LitRev Comp 'Blasphemy' by 25th September
 

"Blasphemy"? Well, that's easier than the Pygmalion comp, for *!~^ sake! ;)

Jayne

From the competition page in Literary Review magazine:

The next subject is 'blasphemy'; poems must rhyme and scan (max 24 lines), and reach this office by 25th September.

44 Lexington Street, London W1F 0LW. Fax: 020 7734 1844
editorial@literaryreview.co.uk

You know, that is a really interesting subject. What would be really blasphemous nowadays? Christ in a bottle of urine doesn't cut it. On the other hand suggesting that Mohammed was a mythical figure (for which there seems some evidence) probably does.

All that Pygmalion moment business having proved too gnomic to inspire, I am eager to have a go at this one.

John, you're right that blaspheming against Christianity just doesn't seem to bother any but the most lunatic churchgoers. Blaspheming against Islam is a little more risky. Play safe and declare that Richard Dawkins doesn't exist.

What about saying that a gold medallist in the Paralympics is not a nice person.

The fellow did apologize, John, so maybe he's not all bad.

All I have in the can already that mentions blasphemy is this very slight little thing:


Best Wishes

Although I'd never wish you dead
and never wish you ill,
I will not stoop to blasphemy
if it should be God's will.

To me, blasphemy surely involves the "taking God's name in vain" kind of thing?

My dictionary gives the definition: the action or offence of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things

This one's a little more prescriptive than you might think, IMO, John.

Jayne

Doesn't the "or sacred things" part throw it wide open?

You're on a roll tonight, John! =)

So this is a humor contest, eh? Nothing seriously blasphemous allowed?

Ah, Jayne, but it has to be OUR God. And what is that? For many people it is Socialism. I love pissing those guys off, which isn't at all difficult. But for more it is a sort of mealymouthedness. For instance, about six months ago I found myself writing a poem about a paedophile in Heaven, or such a heaven as he would imagine, full of ten year old boys in exiguous costume. When I had written it I realised it was quite unsaleable. Blasphemous, don't you know, for suggesting that such a person could have a good side - like Benjamin Britten for example, though his boys were a little older, about twelve. Or Jonathan King, the pop impresario. Many/most gay men of my acquaintance might fit in here, but it doesn't do to say so. I might dust the poem off, I suppose.

I haven't tried one of these before. Is one able to submit, say, a mildly blasphemous scanny and rhymey old poem that has recently earned a middle-of-the-table finish in, say, an Eratosphere Bake-Off--you know, just hypothetically? Or is there an understanding that submissions are new and purpose-written?

No Simon. There's nothing that says any of the poems have to be new. I think if they had already won something that would be a different matter, even though it doesn't say that.

"So this is a humor contest, eh? Nothing seriously blasphemous allowed? "

It's definitely not a venue that's well-known for its humour, Terese. Not in the way The Oldie and The Spectator are, anyway.

Jayne

G-g-go for it, Simon.

What a god idea, Annie.

Oh come, Jayne. I just won there and Martin Parker was second and Janet Kenny third. We're all barrowsful of laughs.

Yes, you lot certainly are, John; I was referring to 'them', but even 'they' are more amenable towards humour now than back in the old grumpy days when Auberon Waugh was the editor!

Very often his piece on the comp entries would start with something like: "The entries were of a very poor standard this month..."

Well, at least Auberon is helpfully dead. He was as bad as his dad at being a total pain in the bum. I never tried the comp in those days.

I initially thought this topic off-puttingly unmanageable. But I wonder if this approach may be deemed acceptable?

Blasphemy

My Master named me Blasphemy.
It saved him time, you see;
He didn’t need to add on curses
When commanding me.
And just for extra interest -
More pleasure for my Owner! –
He gave me other names as well:
To wit, Judas and Jonah.

So “Jonah Blasphemy, come here!”
Or “Do this, Judas Jonah!” -
Those were the harsh commands I’d hear,
Each bellowed by my Owner.
It made his attitude quite clear:
He hated me, as good as.
Those names still echo in my ear:
“Blasphemy Jonah Judas!”

They say “Don’t give a dog a bad name” -
That man gave me three.
A triple dose of woe and blame,
He poured it into me.
It’s said “Don’t bite the hand that feeds” –
The hand that beats, as well?
I slipped my chain and crushed his throat
And sent his soul to hell.


(S3L7: I originally had 'tore his throat'. 'Crushed' incorporates 'rushed', which is apt to the act, and also I felt it conveyed better than 'tore' the intentional stifling of that arrogant hateful voice.
S2L7: was 'Those names, they echoed in my ear:'
I am still not sure which are the better lines.)

Blasphemy

I cannot be
a blasphemist
since God, you see,
does not exist.

If God is but
a vapid dream,
who or what
can I blaspheme?

Roger, if you'll allow, there's a wry anagram lurking in there:

Can I blaspheme? - Me? A splenic “Bah!”

Hi Graham,

For starters, I'd definitely lose the 'you see' in L2; it's regarded as the classic quick-fix of the novice poet, if you'll forgive me for saying so. I'm sure you can find a better 'ee' rhyme.

I haven't got time to offer any more than that, sorry, as I'm struggling with a few bits of my own entry for another D & A comp! (It's the 'picnic' contest for the New Statesman and the deadline's looming.)

Good luck. :)

Jayne

Hmm, Jayne, you're right. My little ditty also uses a filler "you see" and that will have to be improved.

Thanks Jayne, and Good luck with your picnic! :-)

Thanks, Graham.

I've just finished the picnic poem, which put up a bit of a fight but I hope I've got it nailed now.

Bob,
Your 'you see', I think, might just be the exception to the rule; it didn't jump out at me the way it usually does, anyway!

I've posted the half-true picnic story now. (Still haven't managed to 'crack' the NS comp yet :()

Jayne

This is the idea I posited a long way back.

Blasphemy

Here am I in tennis flannels and a blazer
On the turret of my castle built apart,
I have honed my body daily with a razor
To keep my skin as sinless as my heart.

There's a garden far below me which is Heaven
With animals and flowers and a lake,
And the years of all the angels are eleven,
And Satan squats behind them with a rake.

A gateway and an avenue of trees is
Where those angels gather, at the farther end.
How their bodies dance and shimmer in the breezes,
How every one among them is my friend!

But the avenue is long and growing longer,
Every minute, every hour of every day,
And I know my life is wrong and getting wronger,
Yet these are things I cannot put away.

It is blasphemy, the priests and levites mutter
From their gospel vantage on the other side:
The knives of God will slice your soul like butter
And your soulless body rot upon the tide.

Yet I cannot and I will not, though I wither
Like the flowers as I hold them in my hand,
And I hear a rustling, dessicated slither
As Satan repossesses all the land.

John, I suspect you have the winner there. Funny how your prose description of this poem in your ealier post made me think the poem would be simply horrible but the poem itself strikes me as craftsmanly and clever.

Thank you, Adrian. I am relieved that the poem does not sound unpleasant. Did I mention the German film 'Guter Junge'? It is not horrible either, just very sad.

Well done, John - just the right touch. When I start thinking blasphemy, I think of things like Mary Magdalene talking birth control with the Virgin Mary -- you know, stuff that would get your entry thrown out right off the bat.

I think, Gail, that must be right in the frame. The point of blasphemy is that it is deeply shocking. It is one of the crimes of Jesus. 'Property is theft' in a nineteenth century context, would have been blasphemous, and a lot of the stuff that Nietzsche said about the sins of the weak.

And nowadays, that stuff about IQ and race, or, to people like us, suggestions that women's duty lies at home, what Hitler said about church, children and cooking.

I don't want to wax too philosophical here (yes I do) but I've always felt there is something childish about setting out to blaspheme. I remember, age 8 or so, cursing God and Jesus in an attempt to get him to strike me dead. I can't see that the artists, cartoonists and comedians who regularly try shocking in this manner are any different. To blaspheme is, I think, to accept that religious ideas and images have power.

Of course they have power, Adrian. But that's not the same as saying they have validity or are true. Their power is what makes it not childish to take them on.

But Adrian, one may not set out to blaspheme. I presume Christ did not. But then other people set up a cacophony because you said what seemed to you the plain truth. I do not claim to be Christ (not yet anyhow) but I have found this occasionally. It is often called giving offence, and one is not supposed to do it.

There is a poem by the late Peter Reading. I wonder if I can remember it.

John, when you have your annual checkup, make sure that your doctor examines your hands and feet for incipient signs of holes.

It's the changing water into wine - that's the trick I'm keen on learning. Rising from the dead? Done that.

I hope that near-blasphemy will be acceptable as well as the real McCoy.

Before Rome set its adamantine
face against the old Tridentine
Catholics took the Bread of Heaven
complete with proper Latin leaven
in Missals fat as half a brick,
two thousand pages Rizla-thick
in which it took this boy an age
to ascertain the proper page
for prayers whose arcane rigmarole
they’d said would save his sinful soul.

This Mass which stood tradition’s test
is finished. Ite, Missa est.
Redemption now is near at hand
in language we can understand;
and threading camels far less hard
with Mass pre-printed on one card.
Yet boyhood fear of What Comes Next
seems missing from the English text;
and makes this ersatz Mass, for me,
seem precious close to blasphemy.

Genesis

One sunny morning, strolling in my garden.
I stumbled, and my foot crushed something’s head.
"Me dammit!" I exclaimed, “I beg your pardon”,
Looked down, and saw my Serpent lying dead.

This Serpent was supposed to tempt the couple
With luscious fruit that Eden's trees bedecks;
My chosen agent, sinuous and supple,
Would lead the pair to knowledge - and to sex.

Omniscience can have its limitations,
And even Godly schemes may gang agley.
I'd once envisaged teeming populations,
But this, perhaps, was better, in its way.

No guns, no bullets, no demented shooters,
Since nothing could be made, except of wood;
No mobile phones (thank Me!) and no computers ...
I looked on all of this, and found it good.

Yet what of those who should have lived hereafter?
No Homer, Shakespeare, Mozart, Botticelli?
No P. G. Wodehouse? (I was fond of laughter,
Though, being God, I didn’t have a belly).

Descendants all, but only if they had ’em.
(No Michelangelo, no Sistine Chapel?)
My mind made up, I beckoned Eve and Adam:
“I wondered if you’d care to try an apple?”

Blasphemy's a Blast for Me

God's an asshole, God's a schmuck,
God's a wizard run amok.

God's conceited, God is vain,
God created germs and pain.

God is jealous, God is cruel,
God is evil, God's a fool.

God is angry, God is mad,
God made far less good than bad.

God lets children starve and die.
God makes everybody cry.

God commands with iron fist.
Sadly, God does not exist.

Brian, yours reminds me of an old one from my files:

SPYING IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

I built myself a time machine
and set it for the day
when Eve and Adam ate the fruit
and there was hell to pay.

I thought it would be fun to watch.
I'd heard so much about it
in Sunday school, and I confess
I had begun to doubt it,

since why would God make so much fuss
about a crime so minor?
I like to think the Lord is not
vindictive, or a whiner.

And so I hid behind a tree
and watched the serpent hiss.
He said, "There is a mystery.
Can you explain it, miss?

"The mystery I'm speaking of
and trying hard to grapple,
is why, if God's so generous,
he will not share the apple?"

Eve reflected, then replied,
"What difference does it make?"
"It's something you should think about,
that's all," replied the snake.

"Think what?" said Eve. The snake then said,
"It must be quite delicious.
What good is man's dominion
over animals and fishes

if you can't eat a piece of fruit
that's growing in your garden?
Eat the apple, then tell God,
My bad! I beg your pardon!"

I didn't think this was enough
for Eve to be persuaded.
But then I saw her pick the fruit!
I watched her as she ate it!

Then Adam came. The serprent spoke
his nonsense once again.
And Adam bought it! What a fool,
the father of all men!

I went back to my time machine
and sadly climbed back in.
Not apples, but stupidity,
was Eve's and Adam's sin.

I found something in my files that sears but doesn't rhyme or scan. My thanks to the contest (I'll probably find another that does rhyme and scan any minute now) for allowing me to find the first, which file I never would have looked at otherwise!