04-01-2022, 04:19 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-01-2022, 04:20 PM by RiverNotch.)
The function of the Anglican church is to disappear,
to become nothing more than a historical footnote,
having reformed from without all of Right Belief,
only there is no reformation from without,
there is no life apart from the church, there is no redemption
without once travelling through hell. For heaven and hell are one:
the same space, the same passage through motionless time,
the same presence of God experienced by both sinners and saints
in different but equal ways. The Anglican church disappears
swallowed up by parliament, by false dichotomies
of liberalism and conservatism, of tradition and modernity,
Cranmer's raking up of old dead documents
spitting out a single footnote -- and the rest of Right Belief
moves on, growing and wilting and growing again
as it must.
What is a man
who heralds the New Age
leaping over each right step,
despising his wife,
comparing womankind to Jews
and Jews to rats,
pledging allegiance to murderers
and their fools,
mistaking the crunch of dead leaves
for the choir of green overhead,
dust in suspension
for the ever-speeding photon?
What is this man
but a feckless shade, a footnote
we must cite once then be done with
if we are to reach spring, April, and the first full moon
after the equinox.
to become nothing more than a historical footnote,
having reformed from without all of Right Belief,
only there is no reformation from without,
there is no life apart from the church, there is no redemption
without once travelling through hell. For heaven and hell are one:
the same space, the same passage through motionless time,
the same presence of God experienced by both sinners and saints
in different but equal ways. The Anglican church disappears
swallowed up by parliament, by false dichotomies
of liberalism and conservatism, of tradition and modernity,
Cranmer's raking up of old dead documents
spitting out a single footnote -- and the rest of Right Belief
moves on, growing and wilting and growing again
as it must.
What is a man
who heralds the New Age
leaping over each right step,
despising his wife,
comparing womankind to Jews
and Jews to rats,
pledging allegiance to murderers
and their fools,
mistaking the crunch of dead leaves
for the choir of green overhead,
dust in suspension
for the ever-speeding photon?
What is this man
but a feckless shade, a footnote
we must cite once then be done with
if we are to reach spring, April, and the first full moon
after the equinox.