Poem by Marcus Bales: ‘Perhaps’

When Christians started out they had to find a place to hide,
For Romans were not pleasant to the Christians found outside;
They taxed the Christian buildings, and their jokes were rather snide
About the rude productions when the Passion Plays were plied.
But Christians turned the other cheek and counted up to ten —
Perhaps we ought to persecute the Christians once again.

The Romans built in marble and they carved in alabaster,
The Christians built in wood and lath, and covered it in plaster.
The Romans mocked inversion of the humble with the master,
And laughed at how the Christians stole their Christ from Zoroaster.
But through it all the Christians acted virtuously then —
Perhaps we ought to persecute the Christians once again.

But once the Christians got on top they went on the attack,
So long abused they thought they’d do their own abusing back.
Mean-spirited and mean, it’s Christian charity they lack,
And ever since they’ve warped their woof by talking trash and smack,
They’ve sought out cheats and pedophiles to be their clergymen.
Perhaps we ought to persecute the Christians once again.

L’envoi
The worse the Christians have it, why, the better they behave:
They’re rotten as the boss, but they are brilliant as the slave.
They ought to be reminded of their teachings now and then;
Perhaps we ought to persecute the Christians once again.

*****

Marcus Bales is one of the leading formalist poets writing today – he is a master of poetic form, from parodies of Kipling and Poe to the creation of his purely original work as in ‘Perhaps’. His collection “51 Poems” is available from Amazon.

Credit: The inside of a jail of the Spanish Inquisition, with a priest supervising his scribe while men and women are suspended from pulleys, tortured on the rack or burnt with torches. Etching.
Wellcome Collection.

Sonnet: ‘Fat-Shaming’

Sep27

Gorging on food, an atavistic trait
useful, essential, in the paleolithic–
like a man’s lust for teenage girl as mate–
is one not needed now, shamed as horrific.
It’s healthy, though, to recognise such drives,
note where they came from, why they once were good:
these traits in which the primitive survives,
inbuilt components of our personhood.

It’s acting on them, though, that we deplore:
those who fuck teens and those who overfeed,
like those who steal, or lie, or start a war,
aren’t shamed for primitive desire, but deed–
like those who pray to gods, follow religions,
or skry the future from entrails of pigeons.

This poem is about a lot of things, but the punchline is: religion is an atavitic trait of humans, as useful as overeating in prehistoric times, and as counterproductive today.

About the poem itself: it’s not PC these days to even mention various issues, and I seem to have covered a lot of them in this sonnet. But it’s a decent enough Shakespearean sonnet (iambic pentameter, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, volta between the octave and sestet) and also a good enough expression of an opinion, so what is there to complain about? Originally published in that not-always-comfortable but always formal ‘The Road Not Taken – A Journal of Formal Poetry’. Thanks, Dr. Kathryn Jacobs!

If you like formal verse, you can find more in my formalverse.com blog.

“Young and Fat” by Tobyotter is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Sonnet: ‘The Fall of Rome’

Sep23

Jesus, a preacher with fake miracles,
his “Sea” of Galilee just eight miles wide–
rebelling against Rome and crucified–
his failure clear (though words were lyrical)…
you’d think “Messiah” was satirical!
But epileptic Paul a chance descried
to shut out other gods and thoughts worldwide,
thus sealing up Rome’s vital spiracles.
So, building on apocalyptic fears,
the Jewish Jesus ends where Paul begins.
Scientists, artists, poets, engineers,
are suffocated as the new faith wins.
All progress is set back a thousand years.
The Roman Empire died for Jesus’ sins.

Belief is strange. Take Covid vaccination: two thirds of us believe it’s an effective way to save lives, one third of us believe it’s a dangerous and unscrupulous way to make money and control people. Virtually no one has actually done any research and analysis of the issue, we just listen to our preferred sources of information and the community we’re a part of.

Or take religion: for the most part, children raised in Christian families remain Christian believers all their lives, Muslims remain Muslim, Buddhists remain Buddhist, and so on. Which makes it all the more impressive when someone can radically change the belief structure that surrounds them. Kudos then to the epileptic Paul of Tarsus, who created a Jewish-Mithraist-polytheist mishmash that has lasted almost 2,000 years. Pity about the Roman Empire, though.

This happily Petrarchan sonnet (iambic pentameter, and rhyming ABBAABBA CDCDCD) of mine was originally published in Rat’s Ass Review, where respectfulness and respectability are not required. Thanks, Roderick Bates! (More of my poetry is at http://formalverse.com)

“Darkness Falls in Rome” by Storm Crypt is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Life Extension

Jan27

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

Haiku – Young Man

Jan25

Where’s the young man gone
Who lived in mirrors so long?
Putting old masks on.

Published online in The Asses of Parnassus, 11 January 2018

What is the attraction of religion, after all, except a desperate attempt to avoid thinking about one’s annihilation in death?

Gods on Trial

Jan17

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

Dec14

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

Religions

Dec12

Judaism
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
Without a sense of spoof
Have got no clue what Stonehenge was
When it had walls and 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?