Categories: uncategorized
Date: 08 September 2005 12:41:33
"The Reading Habits of an Occasional Attendee
at an Elim Church, circa 1989"
Angry at microscopic men who denuded God with DNA,
the Pentecostal book looks askance at the late twentieth century.
As if Ptolemy, orphaned of spheres, had hurled his toys
out of his now-infinite pram, with molested science they measure
skulls to remove monkey cousins, dance the bar-code
Apocalypso, go mark-of-the-beast big game hunting.
But the Galilean universe demands observation, patience
and reknowing. This is a hard saying, beyond
the teenage boy who buzzed on Jesus, built houses
on the sand of imaginary friends and relations.
Now sifted, I have no history, as if you and I had been walking
on opposing edges of a canyon, and, coming to a bridge,
I crossed and joined you. We are together, but I gather
past separations to myself and carry them, still.
The book? Some half-baked tract behind the times
passing from hand-to-hand in the well-meaning
God-bothering lean-to. Proofs against Darwin, the Pope,
the EEC - I'm showing my age! - the usual suspects.
Like I say, Galilean worlds require work, pain and doubt.
This is fundamental.