[Janice D. Soderling]

One hundred years since the start of the Great War. For those who have lived through a goodly portion of it, a century is a shorter time than it seems to those just starting to nibble on their own century. It strikes me that, as we enter another new year on this war-torn planet, perhaps even try to celebrate it, we need all the help we can get. So I am asking for poems that ask for--or offer--help.

I am starting with one of the most contemporary poignant poems I know, from a fellow Hoosier.

[Janice D. Soderling]

God?

If you are there, bequeath a gentle snow
to blanket grass and hills and trees and us,
the weary ones who really need to know
if you are there. Bequeath a gentle snow,
and let it drift to comfort us below
these endless marble rows, victorious.
If you are there, bequeath a gentle snow
to blanket grass and hills and trees and us.

--Harvey Stanbrough "Beyond the Masks", new & selected poems.

[R. Nemo Hill]

.
.........................................from children
drunk with sleep upon the breasts of strangers,
from so much that is uncertain and from me,
from me alone and from what I do not know,
to make the Thing, Lord Lord Lord, the Thing
which, earthly and cosmic, like a meteor
gathers within its heaviness no more than
the sum of flight: and weighs nothing but arrival.

Rainer Maria Rilke
(from The Spanish Trilogy, trans Stephen Mitchell)
.
.

[Maryann Corbett]

Those are both lovely, Janice and Nemo. This one counts as helpful if you read it with the required squinting, ironic eye.

Rabbi, we Gadarenes
Are not ascetics; we are fond of wealth and possessions.
Love, as You call it, we obviate by means
Of the planned release of aggressions.

We have deep faith in property.
Soon, it is hoped, we will reach our full potential.
In the light of our gross product, the practice of charity
Is palpably non-essential.

It is true that we go insane;
That for no good reason we are possessed by devils;
That we suffer, despite the amenities which obtain
At all but the lowest levels.

We shall not, however, resign
Our trust in the high-heaped table and the full trough.
If You cannot cure us without destroying our swine,
We had rather You shoved off.

--Richard Wilbur, "Matthew VIII, 28 ff."

[Woody Long]

Twilight

Tiptoeing twilight,
Before you pass,
Bathe light my spirit
As dew bathes grass.

Quiet the longing
Of my hands that yearn,
As you fold the flower
And hush the fern.

Guard me with shadows
To fortify
My failing purpose,
My tired eye,

That in your stillness
I may relight
My faith's frail candle
Before the night.

Hazel Hall

[Ed Shacklee]

YOUNG BLONDES

A religious poem
By Gavin Ewart

Young blondes are tempting me day and night,
Young blondes in dreams trouble my restless sight.

With curly heads they rampage through my thoughts,
Full-bosomed in their sweaters and their shorts.

Or lie sunbathing on an impossible beach
Naked, aloof, continually out of reach.

On the mind’s promenade, above the rocks,
Young blondes go sauntering by in cotton frocks

Or flatter cameras with their negligent poses
Or drenched in moonlight gather midnight roses.

While I am eating, smoking, working, talking
Through long romantic gardens they are walking.

Protect me, Lord, from these desires of flesh,
Keep me from evil, in Thy pastures fresh,

So that I may not fall, by lakes or ponds,
Into such sinful thoughts about young blondes!

[Michael Juster]

A Prayer to Bill Gates

O ye who giveth Word to every town,
Who doth decide when Windows shutteth down,
Who taught thy servants how to interface
And lordeth over stars of Cyberspace:
We call to Thee, though Thou shalt not reply;
Let us not be the Apple of thine eye.
Smite all Nigerians with propositions,
The heretics' unauthorized editions,
The bugs and viruses that blight our land,
Commands that only prophets understand,
And Vista's demon spawn! Lord, hear our cries!
May e-mail not lament our penis size,
May all thine FAQ's be clearly written,
And plagues of evil regulators smitten!
Show mercy for the lost of AOL--
Deliver them from their Time Warner Hell.
Bless sweet Melinda, mother of thine heirs.
O scourge of Satan's programs, hear our prayers!

[Curtis Gale Weeks]

Alone, alone, about a dreadful wood
Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind,
Dreading to find its Father lest it find
The Goodness it has dreaded is not good:
Alone, alone, about our dreadful wood.

Where is that Law for which we broke our own,
Where now that Justice for which Flesh resigned
Her hereditary right to passion, Mind
His will to absolute power? Gone. Gone.
Where is that Law for which we broke our own?

The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.
Was it to meet such grinning evidence
We left our richly odoured ignorance?
Was the triumphant answer to be this?
The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.

We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die demand a miracle.


—Auden, from For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio

[Steve Bucknell]

x
encore le dernier reflux
le galet mort
le demi-tour puis le pas
vers les vieilles lumières



Samuel Beckett

[Mary Meriam]

The Sisters of Mercy
by Leonard Cohen

O the sisters of mercy they are not
Departed or gone,
They were waiting for me when I thought
That I just can't go on,
And they brought me their comfort
And later they brought me this song.
O I hope you run into them
You who've been traveling so long.

Yes, you who must leave everything
That you cannot control;
It begins with your family,
But soon it comes round to your soul.
Well, I've been where you're hanging
I think I can see how you're pinned.
When you're not feeling holy,
Your loneliness says that you've sinned.

Well they lay down beside me
I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes
And I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf
That the seasons tear off and condemn
They will bind you with love
That is graceful and green as a stem.

When I left they were sleeping,
I hope you run into them soon.
Don't turn on the light
You can read their address by the moon;
And you won't make me jealous
If I hear that they sweeten your night
We weren't lovers like that
And besides it would still be all right
We weren't lovers like that
And besides it would still be all right.