Theology

Related poetry:

1. Natural Theology Primitive I ate my fill of a whale that died And stranded after a month at sea. . . . There is a pain in my inside. Why have the Gods afflicted me? Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith! Wow! I am sick till I cannot see! What is the sense of […]...
2. Notes for Canto CXX I have tried to write Paradise Do not move Let the wind speak That is paradise. Let the Gods forgive what I Have made Let those I love try to forgive What I have made....
3. A Cider Song To J. S. M. The wine they drink in Paradise They make in Haute Lorraine; God brought it burning from the sod To be a sign and signal rod That they that drink the blood of God Shall never thirst again. The wine they praise in Paradise They make in Ponterey, The purple wine of […]...
4. Snow White, to the Prince after Susan Thomas Truth is, my life was no fairytale, That afternoon, I lay, a smiling corpse Under a glass sky, a rotten apple Lodged in my throat like a black lump Of cancer, your sloppy kiss dying on my lips. Did you really believe a kiss could cure The poison galloping through my veins, […]...
5. Caliban upon Setebos or, Natural Theology in the Island “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.” (David, Psalms 50.21) [‘Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit’s much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin. And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about […]...
6. Theology There is a heaven, for ever, day by day, The upward longing of my soul doth tell me so. There is a hell, I’m quite as sure; for pray If there were not, where would my neighbours go?...
7. Frying Pan's Theology Shock-headed blackfellow, Boy (on a pony). Snowflakes are falling Gentle and slow, Youngster says, “Frying Pan What makes it snow?” Frying Pan, confident, Makes the reply “Shake ‘im big flour bag Up in the sky!” “What! when there’s miles of it? Surely that’s brag. Who is there strong enough Shake such a bag?” “What parson […]...
8. Paradise is that old mansion Paradise is that old mansion Many owned before Occupied by each an instant Then reversed the Door Bliss is frugal of her Leases Adam taught her Thrift Bankrupt once through his excesses...
9. Laus Mariae Across the brook of Time man leaping goes On stepping-stones of epochs, that uprise Fixed, memorable, midst broad shallow flows Of neutrals, kill-times, sleeps, indifferencies. So twixt each morn and night rise salient heaps: Some cross with but a zigzag, jaded pace From meal to meal: some with convulsive leaps Shake the green tussocks of […]...
10. Wendell P. Bloyd They first charged me with disorderly conduct, There being no statute on blasphemy. Later they locked me up as insane Where I was beaten to death by a Catholic guard. My offense was this: I said God lied to Adam, and destined him To lead the life of a fool, Ignorant that there is evil […]...
11. A Garden, Written after the Civil Wars SEE how the flowers, as at parade, Under their colours stand display’d: Each regiment in order grows, That of the tulip, pink, and rose. But when the vigilant patrol Of stars walks round about the pole, Their leaves, that to the stalks are curl’d, Seem to their staves the ensigns furl’d. Then in some flower’s […]...
12. Dream Song 49: Blind Old Pussy-cat if he won’t eat, he don’t Feel good into his tum’, old Pussy-cat. He wants to have eaten. Tremor, heaves, he sweaterings. He can’t. A dizzy swims of where is Henry at; . . . somewhere streng verboten. How come he sleeps & sleeps and sleeps, waking like death: Locate the restorations of […]...
13. On a Theme by Thomas Merton “Adam, where are you?” God’s hands Palpate darkness, the void That is Adam’s inattention, His confused attention to everything, Impassioned by multiplicity, his despair. Multiplicity, his despair; God’s hands Enacting blindness. Like a child At a barbaric fairgrounds Noise, lights, the violent odors Adam fragments himself. The whirling rides! Fragmented Adam stares. God’s hands Unseen, […]...
14. Incarnate Devil Incarnate devil in a talking snake, The central plains of Asia in his garden, In shaping-time the circle stung awake, In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple, And God walked there who was a fiddling warden And played down pardon from the heavens’ hill. When we were strangers to the guided seas, A […]...
15. Boy at the Window Seeing the snowman standing all alone In dusk and cold is more than he can bear. The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare A night of gnashings and enormous moan. His tearful sight can hardly reach to where The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes Returns him such a God-forsaken stare As outcast Adam […]...
16. The Unlucky Apple ‘Twas the apple that in Eden Caused our father’s primal fall; And the Trojan War, remember ‘Twas an apple caused it all. So for weeks I’ve hesitated, You can guess the reason why, For I want to tell my darling She’s the apple of my eye....
17. Joy to have merited the Pain Joy to have merited the Pain To merit the Release Joy to have perished every step To Compass Paradise Pardon to look upon thy face With these old fashioned Eyes Better than new could be for that Though bought in Paradise Because they looked on thee before And thou hast looked on them Prove Me […]...
18. Love, Though for This I LOVE, though for this you riddle me with darts, And drag me at your chariot till I die,­ Oh, heavy prince! O, panderer of hearts!­ Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair, Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr, Who still am […]...
19. Hymn 157 Satan’s devices. Now Satan comes with dreadful roar And threatens to destroy; He worries whom he can’t devour With a malicious joy. Ye sons of God, oppose his rage, Resist, and he’ll begone; Thus did our dearest Lord engage And vanquish him alone. Now he appears almost divine, Like innocence and love; But the old […]...
20. Hymn 124 The first and second Adam. Rom. 5:12,etc. Deep in the dust before thy throne Our guilt and our disgrace we own; Great God! we own th’ unhappy name Whence sprang our nature and our shame; Adam the sinner: at his fall, Death like a conqueror seized us A thousand new-born babes are dead By fatal […]...
21. Merlin O Merlin in your crystal cave Deep in the diamond of the day, Will there ever be a singer Whose music will smooth away The furrow drawn by Adam’s finger Across the memory and the wave? Or a runner who’ll outrun Man’s long shadow driving on, Break through the gate of memory And hang the […]...
22. The Palm And The Pine From the German of Heine. In the far North stands a Pine-tree, lone, Upon a wintry height; It sleeps: around it snows have thrown A covering of white. It dreams forever of a Palm That, far i’ the Morning-land, Stands silent in a most sad calm Midst of the burning sand....
23. "Heaven" is what I cannot reach! “Heaven” is what I cannot reach! The Apple on the Tree Provided it do hopeless hang That “Heaven” is to Me! The Color, on the Cruising Cloud The interdicted Land Behind the Hill the House behind There Paradise is found! Her teasing Purples Afternoons The credulous decoy Enamored of the Conjuror That spurned us Yesterday!...
24. HIS POETRY HIS PILLAR Only a little more I have to write: Then I’ll give o’er, And bid the world good-night. ‘Tis but a flying minute, That I must stay, Or linger in it: And then I must away. O Time, that cut’st down all, And scarce leav’st here Memorial Of any men that were; How many lie forgot […]...
25. 462. Song-The Bannocks o' Bear Meal Chorus-Bannocks o’ bear meal, Bannocks o’ barley, Here’s to the Highlandman’s Bannocks o’ barley! WHA, in a brulyie, will First cry a parley? Never the lads wi’ the Bannocks o’ barley, Bannocks o’ bear meal, &c. Wha, in his wae days, Were loyal to Charlie? Wha but the lads wi’ the Bannocks o’ barley! Bannocks […]...
26. If It Is True What the Prophets Write If it is true, what the Prophets write, That the heathen gods are all stocks and stones, Shall we, for the sake of being polite, Feed them with the juice of our marrow-bones? And if Bezaleel and Aholiab drew What the finger of God pointed to their view, Shall we suffer the Roman and Grecian […]...
27. Odysseus' Decision The great man turns his back on the island. Now he will not die in paradise Nor hear again The lutes of paradise among the olive trees, By the clear pools under the cypresses. Time Begins now, in which he hears again That pulse which is the narrative Sea, ar dawn when its pull is […]...
28. To Helen (After Valery) O Sea! … ‘Tis I, risen from death once more To hear the waves’ harmonious roar And see the galleys, sharp, in dawn’s great awe Raised from the dark by the rising and gold oar. My fickle hands sufficed to summon kings Their salt beards amused my fingers, deft and pure. I wept. […]...
29. Dumb Gabriel whispered in mine ear His archangelic poesie. How can I write? I only hear The sobbing murmur of the sea. Raphael breathed and bade me pass His rapt evangel to mankind; I cannot even match, alas! The ululation of the wind. The gross grey gods like gargoyles spit On every poet’s holy head; No […]...
30. Theme For English B The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you Then, it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem. I went to school there, then Durham, then here To this college on the hill above Harlem. I am […]...
31. Hymn 112 The brazen serpent; or, Looking to Jesus. John 3:14-16. So did the Hebrew prophet raise The brazen serpent high, The wounded felt immediate ease, The camp forbore to die. “Look upward in the dying hour, And live,” the prophet cries; But Christ performs a nobler cure, When Faith lifts up her eyes. High on the […]...
32. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
33. Momus, God Of Laughter Though with gods the world is cumbered, Gods unnamed, and gods unnumbered, Never god was known to be Who had not his devotee. So I dedicate to mine, Here in verse, my temple-shrine. ‘Tis not Ares, – mighty Mars, Who can give success in wars. ‘Tis not Morpheus, who doth keep Guard above us while […]...
34. Lambs He sleeps as a lamb sleeps, Beside his mother. Somewhere in yon blue deeps His tender brother Sleeps like a lamb and leaps. He feeds as a lamb might, Beside his mother. Somewhere in fields of light A lamb, his brother, Feeds, and is clothed in white....
35. Adam Cast Forth Was there a Garden or was the Garden a dream? Amid the fleeting light, I have slowed myself and queried, Almost for consolation, if the bygone period Over which this Adam, wretched now, once reigned supreme, Might not have been just a magical illusion Of that God I dreamed. Already it’s imprecise In my memory, […]...
36. The Titanic Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel, Consummate crown of man’s device; Down crashed upon an immobile And brainless barrier of ice. Courage! The grey gods shoot a laughing lip: – Let not faith founder with the ship! We reel before the blows of fate; Our stout souls stagger at the shock. Oh! there is […]...
37. Eve Look how she stands, high on the steep facade Of the cathedral, near the window-rose, Simply, holding in her hand the apple, Judged for all time as the guiltless-guilty For the growing fruit her body held Which she gave birth to after parting from The circle of eternities. She left To face the strange New […]...
38. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
39. A Winter Eden A winter garden in an alder swamp, Where conies now come out to sun and romp, As near a paradise as it can be And not melt snow or start a dormant tree. It lifts existence on a plane of snow One level higher than the earth below, One level nearer heaven overhead, And last […]...
40. Manufactured Gods THEY put up big wooden gods. Then they burned the big wooden gods And put up brass gods and Changing their minds suddenly Knocked down the brass gods and put up A doughface god with gold earrings. The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads, They didn’t know a little tin god Is as good as […]...