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Various Heresies 4 I, Lazarus by Michael R. Burch I, Lazarus, without a heart, devoid of blood and spiritless, lay in the darkness, meritless: my corpse?a thing cold, dead, apart. But then I thought I heard?a Voice, a Voice that called me from afar. And so I stood and laughed, bizarre: a thing embalmed, made to rejoice! I ran ungainly-legged to see who spoke my name, and then I knew him by the light. His name is True, and now he is the life in me! I never died again! Believe! (Oops! Seems it was a brief reprieve.) To Know You as Mary by Michael R. Burch To know You as Mary, when You spoke her name and her world was never the same... beside the still tomb where the spring roses bloom. O, then I would laugh and be glad that I came, never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain... beside the still tomb where the spring roses bloom. I might not think this earth the sharp focus of pain if I heard You exclaim? beside the still tomb where the spring roses bloom my most unexpected, unwarranted name! But you never spoke. Explain? Murder Most Fowl! by Michael R. Burch “Murder most foul!” cried the mouse to the owl. “Friend, I’m no sinner; you’re merely my dinner!” the wise owl replied as the tasty snack died. This poem questions who the "original sinner" was. How was it not the Creator, if such a being exists, since owls are forced by nature to murder innocent mice and other prey animals? Peers by Michael R. Burch These thoughts are alien, as through green slime smeared on some lab tech's brilliant slide, I grope, positioning my bright oscilloscope for better vantage, though I cannot see, but only peer, as small things disappear? these quanta strange as men, as passing queer. And you, Great Scientist, are you the One, or just an intern, necktie half undone, white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand (dense manuals you don't quite understand) , exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light? Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright? Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument (and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!). Gethsemane in Every Breath by Michael R. Burch LORD, we have lost our way, and now we have mislaid love?earth's fairest rose. We forgot hope's song?the way it goes. Help us reclaim their gifts, somehow. LORD, we have wondered long and far in search of Bethlehem's retrograde star. Now in night's dead cold grasp, we gasp: our lives one long-drawn rattling rasp of misspent breath... before we drown. LORD, help us through this spiral down because we faint, and do not see above or beyond despair's trajectory. Remember that You, too, once held imperiled life within your hands as hope withdrew... that where You knelt ?a stranger in a stranger land? the chalice glinted cold afar and red with blood as hellfire. Did heaven ever seem so far? Remember?we are as You were, but all our lives, from birth to death? Gethsemane in every breath. NOTE: I no longer believe in Jesus as "god" or "savior" but on the chance that he still exists in some other dimension, I will side with A. E. Housman in reminding him to use whatever powers he has for good, and not for the dark purposes of the religion that bears his name. A Possible Argument for Mercy by Michael R. Burch Did heaven ever seem so far? Remember?we are as You were, but all our lives, from birth to death? Gethsemane in every breath. Birthday Poem to Myself by Michael R. Burch LORD, be no longer this Distant Presence, Star-Afar, Righteous-Anonymous, but come! Come live among us; come dwell again, happy child among men? men rejoicing to have known you in the familiar manger's cool sweet light scent of unburdened hay. Teach us again to be light that way, with a chorus of angelic songs lessoned above. Be to us again that sweet birth of Love in the only way men can truly understand. Do not frown darkening down upon an unrighteous land planning fierce Retributions we require, and deserve, but remember the child you were; believe in the child I was, alike to you in innocence a little while, all sweetness, and helpless without pretense. Let us be little children again, magical in your sight. Grant me this boon! Is it not my birthright? just to know you, as you truly were, and are? Come, be my friend. Help me understand and regain Hope's long-departed star! Learning to Fly by Michael R. Burch We are learning to fly every day... learning to fly? away, away... O, love is not in the ephemeral flight, but love, Love! is our destination? graced land of eternal sunrise, radiant beyond night! Let us bear one another up in our vast migration. The Gardener's Roses by Michael R. Burch Mary Magdalene, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, "Sir, if thou have borne him hence ..." I too have come to the cave; within: strange, half-glimpsed forms and ghostly paradigms of things. Here, nothing warms this lightening moment of the dawn, pale tendrils spreading east. And I, of all who followed Him, by far the least... The women take no note of me; I do not recognize the men in white, the gardener, these unfamiliar skies... Faint scent of roses, then?a touch! I turn, and I see: You. "My Lord, why do You tarry here: Another waits, Whose love is true? " "Although My Father waits, and bliss; though angels call?ecstatic crew!? I gathered roses for a Friend. I waited here, for You." Kingdom Freedom by Michael R. Burch LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness. Let me have none of the lividness of religious outrage. LORD, let me not be over-worried about the lack of "morality" around me. Surround me, not with law's restrictive cage, but with Your spirit, freer than the wind, so that to breathe is to have freest life, and not to fly to You, my only sin. Keywords/Tags: god, bible, jesus, christ, christian, christianity, usa, america, american, faith, belief, spiritual, spirituality, grace, salvation, heaven, hell, atheist, agnostic, skeptic, skeptical, heretic, heretical, heresy, heresies
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