Various Heresies 5

Various Heresies 5 Tonight, Let's Remember by Michael R. Burch July 7,2007 (7-7-7) Tonight, let's remember the fond ways our fingers engendered new methods to praise the gray at my temples, your thinning hair. Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near... Tonight, let's remember, as mortals do, how cutely we chortled when work was through, society sated, all gods put to rest, and you in my arms, and I at your breast... Tonight, let's remember how daring, how free the Madeira made us, recumbently. Our inhibitions??we laid them to rest. Earth, heaven or hell?we knew we were blessed. Tonight, let's remember the dwindling days we've spent here together?the sun's rays spending their power beyond somber hills. Soon we'll rest together; there'll be no more bills. Tonight, let's remember: we've paid all our dues, we've suffered our sorrows, we've learned how to lose. What's left now to take, only God can tell. Be with me in heaven, or "bliss" will be hell! I do not want God; I want to see you free from all sorrow, your labor through, a song on your tongue, a smile on your lips, sweet, sultry and vagrant, a child at your hips, laughing and beaming and ready to frolic in a world free from cancer and gout and colic. For you were courageous, and kind, and true. There must be a heaven for someone like you. Cædmon's Face by Michael R. Burch At the monastery of Whitby, on a day when the sun sank through the sea, and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free, while the wind and Time blew all around, I paced that dusk-enamored ground and thought I heard the steps resound of Carroll, Stoker and good Bede who walked here too, their spirits freed ?perhaps by God, perhaps by need? to write, and with each line, remember the glorious light of Cædmon's ember: scorched tongues of flame words still engender. * He wrote here in an English tongue, a language so unlike our own, unlike?as father unto son. But when at last a child is grown. his heritage is made well-known: his father's face becomes his own. * He wrote here of the Middle-Earth, the Maker's might, man's lowly birth, of every thing that God gave worth suspended under heaven's roof. He forged with simple words His truth and nine lines left remain the proof: his face was Poetry's, from youth. Lines for My Ascension by Michael R. Burch I. If I should die, there will come a Doom, and the sky will darken to the deepest Gloom. But if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. II. If I should die, let no mortal say, “Here was a man, with feet of clay, or a timid sparrow God’s hand let fall.” But watch the sky darken to an eerie pall and know that my Spirit, unvanquished, broods, and cares naught for graves, prayers, coffins, or roods. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. III. If I should die, let no man adore his incompetent Maker: Zeus, Jehovah, or Thor. Think of Me as One who never died? the unvanquished Immortal with the unriven side. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. IV. And if I should “die,” though the clouds grow dark as fierce lightnings rend this bleak asteroid, stark ... If you look above, you will see a bright Sign? the sun with the moon in its arms, Divine. So divine, if you can, my bright meaning, and know? my Spirit is mine. I will go where I go. And if my body should not be found, never think of me in the cold ground. Prayer for a Merciful, Compassionate, etc., God to Murder His Creations Quickly & Painlessly, Rather than Slowly & Painfully by Michael R. Burch Lord, kill me fast and please do it quickly! Please don’t leave me gassed, archaic and sickly! Why render me mean, rude, wrinkly and prickly? Lord, why procrastinate? Lord, we all know you’re an expert killer! Please, don’t leave me aging like Phyllis Diller! Why torture me like some poor sap in a thriller? God, grant me a gentler fate! Lord, we all know you’re an expert at murder like Abram—the wild-eyed demonic goat-herder who’d slit his son’s throat without thought at your order. Lord, why procrastinate? Lord, we all know you’re a terrible sinner! What did dull Japheth eat for his 300th dinner after a year on the ark, growing thinner and thinner? God, grant me a gentler fate! Dear Lord, did the lion and tiger compete for the last of the lambkin’s sweet, tender meat? How did Noah preserve his fast-rotting wheat? God, grant me a gentler fate! Lord, why not be a merciful Prelate? Do you really want me to detest, loathe and hate the Father, the Son and their Ghostly Mate? Lord, why procrastinate? Is there any Light left? by Michael R. Burch Is there any light left? Must we die bereft of love and a reason for being? Blind and unseeing, rejecting and fleeing our humanity, goat-hooved and cleft? Is there any light left? Must we die bereft of love and a reason for living? Blind, unforgiving, unworthy of heaven or this planet red, reeking and reft? Modern Dreams by Michael R. Burch after David B. Gosselin I dreamed that God was good, but then I woke and all his goodness vanished—poof!— like smoke. I dreamed his Word was good, but then I heard commandments evil, awful, weird, absurd. I dreamed of Heaven where cruel Angels flew above my head and screamed, the Chosen Few, “We’re not like you!” I dreamed of Hell below, where prostitutes adored by Jesus, played on lovely lutes “True Love Commutes.” I dreamed of Earth then woke to hear a Gong’s repellent echoes in Religion’s song of right gone wrong. Star Crossed by Michael R. Burch Remember— night is not like day; the stars are closer than they seem ... now, bending near, they seem to say the morning sun was merely a dream ember. Keywords/Tags: god, gods, spiritual, earth, heaven, hell, wine, women, song, hymn, Maker, Creator, creation, Carroll, Stoker, Bede, Caedmon, Whitby, heresy, heretical, atheist, agnostic, nonbeliever