I would like to have a section just for religious poems, so if an administrator sees this and deems it worthy, I would appreciate it. I get most material I read from the library. I would love to keep some for posterity and for all to enjoy, but since I have to return the books, I would love to share them here. Anyway here is the first of many. Comment away.
Christ Meets Lucifer
Bertil Malmerg
Who set the Stage? Who chose the time, the place?
That suddenly they stood there, face to face?
High on a lonely cliff they chanced to meet,
The azure valley's castles at their feet,
A city named Evasion far below
Shining through the tree trunks, pale as snow
And Christ saw to the bottom of his soul,
Saw lust and sadness and their ghastly toll.
And Christ thought: "Here is one who must
Know that all living things are transient dust,
And deep within his being I surmise
A sympathy with everything that dies."
And Christ's stern love could clearly see
A love of charming, drug-like quality,
Yes, like a drug, a powerful witches brew,
But lacking strength to heal and build anew,
A mildness, different from his own,
which hesitated, flickered, as it shone.
Christ thought: "But to the sating of desires
And self glorification he aspires.
He wants to change all things, make them dissolve
And watch an eerie shadowland evolve.
And even though his heart may cry
For all that withers and is bound to die,
His actions, governed by an arrant mind
Cannot be merciful or kind.
Yes, in his love, etheral and unreal,
There is a hardness as of ice and steel.
And if he had the power to bestow
The balm of truth upon a world of woe.
That power would remain unspent.
Only with dampend cloth and liniment,
Ambiguous magic tricks, a weird refrain,
Secretive, moonlike he approaches pain.
No, not damnation's fearful scourge,
The wail of tortured souls, a hellish dirge
In an eternal chorus, would
He stay or baffle if he could.
For only upon treacherous ground
Are his illusive gardens to be found.
Seductive, spectacular is his domain,
Full of futility and sex and pain
Where asphodels in silvery meadows sway
And stone-blind herons, shadow fountains play,
And limbs, hypnotically blue and sheer,
Flit through the mist and disappear."
And Christ saw to the bottom of his need,
Saw disillusionment, deception, greed
With judgelike clarity his eyes looked straight
Into the depths of Satan's dreamlike fate,
And all was muteness. Christ was still
But for his breast, which rose and rose, until
There glowed upon his forhead, where he stood,
The word "Awaken", like a cross of blood.
Immutable and cold and grim,
His cloak already gathered around him,
Before Reality's great son
The duke of Shadowland, the Evil One,
Stood there transfixed by his own ban--
The wrath of God, enbodied in this man.
And presently, with a disdainful frown,
His eyes were lowered, and he started down
A stairway lined with sphinxes, --down into
His beckoning gardens, tropically blue.
But having reached the city's gate, he found
Himself compelled to turn around.
He glanced along the stairway once again,
Up to the cliff, anxious to ascertain
If he, up there, had left his lofty stand
And wandered back into his own land.
Then this uneasiness would be allowed
To leave his mind and vanish like a cloud,
And the slightest remnant be diffused.
--That pair of eyes, which soberly accused
Would then forever leave his soul. On wings
of filmy silver they would soar
To dwell amongst forgotten things.
But Christ stood on the mountain as before.
Christ Meets Lucifer
Bertil Malmerg
Who set the Stage? Who chose the time, the place?
That suddenly they stood there, face to face?
High on a lonely cliff they chanced to meet,
The azure valley's castles at their feet,
A city named Evasion far below
Shining through the tree trunks, pale as snow
And Christ saw to the bottom of his soul,
Saw lust and sadness and their ghastly toll.
And Christ thought: "Here is one who must
Know that all living things are transient dust,
And deep within his being I surmise
A sympathy with everything that dies."
And Christ's stern love could clearly see
A love of charming, drug-like quality,
Yes, like a drug, a powerful witches brew,
But lacking strength to heal and build anew,
A mildness, different from his own,
which hesitated, flickered, as it shone.
Christ thought: "But to the sating of desires
And self glorification he aspires.
He wants to change all things, make them dissolve
And watch an eerie shadowland evolve.
And even though his heart may cry
For all that withers and is bound to die,
His actions, governed by an arrant mind
Cannot be merciful or kind.
Yes, in his love, etheral and unreal,
There is a hardness as of ice and steel.
And if he had the power to bestow
The balm of truth upon a world of woe.
That power would remain unspent.
Only with dampend cloth and liniment,
Ambiguous magic tricks, a weird refrain,
Secretive, moonlike he approaches pain.
No, not damnation's fearful scourge,
The wail of tortured souls, a hellish dirge
In an eternal chorus, would
He stay or baffle if he could.
For only upon treacherous ground
Are his illusive gardens to be found.
Seductive, spectacular is his domain,
Full of futility and sex and pain
Where asphodels in silvery meadows sway
And stone-blind herons, shadow fountains play,
And limbs, hypnotically blue and sheer,
Flit through the mist and disappear."
And Christ saw to the bottom of his need,
Saw disillusionment, deception, greed
With judgelike clarity his eyes looked straight
Into the depths of Satan's dreamlike fate,
And all was muteness. Christ was still
But for his breast, which rose and rose, until
There glowed upon his forhead, where he stood,
The word "Awaken", like a cross of blood.
Immutable and cold and grim,
His cloak already gathered around him,
Before Reality's great son
The duke of Shadowland, the Evil One,
Stood there transfixed by his own ban--
The wrath of God, enbodied in this man.
And presently, with a disdainful frown,
His eyes were lowered, and he started down
A stairway lined with sphinxes, --down into
His beckoning gardens, tropically blue.
But having reached the city's gate, he found
Himself compelled to turn around.
He glanced along the stairway once again,
Up to the cliff, anxious to ascertain
If he, up there, had left his lofty stand
And wandered back into his own land.
Then this uneasiness would be allowed
To leave his mind and vanish like a cloud,
And the slightest remnant be diffused.
--That pair of eyes, which soberly accused
Would then forever leave his soul. On wings
of filmy silver they would soar
To dwell amongst forgotten things.
But Christ stood on the mountain as before.
