Karma

A wealthy young prince called Gautama
Loathed worship of Krishna and Rama;
“It’s inside you,” he said
But, once he was dead,
He was worshipped.... That’s interesting karma!

First published in Ambit, April 2009
Republished online in Verse-Virtual, February 2018

Life Extension

Religion leers:
“Join me, or you face death,”
And History jeers,
“Inevitable death.”
But Science still adheres
To schemes to postpone death.
The path of a thousand years
Starts with a single breath.

Published online in Bewildering Stories #746, 21 January 2018

Gods on Trial

Gods on Trial

When all the old gods go on trial, loud cursed
In the High Court of Public Thought Review,
Jehovah (tribal god of bronze age Jews)
Stands of his vast pretentiousness accused:
Claims he created Heaven and Earth
When he was born six thousand years ago!
(Can’t define Heaven, doesn’t even know
If there’s a difference between Earth and Universe.)
God of the Christians and the Muslims too!
Won’t do anything against the AI
Displacing all the gods. Thor in the dock
Scratches his bull-neck, Odin his empty eye,
Zeus his cock.
The gods are human, know they face death, forgotten
As any carven deity, buried, rotten.
Concerned, they fidget restlessly -
Only Jehovah, the least self-aware,
Storms he’s exempt, blusters with beard and hair,
Thinks his small tribe is all that there can be.

Published online in Snakeskin 244, October 2017

History as Irony

Into the land for which the Jews

A thousand years before

Had killed and burned to take,

Jesus was born.

In towns controlled by Rome –

Grafting their multicultural odd gods

Onto Rome-cleansed, Rome–straightened cities –

Jesus played.

Walking four miles from Nazareth

To Sepphoris with Joseph at age ten

To work and help his father build another

Roman Jewish palace,

Jesus toiled.

In the uprisings led by Judas of Galilee

When Joseph and two thousand Jews were killed,

Crucified by the Romans, Sepphoris burned,

Jesus escaped.

In hills and deserts outside Rome’s control,

Studying prophecies and hefting swords,

Jesus preached Israel purged of Rome.

Outside the shining city on the hill,

The Passover uprising crushed by Rome,

Flanked by two Zealots, heads of the revolt,

Jesus, King of Jews, was crucified.

Preventing further fundamentalists

Leading attacks against High Priest and Rome,

Saul hunted Jesus’ Messianic dregs.

Seeing an opportune new power base,

Mixing old Jewish myths in a fresh blend

With Mithras, Isis – a One God for all –

Saul/Paul created Christ as a new God.

Both fundamentalist and Paulist Jews

Denying the Emperor’s divinity –

Disrupting commerce, peace and government –

Nero burned Jewish Christians, and

Titus destroyed the Jewish Temple, and

Hadrian deported all the Jews

From Palestine, scattering Christians and Jews

Throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.

Jews kept their heads down.  Christians evangelized,

Spread through the powerless – slaves, women, poor,

Criminals and the lowest army ranks.

Seeing an opportune new power base,

Constantine changed Rome’s faith.

Controlling now (in part) the Emperor,

Popes ruled the West from Rome, built palaces,

And persecuted Jews.

(Jesus gives no opinion, being dead.)

Published: Ambit 211, UK, January 2013

GOD LIMERICKS - 4

God saw how Religion had deadened
And said to His host, “Armageddon’d
“Look good on this lot”
For His plans were all shot
And His angels teased Him till He reddened.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

GOD LIMERICKS - 3

God, blessed with what one must call humour,
Decided to start up a rumour
That Himself as a dove
Came to Mary with love
And begat an Immaculate Tumour.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

GOD LIMERICKS - 2

God looked out a Heavenly portal
And what He saw made Him just chortle:
Some dude, on a cross,
Claiming he was the Boss!
For his hubris, God made him immortal.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

GOD LIMERICKS - 1

God made Heaven, earth, plants, people, fleas
In six days, and then rested at ease;
Then He thought: “In those stones
“I’ll hide dinosaur bones!”
(He was always a bit of a tease.)

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

THE BUDDHA DIED AT 80

The Buddha died at 80, and they say
That Lao Tzu reached 200, by the Way;
But Jesus, only 33, was stood
Arms out against the circus side-show wood:
His hands first, then his feet and side and heart
Pierced by the drunken dagger-thrower’s darts;
The crowd had lost a man, but, quite unbothered,
Named him a God, and went and killed each other.
And you and I and sanity lost out
With Christ’s name from Humanity crossed out.

Published: Rubies In The Darkness, UK, Winter 2005

WHY VINES?

Why vines on desolate winter hills? we ask;
The chill bird seeks—a fruitless, wormless task;
But still, with faith from deeper knowledge grown,
The calm vine-grower renovates his cask.

As vines in winter store, and bloom in spring,
Our hearts, though dull, absorb, later to sing;
Grapes ripen, and are picked, ferment to wine;
Our sweet-grown works, inspired, true knowledge bring.

Our wheat-yield’s up, and Science we exalt,
And say life’s pointlessness is not its fault;
And wonder why our bread’s so tasteless now—
Forgetting that we are ourselves the salt!

So we learn Triad, Twelveness, Mystic Seven,
In seeking knowledge for a rise to Heaven;
As with the best in West we didn’t rise,
The dough we are with Eastern yeast we leaven.

As wine aspires to grape, water to wine,
The guided mass aspires to the Divine;
We only ask the guidance of the Mass
To further our intention to refine.

As Calyx turns the petals to sun-glance
Chalice turns flower of Chivalry to Lance;
The purple grape foretold impassioned Christ,
The shared Cup turns and feeds us in the Dance.

Choose faith as you would choose a favourite star:
The one that’s brightest to you where you are;
Search for your key right here where it was lost,
With light of Tao, or Christ, or Inch’allah.

Only: exemplify by work your love—
Clear the blocked way for those too weak to shove,
Light up life’s scene for eyes to weak to see,
And help transform Below into Above.

Published: Rubies In The Darkness, UK, Winter 2005