You ask “how to get the message across?” I think the issues are very difficult to separate but I find my poetry makes connections and expresses very deep human psyche matters in a light and hopefully more easily understandable way. Having said this, I believe that each poem needs some explanation in order really to get inside the subject.
There is a big connection, I feel, with the thicket in which Abrahams ram got stuck (as I’m from a farming family is quite easy to visualise the ram’s behaviour on being stuck in this way), with the “crown of thorns” and with phimosis/frenulum problems, which kind of makes sense – ( We all have our cross to bear (i.e. everyone about anything) and We have our crown of thorns to wear
Breaking The Law
Jesus: “Circumcision (i.e. healing) on the eighth day:
It happens on the Sabbath.”
The Pharisees didn’t like it,
Such a practical riposte.
Prevention is better than cure,
But oh how the legal language
Is confusing the ritual benefit:
We’re going to need a sage.
Healing’s not prevention
It’s saving those ‘been felled;
It raises up to a higher plane,
The pain of those who yelled.
Relieved and oh so lifted
Prevention is better than cure,
But if you are the fallen
You want to be safe and sure.
So why not on the Sabbath?
It doesn’t make any sense:
Prevention is surely a healing
With just a future tense.
But is it right to presuppose that,
A miracle’s one thing and science another,
Which might be best is where it’s at?
Ignorance is bliss until thoughts of t’other.
Chaos is the fear
And with paternal instinct
“No son of mine shall suffer” as I
Fell on that bleakest precinct.
(Treat according to condition,
Not blindly follow the rite.
Understand the implications of
The frenulum that is tight).
So they decided to kill him.
The crowd thought “ paranoia”.
The learned believed they’d got him
Through rafts of technicalia.
The crowd was then whipped
Up and suitably frenzied
Becoming putty in the hands
Of Caiaphas’s masterly for’e’d
He manipulated all deftly
Keeping ol’ Moses’s law
Choosing to overlook that
Small but-so-vital flaw.
Crucified for common sense –
What was it all about?
Keeping the faith o’ their ancestors
And their own faith? Not a shout.
Presuppose and precedent;
Doctors of the law, beware:
Prejudgement and Heaven scent
You’ll only get with flair
Imagination and ingenuity
Has to break the mould,
For sins committed and forgiven,
Come back to the fold.
I love you Jesus…
…You came to my rescue:
…You visited upon me…
...You only knew the cue.
Faith restored, it really works,
But do believe your lovers:
It’s God who sees you as you are,
There really is no other.
27.4.06
Sarah’s Laugh Lasts and Confucius He Say: By Sarah, Reading the whole story of Abraham is probably really the only way to get into them. They stem from stripping the story right down: Sara was allegedly barren but when Abraham eventually worked out to do the op, and did it, Sarah gave birth within a year. This leads to the very simple conclusion that it was Abraham that had the problem (and he was concious of it even if not initally understanding it), not Sara (i.e. the presumption that she was barren is a completely typical male reaction.. (not necessarily Abraham's.. and one can understand slave-girl Hager's perspective, i.e. that if the boss's wants her have a child she'd best make sure that she gets pregnant..)).
Sarah’s Laugh Lasts
Hagar’s lording it up again,
It really gets my goat,
Who does she think she is?
This slave-girl surrogate.
“DO something, Abe” I said,
“I know it was my idea,
But I honestly wasn’t expecting things
To be really quite this dire”.
This drove him into his garden shed,
As he tried to hatch a plan.
I had no idea what he was doing:
He’s just a typical man.
I think that he has finally flipped,
He’s all giggly and sheepish,
Three strangers he’s just invited in
Say now they’ll grant my wish.
“The opportunity is there” Abe said,
“by engineering design:
I’ve cut the brambles from the head
And now ‘twill all be fine”.
“Yeah right” I thought, but he caught me short
And clearly he wasn’t joking,
‘Twas then I realised how he cared
And that neither was he barking.
Enjoy the moment absolutely, yes,
It brings new leases of life
In every which way, people, yes,
I am after all his wife.
And so we rode into the night,
Conceived in that garden shed,
Synonymous with that which is…
What’s going on in his golden head?
Oh joy of joy
(If a little bit wild)
I am now blessed with
My own dear child!
Isaac, we did call him, as
Happiness indeed embodied:
For to produce a dynasty ‘cause
O’ what Ol’ Abram did.
But it’s interesting this…
And I really have to say,
I was wondering what it was
That was with Hagar’s way?
Her story now is sounding tall
And I’m beginning to doubt:
They may have got it together
But did Abe’s seed come out?
She realises I am onto her and
I think that she is rumbled:
She and Ish have gone away,
And avoided thus being humbled.
Bliss at last, again I say
My own little family here:
We’re living ever after now
My happiness is sheer.
21.7.06
______________________________
Ishmael
Or Plea For World Peace
Mom and Sara
at daggers drawn,
(Nothing new there),
Influencing Dad
To quell the storm.
I see trouble ahead,
He’s got this idea
That Sara will conceive
If he lops off his cover.
(And mine, too
And everyone else’s
In the household).
He’s pleased with me,
“It’s just a procedure
‘Twill make Sara happy”,
Though fills me with seizure.
He’s right dead set,
And on it “life depends”,
So we all had it done,
The tweaking o’our ends.
(He’s a proud man,
You see,
What’s good for him,
Is good for thee.)
Twelve months later,
Lo and behold,
I have a little brother,
“The primary line”, to be told.
Fair enough,
I like the guy,
But Sara would have none of it,
And sent us away.
Mom’s a star,
And gave me my wits,
And found me a wife
To bear me my kids : )
The old man died
And with Isaac I mourned
The loss of our father
We loved, never scorned.
We went our separate ways
Always knowing that, whatever,
The love of a father
Is thicker than water.
Nature or nurture,
Don’t lose the point,
Love conquers all,
Don’t fight o’er the joint,
Please.
5.3.06
______________________________
“Confucius – He Say”, by Sarah
Abraham’s been acting strange
I think that he’s confused
Which boy is his first boy
And which to disabuse.
There’s nothing I can say
T’would make any difference
He’s nurtured both as ‘is own:
He has no preference.
Ishmael’s long since gone away,
About which Abe feels guilty
There’s nothing much that I can say
I’m trusting that he’s not faulty.
He and ‘Saac have gone on a trip
To make a sacrifice
If I knew then what was in store
He’d not have had the chance.
“Dad had a little moment there,
He put me an a table
And raised up his dagger high
Just as Cain with Abel.”
“My boy, my boy you must have feared
What was he thinking of?!”
- “Confusion reign, it was his pain
Of how to deal with love.
Luckily there, the ecology deep,
Came to our rescue,
A ram was in the brambles and
Was pushing the thorns on cue.
Faith supreme is the lesson here
One really mustn’t wobble,
For what is meant to be
Will be, I’d advise against a squabble.”
I had to think and weigh things up
After all he’d given to me,
The social services were involved:
They decided to see Saacs’ plea.
If they’d not accepted this,
Nor understood the mitigation,
We’d not have the lesson that
Is how to join One Kingdom.
22.7.06
Ed.