Necessary Evil

Why doesn’t God nip all evil in the bud, so as to eradicate suffering?

Our business is to learn that death is sin’s most necessary recompense;

and so to choose what’s right, not wrong, without a hint of diffidence.

This we can only do if every choice has its sure consequence.

There must be moral hazard, founded on unswerving law;

or else between wisdom and folly there would be no difference,

there would be no divide between what’s reckless and prudence.

If on jumping from a precipice I did not fall to stony floor,

always being rescued by an angel’s hand; presumption hyperbolic

(that’s filled with risk and self-despond) would be remade as merry frolic!

– which would, after not long, become most tedious, and nothing more.

Resurrection

Today my Love has returned to me.

The Love that is Life

and can know no death, yet died

for love of those who know not love.

Today my Love has returned to me.

My heart now bursts with life and joy:

the hope which had fled

is born anew and will not fade again.

Today my Love has returned to me.

He holds me in His arms and will not let me go.

God, who bled

and died for me heals my hurting heart.

The Harrowing of Hell

Today Light invades the darkness.

The darkness has no power

it can not understand the Lightⁱ

it has no substance nor form.

Today the gates of Hell are broken.

Today Satan’s conceit is shown.

Today his petty power is overthrown.

The souls of the just cry out with joy:

“Welcome to Thee, Oh Christ our God!

Holy Divine One,

Holy Strong One,

Holy Immortal One:

Thou art come to deliver us

from out the grave

and to have mercy on us!”

Their trials are over. 

Their hope is fulfilled.

Their joy is complete. 

The new bearer of Light,

the True Day-Star, the Faithful One

the Lord of Life is come to them.

i“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” [Jn 1:3 KJV]

Angelic Confusion

The Angels asked their Father God,

why gave He them a will so bold:

to choose glad life and death between:

the fire of Hell and light of Heaven.

Confused, they pondered it were best

that they had been constrainèd fast,

and held to good and wholesome life;

protected from the pains of strife

as clockwork watch is surely bound

to tell the time when wound.

For choice implies the bane of ill,

and ignorant mistake and fall,

and pain and mis’ry tightly held

(for comfort’s sake, if truth be told)

and none of all the host would dare

(not out of fear nor want of care)

assert their certain sight of right

(for all their power and all their might)

beyond a thirst and hunger barbed

that’s not so soon denied.

Better, ’twould seem to have at heart

an instinct: knowledge to impart;

to speak and powerfully direct

the will to all that’s just and right,

and ’gainst all choices curst and wrong.

Then joys would surely ’bout them throng

and sin ne’re mar the spirit bold

but all would be in concord held

by fearsome chains and fastest bond

of tutelage so fond.

“But there’s the snag, my fiery folk,”

their Heavenly Father gently spoke.

“If I held fast your wills by might

(as is my power and is my right)

what space would be for you to know

for your own selves; to see and show,

by trial dire, the right and wrong

of life: to feel within so strong

its pains and pleasures oh so dear

its clarion call so clear?”

“All you would know was slavery

arrayed in shrouds, most drear and grey.

Autonomy would ne’re be yours:

automatons you’d be, wills fixed by laws.

No proper understanding you would have

of woeful hate or wealthy love,

the cost or prize of selfish action

the bliss of righteous satisfaction:

never sound merit to accrue

nor joy of knowledge true.”

“And so, instead, I set you free

and take the cost and pain to me

Creator and Saviour, both Am I:

no callous clocksmith deity.”

“Else trust my word, heed what I say

and learn yourself the righteous way

or shun that path and take your own

though it be sad and makes you moan.

You can have life or death, you know:

choose life, I urge you now!”ⁱ

i“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.” [Deut 30:19 RSV]

All Souls Day

Black vestments

pierced with silver thread:

a sombre testimony

of better times.

Mourners gather in feeble hope,

round Mother Church’s altar;

clutching with faithful hands

the offered straw.

A promise of absolution,

cleansing and healing.

A promise of resurrection

and life anew.

A promise of death’s abolition

and life’s resolution.

The healing flames of purgation

bring a strangely purifying pain.

They offer an end to years

of spasming self-preservation.

Those who would save their life

must set their life aside;

must forget themselves

and drain the bloody tide.

All are welcome to drink this cup.

All are worthy of this blessing.

All are one in this endeavour.

Pray for your dead.

Pray for your beloved,

for those you cordially disliked,

for those you coolly ignored,

for those you coldly feared,

for those you copiously hated.

Pray for all your dead.

In this you will find grace.

In this you will find your peace.

In this you will find salvation.

In this you will find release.

All Hallows E'en

The clocks stand still.

Time awaits the presence of the dead;

for whom time is no more.

Up from their graves,

sad souls arise;

restless and forlorn,

gruesome and grim,

unshriven and bereft of hope.

One night of scarce half-life

in a year lost to their ken.

The clocks stand still.

Children laugh, unaware of danger.

For them Samhain is a frolic.

They dress as witch and warlock,

dance widdishins

and call on Old Nick,

reckless of all meaning;

for their lives have no meaning.

They know nothing

of the grave’s clammy embrace;

of death’s cruel finality.

Their schooling

has exorcised their thinking.

Incessant marketing babble

has dulled their loving,

and spinning political messages

have eroded their trusting.

Old folk cower behind curtains,

dreading the door knock,

the knell of the bell:

“Trick or treat – what’s it to be?”

No-one calls otherwise,

in this land without friendship:

where cities are anonymous

and harbour no neighbours,

just ghosts;

where fear and hate hold sway:

fear of paedophile and rapist,

suspicion of Paki and Yid,

hatred of asylum-seeker

and queer.

We the living

are more truly

the dead,

or will soon be zombies;

if we do not bestir ourselves

from our self-satisfied slumber.

The final invitation

No one invites me to parties any more.

I am no longer hip or cool.

I have no part in hit parade.

I’m long in tooth and short of hair

except on chin and arms and ears.

No one invites me to parties any more.

The trend has past me by.

I have no part in cabaret.

My face don’t fit, my ideas ain’t right;

except for grins and cool disdain.

No one invites me to parties any more.

The ocean’s swell is calm.

I have no part in any crew,

nor role on any stage or board;

except the last: to quit this coil.

No one invites me to parties any more;

but one awaits: my call

away to part this shadow life,

and face the charge and fiery fateⁱ

excepting none: to wake anew.

i“Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
[1Cor 3:13-15 KJV]

Priest and Altar

The old priest clings
     fast
and with fearful fingers
     to the altar slab
     that
     long has stood
in this faithful place
     this place of filial hope.
His heart is now
    quite cold
    dead as the stone
    his hands tight hold:
    cold as its silent speech.
His soul is withered
    as autumnal leaves
    which fall from stricken trees
to dampen, darken
and decay
– or else to burn
on bonfire bright
to briefly lighten up the night
and end their feeble, futile span
no sooner than by them began.

His eyes flare out with tears:
     precious gems of salty woe.
He mourns mortality
    and loss of love
    and failing hope
and desiccated faith
    which flaunts its false solace
though he, like Faustus his forebear,
    is far beyond
    all scope of grace.

His mouth frames silent syllables
    which if were spoke
    might shrive his soul;
but no words, fair or foul,
    escape his narrow lips
nor e’en inchoate grunt slips
    out: no sacrament of hope.

The old priest slumps
    devoid
    of breath and and word
on the altar slab
    that
    long has stood
in this fateful place
    this place of filial hope.
His heart is now
    quite cold
    dead as the stone
    his hands un-hold:
    cold as its silent speech.
His soul is withered
    as autumnal leaves
    which fall from stricken trees
to dampen, darken
and decay
– or else to burn
on bonfire bright
to briefly lighten up the night
and end their feeble, futile span
no sooner than by them began.

The Dark Light Shines

In the night the dark light shines,

deep within the shadows.

In the dimness softly glows,

the heart of all believing.

Cold my brain and dim my eyes

and yet I grope on, hoping

(despite my fears and anger hard

and desperation growing)

that it is there, and solace gives;

gainsaying all appearance.

I come upon the deep abyss

of hate and pain and sorrow

where love is lost and swallowed up

in fulgin eve that vastly falls

to spite all word of morrow.

I drink my fill the brook of loss

that plunges there in torrent

down cruel rocks that know no joy

but battered are by years of bloody woe.

My thirst assuaged, I risk the sight

gained at the chasm’s brink.

I stare into the dark of death: the end of being fell.

I feel it steel into my soul and recognise it full well

for what has always present been amidst my tawdry hopes;

the lie to all my vanities, the cusp of all conceits,

the worm that gnaws my heart away:

the knowledge of mortality.

I long to fly the deep descent

which offers me release

from suffering and hate,

to embrace the arms of hostile rock

and shatter in their urgent grasp:

to spend my life in one last spill of blood;

but at the edge

some unsought instinct speaks,

an unseen hand does stay my step,

and I pull back.

But I am lost, I have no guide

to tend my way or point me right.

As I advance the choice repeats

again and again, without release,

’twixt life and death, ’twixt good and ill.

But why chose life, when life itself is ill

and offers naught but pain

and prospect more of same?

Surely ’tis better to be dead

and put an end to doubt and dread

if life itself’s a living death!

But still ’tis life I choose,

though it is fraught with woe;

for one thing’s clear:

that if I once choose death

there will be no ’morrow

in which to make another choice;

no chance to regret any choice,

no chance to grow,

not even chance to know

the pain of loss and of sorrow.

While there’s life there’s room for hope,

even if that hope be false;

and, though false hope is foul

and ne’re to be desired

(a spectre which despises life

yet offers what it hates)

still, life will always demand hope

and hope will promise life

in everlasting play

and dance reciprocal.

Perforce, I live in hope;

and, though I may in despair die,

I can not help but hope

or else, e’en now, I die.

Far in the West, I glimpse the end

of all my paths and choices.

No matter if I soon find joy

in little things of hearth and home,

or greater things of art and skill,

or greatest things of wisdom’s kin,

or even love that thrills my soul

and my whole heart does win;

still I shall die

and all my enterprise shall come to naught.

All I hold dear shall be undone

my fine conceits be futile shown.

So what for hope and life?

This life is dying as it lives: it is not e’en itself!

The law of identity it denies

and can’t keep faith with its own name!

Its hope leads surely to the clammy grave:

and so is shown most truly false!

Still, in the night the dark light shines,

deep within the shadows.

In the dimness softly glows,

the heart of all believing.

Cold my brain and dim my eyes

and yet I grope on, hoping

(despite my fears and anger hard

and desperation growing)

that it is there, and solace gives;

gainsaying all appearance.

Death Sonnet

That hour will come at last my breath to take.
Forlorn the hope to void Death’s certain bond!
He will not suffer me a breach to make,
he holds me fast in much too firm a hand.
And yet I know that when my life is void,
still will the stalwart sun pursue his course;
and when my bones are ’neath the sod low laid,
seasons will flow according to those laws
which surely fix the bloom and fall of all
who live and die beneath the austere sky.
Therefore, I plead, when I must heed that call
should linger here, not as a whiff of smoke off fly,
some remnant of the being that once was me
my case, dread Fate, I now consign with thee.