Friday 21 October 2011

Milk for the Road

Milk for the road

Subtle sickly sweet hypocrisies
turn them sour overnight
xenophobic by morning
Police and men from the council
demand that we move on
from their picturesque village
and neighbourly people
We are breaking the law
of aesthetic ambiance
causing the people
to become transmogrified
by our vicinity
to their cocoon
of acceptable association

This is one of the first poems I wrote.
It's about my family being moved on by police and council men
which was a regular occurrence.

What is truth?

For many people
If the personal delusion of who they think they are
were removed from them
then their personality would collapse
in a blithering heap of disorientation.

The truth of who we are is in how we are seen by God.
The truth is not in our own judgement or opinion or criterion or fantasy
the truth of who we are is what God sees when He looks at us.

By nature we compare ourselves with other people,
and by nature we need to find someone or something to be less than we are.
But at the end of the day it's all a human folly that can and has become an evil.
We are already witnesses to what can happen when the flaws in human nature become a political dogma legislated into law.
The beginning of knowing the truth is to see ourselves as a sinner in the sight of God.
This is the first photo in the album of seeing ourselves as God sees us.

Thou God seest me. Genesis 16:13.

Herrenvolk.

From the corner of my eye
I can almost see
in a recess of my mind
something dark is watching me
Moving in shadows
but not caused by light
emanating darkness

Held at the gate
by the keeper of the keys
kept in quarantine like a disease
Endlessly pacing
the confines of it's cell
Glaring defiantly
with the venom of hell

Here is
The accuser of my soul
the robber of my peace

Here is
The hand of iron
fashioned in a cross
fashioned to deceive

Here is
The God of racial supremacy
the master of the master race
the destroyer of worlds

And from you where can I flee
to the highest mountain or the deep blue sea
I will take you there with me.

Jackboot

As you get older you tend to see or have more of a handle on things as they are.
When you're younger you're full of ideals, you want to change the world.
Then one day you catch a glimpse in the mirror you don't like and realize this is the you that's just as bad as all the people you had wanted to save the world from.
Then you know you're not just the victim of all the bad stuff that goes on in the world you're also the perpetrator.
I suppose that's got something to do with the young being full of ideals and people who are a bit older receding into resignation.
Jesus said to his disciples - "you have more to learn but you cannot bear it all just now." I think some of what they could not bear was the truth about themselves in the sight of God.

Does this mean we should do nothing - No, we should still try but to me - not to change the world but to change one heart at a time beginning with our own.
What we need to find within ourselves is not the "good" but the "Jackbooted Goose-stepping Nazi." Subdue this part of ourselves first then the good will come.

2 comments:

  1. You do well at challenging and changing hearts, Jimmy. Thank you for making me think beyond the box.

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  2. Thank you Freda,that is kind of you.
    Your comment led me to think of this verse,
    I eventually found it, Proverbs 12:25.
    Anxiety weighs down the heart,
    but a kind word cheers it up.

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