Long Methodist Poems
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Lorie Ann kept dreaming of a little pink church.
The dreams started when she was six.
They continued until she was twelve.
Was the pink church real or imagination?
She mentioned this church to her parents several times.
They had attended lots of different churches.
She had been Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Disciples of Christ.
Years later Lorie Ann moved to Minnesota for a job.
She was sad and lonely, she knew no one in this state.
While speaking to her mother, her mother said “join a church.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Shop around. Go visit some.”
On Monday and Tuesday Lorie Ann prayed for guidance.
On Wednesday she drove past the pink church of her dreams.
She got out and walked around it.
A feeling of hope and peace surrounded her.
“Welcome!” the young minister said.
“You are home” an internal voice said, and she was.
(Note: In this abecedarian poem, I redacted the name of the particular denomination to protect the innocent and to universalize the context. Fill in your own favorite groups! Prejudice against those perceived to be “other” than “us” infiltrates human hearts no matter the identity or extent of the difference.)
Closed Community Prejudice (an Alphabetized Memoir)
By Mark D. Stucky
Almost everyone in my home community
belonged to _________ churches.
Churches not _________ (like Methodist and Lutheran)
didn’t seem “right” somehow, although nobody whispered it.
Every other group was less homogenous than us,
fated to be born “different” from us.
Good people maybe.
However,
inferior to us surely.
Just not quite like us.
Knew them only superficially.
Looked like us on the outside.
Maybe not that different after all?
No, they weren’t the same ethnicity as us.
Otherness lurked inside them.
…
Perhaps prejudices in all people,
quietly
rise
slowly
toward
unholy
vantage points.
What if
xenophobes, like
you and me, could
zero out all our distortions?
(Originally published as "Closed Community Memoir (Alphabetized)" in Reflecting on Race Through Poetry, a collection of participant poems from a class at First United Methodist Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1 Nov. 2000. See also my poems "Races," "Weapons of Wonder," and "Hate Vacuuming?")
(Original image by Braden Collum on Pexels.com.)
prolonging pain
ongoing insane
subverting hurting
ain't working
dodging the day
gets me no pay
prices up wages flat
elect a democrat
who does better than
what's done by republican
spending more
on making war
apolitical is political
just gonna be inhospitable
give me drug to raise me up
and take me down wine in cup
was gonna say
everything go away
cats meow
neal meal now
no time poetry
gotta let it be
maybe later
check this incubator
used to care
for peace everywhere
became a methodist
only matters can boys kiss
and lesbians bliss
oh say can you sing
with wesleyan wing
a silent song of war
while we ignore
poverty bankruptcy
of non jubilee
duopoly economy
thought Jesus was
more than a buzz
of sweet sky pie
for when we die
but I reckon not
so I keep my spot
infer never new birth
meek really shall inherit earth
keep using currency
of private debt and usury
believe lie called scarcity
wink the eye at complicity
can grace restrain
leak from my brain
may hope restore
and better more
the garden in
new jerusalem
will holiness
that cannot bless
any hour wholly mess
unless we confess
we bottle the Spirit
and at Her we spit
will never let Her out
for She might shout
and take no more
unending culture war
running victory laps
on pseudo martyr maps
the fight must go on
til all earth left gone
maybe remnants rise
seizing ceaseless paradise
bridegroom become the bride
city come down no place to hide
Apocalypse Beans
Sometimes it seems
your chest is about to cave in.
You try to catch a breath but
your heart flutters like a dry leaf;
Just more suburban undulations;
Dressed down for a slow blues song.
Apocalypse Beans sizzle on the fire.
Life has such trying interludes,
when it seems you can’t go further.
You are so tired and scared,
you can hardly urinate at dawn.
Your mind begins to see
air movies of the dead ascending;
Crawling out of cracked tombs
dressed sedately for the soirée.
A million funerals go by with
skeleton girls sucking on pixy stix.
Madness angels in garters pass over
sleeping streets searching for blood trees.
Stallion-dressed men-dogs chase down
old octogenarians for bones and wisdom teeth.
Fear worms from hell come slinking,
Oozing out of a million eye sockets,
Sucking blood and brains sifting
through transparent wires attached
to rubber-hosed machines in musty rooms.
A million funerals moan inside the old graveyard
adjacent the First Methodist confines.
Gum-chewing embalmers gather
to sing a torch song to the driveling and the dying.
Sometimes it seems
I can hear the female choirs singing,
their high-pitched Latin refrains again.
They stand erect in the choir loft fingering missals.
The young girls up there,
wear choir togs and slithering plaid beanies.
They read the notes and eye the glowing boys below.
Jesus and the stained glass ghosts look up from earth.
Apocalypse Beans sizzle on the fire.
Their cackle reamed with burning forget-me-nots.
Three Irishmen by a window in stare
At a building just over there
From their heads their eyes pop
Their mouths all agog
So close they all are to swear
"Would you look at that!" the first Irishman says
"I've never seen this in all my days"
The Methodist Pastor so near
Into the building disappears
"I don't think this is the place where he prays"
No sooner are the words from his lips
When a Rabbi appears from the slips
With a quick look around
He disappears without sound
From his cassock, they see is a whip
Lost for words so agape they now see
Their Catholic Priest in front of them three
With a knock on the door
Like he's done this before
Appears not a total mystery
"Ah, now dat's sad." says the third Irishman
"As usual they've allowed him to go in
"One of da girls must have died"
It's why they let him inside
Be Jesus, it's a brothel, he's never to sin
Now the Church Heads have finally disclosed
That their clergy's have been so exposed
No more their visitation
No more their titillation
That this place of ill repute's now closed
I climb to the top of the Eiffel tower to catch the remnant of hope gliding through the skies in a bolt of lightning as it circles the three hundred- and thirty-meters pinnacle standing bravely on the hill singing songs of redemption.
I have been longing to get there because I have something romantic to share, it was you I saw sitting in a golden chair with a diamond ring on your finger and golden septage in your hand.
You had gifts all around you and long line of people were waiting to see you and the people from Babylon walking by saluting and bowing in front of you.
It seems like yesterday they rolled the curtain away and you came out without a thought or doubt, but the villagers began to shout.
They marched in the village with sticks and stones calling on the woman of Samaria to turn around or they would send the tanker man to blow up the town.
She didn’t take it seriously until she got hit in the face and ended up with broken finger and domestic disgrace, forcing her to pull back into herself as the weapon of death wheeled over her head.
It causes her to lose some precious vote and while she was out everyone start to shout, the river monkey and the Pentecostal valedictory but the Methodist honorary showed compassion and did not voice their opinion. Pope Francois was in on it too. But his persuasion was not strong to take down the giant man.
The live imagery was so profound of everyone you meet in the town. They smile in front of you and tear your garments behind you and when they are done, they hang it on a stick and place it on top of the Eifel tower in the sun.
We live in two separate worlds, one inside of me and the other outside of you, but it feels like you are right here besides me.
I can hear you all the time but you mask your voice underneath the vine and at nights when I take a nap you play tick tack toe underneath my frock but I pretend to sleep on to prevent altercation on the land. The image is always there it comes and disappears.
I am going on the hill to meet with the daffodil; I will minister to its soul and make its body whole. I will heal its painful allergy and when I wave my hands over its face, it will remove all the disgrace and dry up all the allergies.
The daffodils will smile again from the virtue of my healing hands, so come and help me to sing this beautiful song.
Momma mia man date
comb the second Sunday
during month of May
can be traced back
to ancient Greeks and Romans
devotional festivals held
to honor mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele
setting precedent for Mother's Day
where early Christians fancied festival
known as “Mothering Sunday.”
Fast forward to the early
twentieth century 1908 when
Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis
(a social activist then,
and community organizer
during American Civil War) era to quieten
grief fraught era also cited
as informally memorializing her mother,
who begot said noble men
touring daughter
paying homage to woebegone
lachrymose role with accolades
to endure tragedy and loss put upon
childbearing women,
this event held (rain or sun)
at St Andrew's Methodist Church
in Grafton, West Virginia, which did quicken
in subsequent decades to formal fete,
where poets (like me) did open
the special occasion with ranked midshipmen
commercialization cropped as ken
be expected by the early 1920's imbolden
greeting card companies
such as Hallmark generated a market
(money making of course) even
though Jarvis believed
companies sought profit
NOT prophet, thus misinterpreting
and exploiting idea
of Mother's Day and met
aforementioned founder, who tried to jet
tis sin the vulgar appetite
of the ole mighty dollar,
but her lofty ambition did get
thwarted by mass marketing
the quaint idea,
plus she feared going in debt
and though the industry
(initially proposed entailed low key
acknowledgement, the originator
(Ann Marie Jarvis) still esteemed,
fêted, lionized, revered re:
formed unsanitary
squalid living conditions with zee
less ness and aplomb
set a course where
greater longevity doth hum
bull all because, she sought to regale mum
(mine) deceased after rigor mortis
immediately thereafter her sole son
found himself saddened severely glum,
and uncomfortably numb.
I decided today when I woke up
To write a poem for everyone
I'd start off with the very old
And end up with the young
In between I'd have kings and queens
Along with a peasant or two
A genius with a dozen degrees
Even a few without a clue
For the in-laws and the outlaws
Though at times they act the same
If right now they're sitting next to you
No need to mention names
I'd also write it for the Catholics
Protestants and Jews
So as not to leave anyone out
A Methodist marching band with kazoos
What would a poem for everyone be
Without rodeo and circus clowns
The ones that paint happy faces
Over the top of their life's frowns
The tall the short and skinny of course
Those that are tipping the scale
Which these days are most of us
But let's not dip into that well
And of course I can't leave out
All the gays and all the straights
Who never knew that they were straight
Until the gays knew they were gay
I guess we've all been labeled
I really don't mean to offend
Oops...I almost forgot to include
All the mustached women and hairy backed men
If you find you weren't in here
And think that your unmentionable
I'd like you to know my friend
My rudeness was unintentional
You may take this poem for everyone
And do with it what you wish
Perhaps the closest receptacle
Where it may join it's friends...the trash
The Color of Lightning
David J Walker
After the funeral
With the solo sung and hung
in the confines of the chapel
Staining the main
pictographs windows of
Forgotten sins and saints
The flowers were claimed by
blind and lame mourners whose aim
it was to sell them on the once
busy downtown street corners
Where only the ghosts and mourners of
well-dressed shoppers and
shoe-shined businessmen in
the then visible and lively viable
Small town commercial centers
of American prosperity
Where they met to eat at the
Drug Store lunch counters
Just as well
To sell the trappings of a
perfect Methodist funeral in
far away heaven or hell
I remember him describing
The color of lightning
Purple and blue, and violate hues
Are common in thunderstorms
But yellow is the color of the
Cooler strikes we know so well
Filtered by the fine dust found on
The Plains
It is where we buried his remains
Wrapped in a Veterans Flag
In that fine dust
Under the cooler strikes of lightning
On the Plains
Way up there in the Colorado mountains at around 9000 feet,
There once was a thrivin' village that served as the county seat.
It was a boom and bust town that now lies in desolate shambles,
Its one-time stately buildin's now overgrown with creepin' brambles.
'Tis said that a vein of gold was discovered when a feller dug deep,
To bury a friend who was gored to death by an irate mountain sheep!
His discovery was known as Dead Man's claim and the rush was on,
And to the place hordes of miners, gamblers and rabble was drawn.
There were three or four rowdy saloons on each and every block,
Servin' booze and featurin' high-kickin' women around the clock.
A Methodist church and a school brought a tad of culture to the place.
Folks of finer tastes thought 'soiled doves' paradin' about a disgrace!
An untended graveyard gives witness to the wickedness of the town,
As headstone etchin's reveal the doom of many who were gunned down!
Yet is heard the phantom sounds from saloons from rabble goin' bananers,
Fightin', gamblin' and dancin' to the tinklin' of out-of-tune peeaners!
Northerly winds prod tumble weeds up and down dusty thoroughfares,
Streets once teemin' with humanity goin' about their nefarious affairs.
Now is only heard the ghostly creakin' of rusty hinges on saggin' doors,
When frigid winter winds bear down upon those dreary windswept moors!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired