CHRIST - THE WHOLE 

LOAF  OF  BREAD 

Poem for Today  November 15, 2014

BALLAD  OF THE BREAD  MAN

Mary stood in the kitchen
Baking a loaf of bread.
An angel flew in through the window.
‘We’ve a job for you,’ he said.

‘God in his big gold heaven
Sitting in his big blue chair,
Wanted a mother for his little son.
Suddenly saw you there.’

Mary shook and trembled,
‘It isn’t true what you say.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said the angel.
‘The baby’s on its way.’

Joseph was in the workshop
Planing a piece of wood.
‘The old man’s past it,’ the neighbours said.
‘That girl’s been up to no good.’

‘And who was that elegant fellow,’
They said. ‘in the shiny gear?’
The things they said about Gabriel
Were hardly fit to hear.

Mary never answered,
Mary never replied.
She kept the information,
Like the baby, safe inside.

It was the election winter.
They went to vote in town.
When Mary found her time had come
The hotels let her down.

The baby was born in an annex

Next to the local pub.
At midnight, a delegation
Turned up from the Farmers’ Club.

They talked about an explosion
That made a hole in the sky,
Said they’d been sent to the Lamb and Flag
To see God come down from on high.

A few days later a bishop
And a five-star general were seen
With the head of an African country
In a bullet-proof limousine.

‘We’ve come,’ they said ‘with tokens
For the little boy to choose.’
Told the tale about war and peace
In the television news.

After them came the soldiers
With rifle and bombs and gun,
Looking for enemies of the state.
The family had packed up and gone.

When they got back to the village
The neighbours said, to a man,
‘That boy will never be one of us,
Though he does what he blessed well can.’

He went round to all the people
A paper crown on his head.
Here is some bread from my father.
Take, eat, he said.

Nobody seemed very hungry.
Nobody seemed to care.
Nobody saw the God in himself
Quietly standing there.

He finished up in the papers,
He came to a very bad end.
He was charged with bringing the living to life.
No man was that prisoner’s friend.

There’s only one kind of punishment
To fit that kind of crime.
They rigged a trial and shot him dead.
They were only just in time.

They lifted the young man by the leg,
Thy lifted him by the arm,
They locked him in a cathedral
In case he came to harm.

They stored him safe as water
Under seven rocks.
One Sunday morning he burst out
Like a jack-in-the-box.

Through the town he went walking.
He showed them the holes in his head.
Now do you want any loaves? he cried.
‘Not today’ they said.

© Charles Causley

SCULPTOR

Wheat, flour, dough,

table, pan, bowl, hands,

the struggle to sculpt,

to carve, to mold, to form,

to try to grab and grasp

the formless energy

of the universe, called God,

better: Bread, 
God easy eating bread,

not a God who stands there

on a pedestal - posing as

a rock stone statue, but our God –

Delicious - Divine - Daily Bread,
cut crushed wheat,
becoming flour, kneaded and baked,

slowly rising, slowly sending

forth the sweet smell of bread,

to all – to all in the house -

coming under doors – through windows ….

Come – take – eat - taste - be in

communion with one another.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2014

WRITING POEMS

Poem for Friday, November 14, 2014

WHAT THE CHAIRMAN TOLD TOM

Poetry? It’s a hobby.
I run model trains.
Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.

It’s not work. You dont sweat.
Nobody pays for it.
You could advertise soap.

Art, that’s opera; or repertory —
The Desert Song.
Nancy was in the chorus.

But to ask for twelve pounds a week —
married, aren’t you? —
you’ve got a nerve.

How could I look a bus conductor
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?

Who says it’s poetry, anyhow?
My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.

I get three thousand and expenses,
a car, vouchers,
but I’m an accountant.

They do what I tell them,
my company.
What do you do?

Nasty little words, nasty long words,
it’s unhealthy.
I want to wash when I meet a poet.

They’re Reds, addicts,
all delinquents.
What you write is rot.

Mr Hines says so, and he’s a schoolteacher,
he ought to know.
Go and find work.

© Basil Bunting,

From Complete Poems,

Ed. Richard Caddel

Bloodaxe Books, 2000

THE SNAIL 

KEEPS MOVING FORWARD

Poem for Thursday November 13, 2014

CONSIDERING THE SNAIL

The snail pushes through a green
night, for the grass is heavy
with water and meets over
the bright path he makes, where rain
has darkened the earth’s dark. He
moves in a wood of desire,

pale antlers barely stirring
as he hunts. I cannot tell
what power is at work, drenched there
with purpose, knowing nothing.
What is a snail’s fury? All
I think is that if later

I parted the blades above
the tunnel and saw the thin
trail of broken white across
litter, I would never have
imagined the slow passion
to that deliberate progress.

©  Thom Gunn

A PRAYER

An old priest got a  phone call from a high school kid, “Hello!”

“Father I need a prayer?”

“Okay. How about the Our Father?”

“No!”

“Okay. How about the Hail Mary?”

“No!”

[Pause]

“Okay, how about the word, ‘Sorry?’”

“No, that’s not what I need right now.”

“Okay, how about the word, ‘Thanks!’”

“Good, but that’s not what I need right now.”

[Pause]

Old priest: “I’m thinking.” Then old priest says, “Okay, just say, ‘Help!’”

[Pause]

High school kid: “Good….  In fact, Father, perfect. Now how many times should I say this prayer?”

“Once, twice, three times – as many times as you need to say it.”

“Good. Now how do I say this prayer.”

“What? Just say it, just pray it, the same way you go up to your parents and you say, “Help.” Or “Sorry”  or “Thanks.”

“Okay, Father,  sorry to bother you. Thanks for the help.”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2014

A  GRANDFATHER - 

WHO WAS A  TEACHER 

It’s morning. It’s on the road. A first year high school kid says to his grandfather who drives him back and forth to high school each day, “Grandpa why do I have to go to school every day?”

“Hey, I don’t mind driving you back and forth to school every day. Your mom has to get into work early – and your dad is back in Iraq.”

“Grandpa, I just find school so boring – boring - boring. I’m not a starter on any of our teams and we never win anyway. I hate sitting there in a classroom day after day after day – and I’m not the type who makes the National Honor Society and all that.”

[Fast forward]

It’s afternoon. It’s on the road. That same grandson – says to his grandfather, “Hey! Where we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Ten minutes later they are on the edge of the city turning into a garbage dump.

“Hey! Why are we turning in here?”

“You’ll see.”

“Oooh. It’s ugly in here.”

They stop the car and his grandpa says, “Get the hammer, the big screwdriver and the crowbar I have waiting for you in the trunk.”

“What’s a crowbar?”

“You’ll see.”

His grandfather pops the trunk.”

“The crowbar is right there next to the hammer and the big screw driver.”

Grandpa says, “Follow me.”

They sludge their way through the garbage till they get to an old computer in a pile of old junk.

“Grab that computer,” his grandfather says, “and bring it over here.”

The kid does it.

“Now take the hammer and the screwdriver and crowbar and open up the computer till you see its guts.”

The kid can’t do it.

The grandfather takes the screwdriver – forces it into an edge – hammers the top of the screwdriver – and then takes the crowbar and opens up the computer.

“Wow the kid says, ‘I can see its guts.’”

The grandfather stands there.

“Grandpa what are you trying to teach me here?”

“Look at all these wires inside the works here. This is not spaghetti. This stuff just didn’t happen to come together and bingo we have a computer.  Someone had to go to school to put all this together. Someone had to create all these electronic games I see you playing all the time.”

[Silence]

“Good,” said grandpa, “I can tell by your face you got it.”

“Now let’s get home – so you can do your homework.  And watch out where you’re walking – I just cleaned the rugs in my car after I dropped you off this morning.”

[Silence]

The kid was quiet all the way home.

“Grandpa, one question, I gotta ask: How did you know about that garbage dump?”

“I used to work there.”

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2014

MARANATHA!

November 12, 2014  Wednesday

THE  SECOND  COMING   (1920)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it 

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

© William Butler Yeats