[William A. Baurle]

Quite Apart From The Holy Ghost

I remember God as an eccentric millionaire,
Locked in his workshop, beard a cloud of foggy-coloured hair,
Making the stones all different, each flower and disease,
Putting the Laps in Lapland, making China for the Chinese,
Laying down the Lake of Lucerne as smooth as blue-grey lino,
Wearily inventing the appendix and the rhino,
Making the fine fur for the mink, fine women for the fur,
Man’s brain a gun, his heart a bomb, his conscience – a blur.

Christ I can see much better from here,
And Christ upon the Cross is clear.
Jesus is stretched like the skin of a kite
Over the cross, he seems in flight
Sometimes. At times it seems more true
That he is meat nailed up alive and pain all through.
But it’s hard to see Christ for priests. That happens when
A poet engenders generations of advertising men.

— Adrian Mitchell

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By the by, I actually spotted this poem while going through a print anthology I picked up cheap some years ago called Unrespectable Verse, edited by Geoffrey Grigson. Put out in 1971, it's quite good and contains lots of formal verse by Mitchell, Stevie Smith, Phyllis McGinley, George Starbuck, and a host of other Pierian celebrities olde and gnu. I'll bet dollars to scones that John Whitworth would love it, and probably already owns it or knows of it.