Various Heresies 3

Various Heresies 3 Breakings by Michael R. Burch I did it out of pity. I did it out of love. I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove. But gods without compassion ordained: Frail things must break! Now what can I do for her shattered psyche's sake? I did it not to push. I did it not to shove. I did it to assist the flight of indiscriminate Love. But gods, all mad as hatters, who legislate in all such matters, ordained that everything irreplaceable shatters. ### Alien by Michael R. Burch for a "Christian" poet On a lonely outpost on Mars the astronaut practices "speech" as alien to primates below as mute stars winking high, out of reach. And his words fall as bright and as chill as ice crystals on Kilimanjaro? far colder than Jesus's words over the "fortunate" sparrow. And I understand how gentle Emily felt, when all comfort had flown, gazing into those inhuman eyes, feeling zero at the bone. Oh, how can I grok his arctic thought? For if he is human, I am not. ### Crescendo Against Heaven by Michael R. Burch As curiously formal as the rose, the imperious Word grows until its sheds red-gilded leaves: then heaven grieves love's tiny pool of crimson recrimination against God, its contention of the price of salvation. These industrious trees, endlessly losing and re-losing their leaves, finally unleashing themselves from earth, lashing themselves to bits, washing themselves free of all but the final ignominy of death, become at last: fast planks of our coffins, dumb. Together now, rude coffins, crosses, death-cursed but bright vermilion roses, bodies, stumps, tears, words: conspire together with a nearby spire to raise their Accusation Dire... to scream, complain, to point out these and other Dark Anomalies. God always silent, ever afar, distant as Bethlehem's retrograde star, we point out now, in resignation: You asked too much of man's beleaguered nation, gave too much strength to his Enemy, as though to prove Your Self greater than He, at our expense, and so men die (whose accusations vex the sky) yet hope, somehow, that You are good... just, O greatest of Poets!, misunderstood. ### Advice for Evangelicals by Michael R. Burch "...so let your light shine before men..." Consider the example of the woodland anemone: she preaches no sermons but?immaculate?shines, and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity, the sweetest of divines. And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy since the beginning of time?an oracle so mute, so profound in her silence and exemplary poise she makes lessons moot. So consider the example of the saintly anemone and if you'd convince us Christ really exists, then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless and equally as gracious to bless. ### Heaven Bent by Michael R. Burch This life is hell; it can get no worse. Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse! I'm upwardly mobile; this one thing I know: I can only go up; I'm already below! ### Shock and Awe by Michael R. Burch With megatons of wonder we make our godhead clear: Death. Destruction. Fear. The world's heart ripped asunder, its dying pulse we hear: Death. Destruction. Fear. Strange Trinity! We ponder this God we hold so dear: Death. Destruction. Fear. The vulture and the condor proclaim: The feast is near!? Death. Destruction. Fear. Soon He will plow us under; the Anti-Christ is here: Death. Destruction. Fear. We love to hear Him thunder! With Shock and Awe, appear!? Death. Destruction. Fear. For God can never blunder; we know He holds US dear: Death. Destruction. Fear. ### Lay Down Your Arms by Michael R. Burch Lay down your arms; come, sleep in the sand. The battle is over and night is at hand. Our voyage has ended; there's nowhere to go... the earth is a cinder still faintly aglow. Lay down your pamphlets; let's bicker no more. Instead, let us sleep here on this ravaged shore. The sea is still boiling; the air is wan, thin... lay down your pamphlets; now no one will "win." Lay down your hymnals; abandon all song. If God was to save us, He waited too long. A new world emerges, but this world is through... so lay down your hymnals, or write something new. ### What Immense Silence by Michael R. Burch What immense silence comforts those who kneel here beneath these vaulted ceilings cavernous and vast? What luminescence stained by patchwork panels of bright glass illuminates drained faces as the crouching gargoyles leer? What brings them here? pale, tearful congregations, knowing all Hope is past, faithfully, year upon year? Or could they be right? Perhaps Love is, implausibly, near and I alone have not seen It... But, if so, still, I must ask: why is it God that they fear? ### Intimations by Michael R. Burch Let mercy surround us with a sweet persistence. Let love propound to us that life is infinitely more than existence. ### Altared Spots by Michael R. Burch The mother leopard buries her cub, then cries three nights for his bones to rise clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise. Good mother leopard, pensive thought and fiercest love's wild insurrection yield no certainty of a resurrection. Man's tried them both, has added tears, chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs' white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs where dead men's frozen genes convene... there is no answer?death is death. So bury your son, and save your breath. Or emulate earth's "highest species"? write a few strange poems and odd treatises. ### Flight by Michael R. Burch Poetry captures less than reality the spirit of things being the language not of the lordly falcon but of the dove with broken wings whose heavenward flight though brutally interrupted is ever towards the light. ### Winter Night by Michael R. Burch Who will be damned, who embalmed for all eternity? The night weighs heavy on me? leaden, sullen, cold. O, but my thoughts are light, like the weightless windblown snow. Keywords: god, bible, jesus, christ, christian, christianity, religion