George, love your oldie from 1982.

I figure hardly anyone will write about going to church, so I took a shot at it:

I go to church on Sundays.
I figure being bored
for 60 minutes weekly
is pleasing to the Lord.

I always take my children
to church on Sunday too.
It's time they started learning
that boredom's good for you.

For someday, like their parents,
they'll slave from nine to five
at jobs they wouldn't sniff at
except to stay alive.

They'll learn from Sunday boredom
to tread the path we trod,
besides accumulating
some brownie points with God.

SUNDAY

Sunday
is the fun day
one day
before Monday,
a love it a ton day,
a pray with a nun day,
a go for a run day,
a butter a bun day,
a never been shunned day,
a daughter and son day,
a make a bad pun day,
a barely begun day
that ends as a done day.

Sunday Morning

Dad wears a suit for worshipping,
Mum wears a silly hat,
But, when it’s time to stand and sing,
They belt out hymns like anything.
This is the Church of Christ the King.
I like the sound of that.

But Christ the Sufferer is less
Convenient to my mind.
I suffer too, and I confess
My Christian charity’s a mess.
My enemies I cannot bless,
When they are so unkind.

O Gentle Jesus, hear my prayer.
They drive me up the wall,
They make me piss my underwear,
I need to kill them all.

first draft
 

Obviously still 'raw' & I'd welcome crits, but complaints from weirdos who dislike the comma splice will be disregarded. Meanwhile, I'm pissing my underwear at John's wicked wit.

I read it first in trancelike puzzlement.
Each word was clear, emphatic, but the sum –
the linkages, the upshot, the intent –
resisted, struck my comprehension dumb.

One element was solid: mastery,
the lyric conjoined to the technical,
the supple, plastic specificity,
the haunting logic, terse, subliminal.

Years later, at a lovely woman's wake
('She died with her tan on' her self-epitaph),
thinking what Stevens' tropes or statements make
of death, I found the drunken strength to laugh –

and thanked America, the home of hope.
'Death is the mother of beauty', that's for sure;
let metaphysics stay beyond our scope.
No thought could be less morbid or obscure.

Bazza (may I be so familiar?),

That is bloody brilliant, mate!

Cally

These are all very good, but my money's on yours, Gail. Very funny :)

Bazza's is wonderful indeed, though I've never seen such a subtle or serious poem winning the Speccie. In other words, it's not funny. Will that matter to Lucy?

No, it won't matter to Lucy, Bob; she goes for subtle and serious as well as funny. Bazza's is a tad too subtle for me - I have to confess I don't quite get it, so I'm feeling a bit of a numpty at the moment. :o

Jayne - 'nough of the numpty!! :-)

It's a beautifully wise and insightful reflection on Wallace Stevens' 'Sunday Morning'. And I certainly can't see anything "obviously raw" about it!!

I agree - Gail's is a classic!

You guys are all amazing, in fact.

Cally, thanks for enlightening me - I don't feel such a ... now!