The poet speaks

I have never had the slightest flair for writing poetry, yet I was recalling this week that I once won a poetry contest during my young adult years. I still recall the poem - and am not about to share it here because it is just too weird. At that time, it was possible to win a poetry contest even if one was not stoned at the moment (though at least half of contestants undoubtedly were), provided it sounded as if one was. The utterly incomprehensible was taken for profound... and I'm not going to be diverted by whether that was key to my later apophatic leanings.

It therefore is my act of humility today to provide my readers with little bits of original 'poetry.' (What follows may give the impression that I am a cheeky little bitch. I shall respond to this with the exact words I would use were I ever charged before the Inquisition: "Have I ever denied this?") I wrote a blog entry in March (entitled Firstborn here) in which I freely admitted how those who are lifelong 'churchy' types tend to be self-righteous crumbs, rather like the Prodigal Son's elder brother, in time, so, if I seem to take shots at the young here, know it is only because my own generation saddens me. Who thought the super-cool baby boomers would end up arch-conservative, miserable sorts who think a scintillating conversation consists of discussing one's triglycerides or target heart rate?

I suppose I'm also weary because I received an email from another student who skimmed my Internet site and wanted the accelerated, do-it-yourself kit for becoming a mystic. She'd just read the Dark Night of John of the Cross, and remembers when "she went through all of that - a long time ago." Interesting. My guess would be that someone who has been an abbot for fifty years probably has yet to meet someone who has been through the dark night. It must have been a combination of this correspondence and my interior woe that I'm losing command of my foreign languages, but I had a bizarre dream that night, that I was addressing a group of young people and calling out, "Que pasa?," to which they all heartily replied, "Nada!"

Now that conservative politics are quite popular, the young who are very devout sometimes could try the patience of Job with their smugness. (I was ten times more impossible at that age - and I dare say a hundred times that now - but the most tiresome part of such dialogues, which are almost always with total strangers, is that I often agree with them - on the essence, if not always the accidental.) Here is the beginning of a poem for a young woman who presented me with a copy of the Divine Mercy novena and 'stations of the cross for the unborn,' and who apparently thinks her cause for canonisation is assured because she's never had an abortion. (This is in brief - my penance was to hear her for half an hour... supposedly in a chapel set aside for silent prayer...)

Pure as an angel,
And proud as a devil,
My virtue heroic and demeanour stoic,
I'd surely be canonised, or, in its stead,
A beata at least,
Except I'm not dead...

Another of this breed, who informed me that she is guided directly by the Holy Spirit and is in the "new religious life" as a third Order Carmelite (though the singularisation she displayed at one service made me quite certain Teresa of Avila would have kicked her from here to Mars), deserves a poem as well.

I pray at least four times a day
And quarrel in between.
And I attend Mass daily,
Though I mouth off at the scene.
I chant the Office (sometimes, it's quite dusty on the shelf),
And cherish absolution, so I give it to myself.

My 'regulars' know that I love to attend a daily Eucharist, and that, depending on where I am at midday (my favourite time for this), I'll take it where I can. One spot that is sometimes convenient has an entire crop of the sorts I mentioned earlier in this post. I have no idea of how this happened, but there are two very young priests (both of whom undoubtedly would be more comfortable around the time of the Reformation, when stakes were not rare and they might have been just SO glorified by being drawn and quartered) who must be transplants to the diocese, since they say the Tridentine Mass with impeccable rubrics and stone faces, though it was not normative long before they were born. One of them irritates me immensely - his image of a God who is ready to punish the horrid congregation with all sorts of wrath that would make Sodom and Gomorrah look like a mere warm-up would make anyone want to run in the other direction. He brags of having told a homeless man that God would not help him because he was divorced. His sermons are always about sex - even if it is some wonderful feast that deserves a mention. So this poem is for him - he's speaking in the first stanza, I in the second:

Wicked though this earth is,
True Salvation I'll reveal.
My sacrifice is boundless -
Never even copped a feel.
Other men, less noble, would find that they could not -
But I'm a glorious martyr - and just tie it in a knot.

Mouthpiece for the horror, ultimate pastoral mess,
Smug on one great 'virtue'... unaware of all the rest.
A shred of humble knowledge may lead him from the dark -
If he's contrite at 50, after bonking in a park...


As I was writing this, I checked email, and naturally found the usual junk, plus a few items soliciting donations, one of which had to do with a retirement fund for religious Sisters. So I'll close with not only a poem but the one and only song I've ever written - and it's all for ageing solitaries. It loses something without the musical accompaniment, but if you are good and make sure I have three tots of gin, I may sing it for you some day (tongue very firmly in cheek).

Here's a member of a new minority,
A Vatican II casualty,
Catechist, Gregorian musician, sacristan, servant of the clergy,
Alone, I was reduced first to begging,
Then "Franciscan worm" pot-pourri,
Oh, it's not an easy life for a lone ranger nun,
Who's going to take care of me?

The Hours of the Office lack their full effect,
Alone, I can't chant antiphonally,
And hearing my own self-accusations makes Chapter lack efficacy.
I'm my superior and director and, in that regard, I'm deprived educationally,
I can only teach myself what I already know -
Who's going to take care of me?

(Maybe I complain, but the facts remain,
I can't staff my own infirmary,
And there's no retirement fund for a lone ranger nun,
Who's going to take care of me?)

This tune is rather naughty - as this post was haughty,
And I'm no model of charity.
I'll probably be penanced to sing "Who's Sorry Now?" until the latter days of eternity,
Divine plans can seem murky to the proud and quirky,
When the path's been rough vocationally,
So I'll just mutter this prayer - and, for once, stop there,
Who's going to take care of me?

Now, having demonstrated the truth expressed at the outset (that I'm no poet at all), I wish the lot of you blessings for Trinity Sunday. Cheers. Pax et Bonum! Hi-yo, Silver! ;)