictive, kill-joy Christianity

Appears to him profanity.

Faith must joy and freedom bring

Or else it isn’t worth a thing.

English born, but travelled wide,

He’s taken much within his stride.

Among exotic domiciles,

Zimbabwe and Atlantic isles,

Outspoken, prone to tell the truth

More brazenly than in his youth

In mocking dills for what they are

He’s sometimes gone (perhaps) too far!

He’s laughed at priests in prose and verse,

And taunted laymen, not averse

To scorning pharisaic piety

Arousing sometimes deep anxiety!

Promiscuously adjectival

For purple prose he has no rival,

In verse he’s always metronomic

And very often histrionic.

Because proficient verbally

He’s widely thought by some to be

A clever, academic whizz,

Much brighter than in fact he is,

The which he doesn’t mind at all!

Though pride like this precedes a fall.

From arrogance’s throne deposed

His ignorance can be exposed.

But as this aging priest reflects,

Surveys his faith, his life inspects,

He finds that faith and life and years

Have brought by far more joys than tears.

That God has blessed a hundredfold

This sinful fifty nine year old,

With favours numerous and lavish,

Not least his present, pleasing parish.

His priestly life and Christian creed

Have granted much to him indeed.

Not least just simply being here

Among good folk he holds so dear!

Tall, myopic, bald of head

Grey the once fierce beard of red,

This Bach-besotted, versifier,

Within whose belly still burns fire,

This less than reverent priest of God,

This far from pious parson odd,

This man by words intoxicated

By rhythm, rhyme and God elated

This priest of thirty years standing

Has made the very softest landing.

So thank you all and thank you Lord,

For joy, delight and love outpoured.

GRACE FOR DAUGHTER ELIZABETH’S WEDDING

TO NATHAN McGRATH

Elizabeth’s beloved mama

As well as me, her old papa,

Thank God their effervescent Lil

Has married not some dolt or dill,

Some poxy prat, some grim galah

But six feet five of fun McGrath.

Bidding “Neaum” au revoir

To be forever, Lil McGrath.

And Verna, Nathan’s loved mama

With John as well, his dear papa

hank the Lord, that with savoir

Their Nathan’s picked a Neaum star

And not some flighty, fool galah

His life to share. It’s better far

To bid Miss Neaum au revoir

Than miss being Mrs Lil McGrath.

Indeed, we all, without exception,

Thank you Lord at this Reception

In honour of a bride and groom

Whose mutual love we all assume

Will deepen, strengthen, flourish, bloom,

As well as widen, making room

For small McGraths, both girls and boys

To fill their life with joys and noise.

And thanks for friends from near and far

Who’ve come by train and plane and car

To celebrate this dancing day

In Lil and Nathan’s chosen way,

With sparkling booze and hearty food,

With joyful atmosphere and mood,

And jokes and dancing, burps and roars

Of happy laughter and applause;

For this, for that, for all and such,

Thank you, Father, very much! Amen.

BUSH FIRES ON TWO FRONTS

To titillate our dreary lives

Journalism lives and thrives

On wind-whipped fires that stretch for miles,

On blackened carcasses in piles,

On burnt-out suburbs, towns and farms,

On all that ruins, hurts and harms,

For just a moment, half a tick!

Then there’s an attention flick

To focus on a different game:

“Who’s to blame? Oh who’s to blame?”

Politicians in their turn

Then catch alight, begin to burn

With finger-pointing indignation,

To pull down character and reputation.

Thus journalists as judge and jury

Light fires themselves that burn with fury,

Ruin lives by quiz and question,

Are arsonists by mere suggestion.

GRACE FOR SON DAVID’S WEDDING TO RACHEL GREENE

For celebratory, nuptial feasts,

To honour embryonic priests,

Called as husband and as wife

To wed to marriage, priestly life;

For two distinct, unique trajectories

Conjoined & aimed at future rectories,

For deep theological accord

Built on Williams, Millbank, Ward;

For Africa, the U. S. A.,

Europe, Oz, made one today,

By Dave and Rachel well traversed -

Continental drift reversed;

For Ann who’s come so long a way

To bless her daughter’s wedding day,

Her presence being the best of presents,

The best of presents being her presence;

For parsnip soup and ravioli;

For rack of lamb to savour slowly;

For sweet aromas, noble stenches,

Neaum’s, Greene’s, McGrath’s & French’s;

For local wines, the very best,

As at Cana’s wedding blessed,

Exotic pastries, goat milk cheeses;

For warmth inside as outside freezes;

For coruscating company,

Good talk, good wit, good repartee;

For you too Lord, who dared compare

Heaven’s food to wedding fare;

To all these blessings, score on score,

We ask, you’ve granted, just one more,

Grateful hearts, which now we raise

In joy and love and heartfelt praise. Amen.

FAREWELL TO WODONGA PARISH

You’ve had the best of him you know

That priest who came eight years ago!

Full of vigour, sound of limb,

Six foot one, his figure trim,

Intelligently bald of head,

His bearded chin then mostly red,

Clear of eye, his belly fired,

Always busy, never tired,

A metronomic versifier,

Obsessed by music and the choir,

Four bright children full of life,

A skilful, dedicated wife

And Canon David, old but wise,

A parish bonus and surprise.

You’ve had the best of him you know,

The priest who came eight years ago.

He came Wodonga’s way like this....

Unhappy with his diocese,

A backward looking near disaster

With Bishop Silk as dull headmaster,

He needed change, required a break

For health of mind and body’s sake,

And so when Margaret, Anne and Chris,

As if they’d been apprised of this,

Took a chance and asked their bishop

To offer him your Rectorship,

He didn’t hesitate at all,

But took the offer as God’s call

To come, work hard and have a go.

You’ve had the best of him you know.

How right to come! Wodonga’s been

To him a place of pastures green,

Of pleasant waters, clear and still

Where Peter, David, Ray and Lil,

Margaret, Twinkle, Mitzi, he

And Canon David too, could be

Their Neaumish selves, appreciated,

Even if opinionated,

Forceful, self-assured, emphatic,

Irreverent, confident, dogmatic

(Though less like Neaums, gentler, sweeter,

Were Margaret, Twinkle, Ray and Peter).

Your Rector came then, in his prime

And stayed eight years, a good long time.

You can’ t complain to see him go

You’ve had the best of him you know!

But he has had the best of you,

A flock supportive, faithful, true.

Like his much loved Scottish dancing

He’s found this parish, life-enhancing.

Open-minded, generous folk,

Who’ve loved the Gospel and a joke.

Who’ve loved their Church, their faith, their God

And even more, and rather odd,

The priest who came eight years ago

To settle in and have a go.

He’s had the best of you, you know,

The man’s a fool to want to go!

Less lively now, less sound of limb,

Still six foot one, but hardly trim,

His bearded chin turned nearly white,

His children all but taken flight,

Canon David laid to rest,

Empty now’s the Rectory nest.

Priest and wife are on their own,

He is Darby, she is Joan.

Shepparton gets half the lad

That you have had and so be glad!

He’s given his best to you, you know,

But you to him in turn have, so

Be glad indeed. The best’s achieved

As mutually given and received!

For this, for that, for all and such

Thank you, very, very much.

THE THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PRIESTING

OF FATHER ELLIS STANLEY JONES

Of all the many priests I’ve met

There’s none I’ve come across as yet

Whose company’s as stimulating,

As funny, wise and animating,

As that of Fr Ellis, whose

A priest of priests, the one I’d choose,

Should I lie dying, first to come

To give me the viaticum.

Then, when I’ve died, to eulogise,

With words both humourous and wise,

My own contented, priestly life,

Less marked than his by woe and strife

Perhaps, but nor so colourful or steeped

In suffering overcome, that’s reaped

Such rewards in sensitivity,

In kindness, breadth and empathy,

They’ve made him, rarest of all beasts,

A vulnerable priest of priests.

Christ Church St Laurence, Austin Day,

St Michael’s House, each had a say

In moulding all his natural talents

To godly synthesis and balance;

Theologian, ethicist,

Opera lover, journalist,

Linguist, poet, organist,

Historian and liturgist,

Philosopher and man of wit,

All these talents firmly knit

To make that rarest of all beasts,

A learned, witty priest of priests;

Soundly sane, though slightly odd,

An earthy man, if man of God.

Catholic in a robust way,

Full of joy, but far from gay,

When first a priest and full of vigour

He cut, I’m told, so fine a figure

That many high church women vied

To win his love and dearly tried

To settle him to wedding vows,

To turn their priest into their spouse.

Though marriage when at last it came

Proved to be a tricky game,

Dealing out some cruel knocks

And ending sadly on the rocks.

Leaving as such break-ups do,

Hurts and wounds we’ll not go in to.

But leaving too a special joy,

A lovely girl and handsome boy,

Both of whom are here tonight,

Their Father’s joy and great delight.

He brought them up all on his own,

Struggled, worried all alone,

Wild they were, it must be said,

But molly coddled, guided, fed,

They’ve given much and not the least,

Have made him all the more a priest,

Their Father Jones, their parent good

Led further into Fatherhood

Called to serve in country towns,

He had his ups and had his downs,

Among those towns, Culcairn and Hay,

Donald, Horsham, Nhill and Yea.

But best of all sweet Buninyong

He filled with high church smoke and song,

With thurifers and acolytes,

Icons, candles, sanctuary lights

And even gleaming monstrances,

Most catholic of appurtenances.

There more happy than he’d ever been,

He might have stayed, content, serene,

Had his daft Archdeacon not

Been such a narrow minded clot,

And driven him out with petty rules,

Archdeacons often act like fools.

But now its little towns no longer,

He’s here among us in Wodonga,

Where, we hope, he’ll rest content

Convinced that here is where he’s meant

To finish off his parish life,

Admired and loved and free from strife,

Loved for being, most rare of beasts,

A vulnerable priest of priests.

Avuncular, benign and kind,

To wit and humour much inclined,

Broad of beam and bald of head,

His beard grey and visage red,

His graceful hands used to express

Points he makes or needs to stress,

Points erudite and eloquent,

In conversation redolent

With information recondite,

Obscure facts brought into light,

Greeting witty aphorisms

With such great spluttering paroxysms

Of apoplectic, red-faced laughter

Death, it seems, must follow after.

So praise the Lord for thirty years

Of priestly joy and priestly tears,

A priestly life of colour, steeped

In suffering overcome, that’s reaped

Such rewards in sensitivity,

In kindness, breadth and empathy,

They’ve made him, rarest of all beasts,

Our well-loved, loving, priest of priests.

GRACE AT THE DINNER TO MARK THE OPENING OF

THE ANGLICAN/UNITING CHURCH “MEETING PLACE” IN WODONGA

We thank you Lord munificent

For all that’s so magnificent

About this lovely meeting place

Of ordinary and holy space,

Of Church with secular Society,

Of worldly work with holy piety,

Of heavenly praise and human labour

Of love of God and love of neighbour,

Where two denominations meet

To work together not compete.

We thank you Lord for all who’ve striven

So very hard and who have given

So much to bring to full fruition

What was for years a distant vision.

Hours and hours of planning, scheming,

Near despair and hopeless dreaming,

Two steps forward, one step back,

Retreat, advance, retire, attack.

Your providence, of all the factors,

The one that saw off all detractors.

We thank you Lord for skilful craftsmen,

Plumbers, architects and draftsmen,

Electricians and surveyors,

Brickies, roofers, concrete layers,

Glaziers, carpenters and more,

Devoted workers by the score,

Who almost met the pressing deadline,

Enabling us, to night, to dine

With happiness and joy replete,

In a building near complete.

We thank you for Emmanuel,

For those who’ve kept the Faith so well,

By fostering warm and close relations

Between our two denominations.

Witnessing to Church and City

Ecumenism’s nitty gritty,

Not just in word, all hypothetical,

Not just in hope, all theoretical,

But real, lively, working, sound,

Ecumenism on the ground.

Thank you Lord for food and wine,

For lovely friends with whom to dine,

For gifts and blessings by the score;

For Jesus Christ, whom we adore,

For love that moves the heavenly spheres

Makes sense of life, non-sense of fears;

That lightens burdens, tempers loss,

Your love expressed upon the cross.

For all of this, our hearts we raise

In joyful gratitude and praise. Amen.

CLOSURE

Ancient wrongs dredged up and cited

As needing “closure” to be righted

May well be healed. They’re also blighted

Should compensation be invited.

The “closure” then, we should insist

Is more the closure of the fist

Round all the money lawyers twist

By sleight of hand and crook of wrist

From guilty parties demonised.

Revenge is wreaked! Despoiled, despised,

The victimiser’s victimised.

A GRAVEYARD TALE

I have a graveyard tale to tell

of madman, ghosts and swine.

It’s set in wild and windy weather

in ancient Palestine.

An overcrowded fishing boat

one wild and windy morning

Lists and leaks and takes in water

just as light is dawning.

While on the shore for which it heads

as wind-whipped water spumes,

By mist and cloud and rain enshrouded,

a gloomy graveyard looms.

There, beside an ancient tomb,

stoops a man possessed

Who growls and groans and howls and moans

stark naked and distressed.

While in a nearby peasant village

strong stone walls confine

A red-eyed, shuffling, nervous snuffling

mighty herd of swine.

The howling wind has woken them,

as well the man possessed,

And those afloat in their small boat

are frightened and hard-pressed,

Save one, who fast asleep astern,

at peace most sweetly lies,

Though strangely when he wakes and speaks,

the wind subsides and dies.

After which the keel bites beach

and thankful to the core

All praise their Lord, jump overboard

and pull the boat ashore.

With care they turn it over, well

above the waterline,

Then eat some bread and broiled fish

washed down with watered wine.

As they eat they hear a noise

that chills their hearts with fear,

A keening, wailing, sobbing sound

suggests that evil’s near.

Then down the hill and on all fours

there bounds the man possessed,

Frothing, calling, caterwauling,

demented and distressed.

Several men reach out for stones

to drive the brute away.

But Jesus the compassionate

bids them hold and stay.

He reaches out a calming hand

then lifts the madman’s chin,

Looks deeply in his eyes and says,

above the fellow’s din:

“Out! Come out, you unclean spirit!

Out, come out, come out.”

The man convulses, froths and foams

and throws himself about.

His spirits gibber, scream and shout:

“Oh Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!

What have you to do with us,

Leave us, leave us, leave us.”

They gibber though to one whose voice

can calm a raging sea.

Can heal the sick and raise the dead

can set the captive free.

“What’s your name,” he asks the spirits

authoritively calm.

They feel compelled to answer him

though terrified of harm

And forced return to the abyss

the devil’s evil region,

“Our name, for we are very many,”

They loudly shriek, “is Legion.”

Then on the hills close by they spy

the mighty herd of swine.

“Oh let us take up residence

in them,” they plead and whine.

And so they do. The pigs go mad!

They fight and bite and squeal,

They rave and rant and froth and pant

until their fate they seal

By turning tail and running madly

down the hill and down,

Till toppling off a cliff they fall

into the sea and drown.

This tale just told is not didactic,

it wasn’t told to teach.

Stories worth the telling neither

moralise or preach.

The story though, to many people

might well ring certain bells.

Between the pigs and us you see,

exist some parallels.

For just like swine we too incline

to rush towards disaster.

The spirits or our age possess

and push us ever faster

Towards the cliffs above a sea

of self indulgent ease,

Of mammon-maddened pleasure

and of doing what we please.

Enough! This graveyard tale is finished,

its graveyard’s now the sea.

In which as well as pigs, perhaps,

drown folk like you and me.

BY THEIR FRUITS SHALL THEY BE KNOWN

Jesus, as his custom was

Parabolically

Asked a pair of questions once

Perhaps rhetorically.

“Can grapes,” he asked, “from thorns be picked,

Or figs from prickly thistles?”

Questions asking for, we’re sure,

Negative dismissals.

But now that our geneticists

and scientists are honing

Techniques and skills allowing for

sophisticated cloning,

It’s only a benighted fool

who confidently scorns

The thought of thistle sprouting figs

or grapes that grow on thorns.

Indeed the fruits of science itself

are mixed, on close inspection:

Penicillin, atom bombs,

computers, vivisection.

“Can grapes from thorns be picked,” asked Jesus,

“Or thorns from prickly thistles?”

Perhaps expecting “Yes they can!”

Not negative dismissals.

OMNISCIENCE

Jesus said the hairs on every

human head are numbered.

With useless fact like this today

the likes of us are lumbered.

A sparrow cannot fall, said Jesus

without God knowing it.

Yet little happens now without

the television showing it.

Be not anxious Jesus said,

don’t fret about tomorrow.

But information overload

tends to bring on sorrow.

It leads to God Almightiness,

the sense we know it all.

A classic form of pride that brings

inevitable fall.

Who wants to be omniscient though?

God left that all behind,

Gladly to become for us

one with humankind.