[David Callin]

At the Abbey entrance,
normally card only
according to the signs,
they are asking for cash.
Their Internet has been down
all week, with little prospect
of early resolution,
no matter how often they call.

Isn't that always the way
with those great providers
who offer you the earth:
vast, impersonal
and utterly unhelpful,
hopefully not like Himself.

[Carl Copeland]

Can’t sympathize with you here, David. I’ve been waiting for the day when I go to check out, and they say, “Sorry, we don’t accept cash.” Or worse, when there’s no checkout staff to say anything. I don’t have long to wait, but until then, I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a loaf of bread with a card. Great last line, though.

[John Riley]

David, I almost consistently like your poems but this one falls a little flat for me. It lacks most of your usual wit and charm and doesn’t quite escape a complaint. The internet being down and the inconvenience of not being able to use your card is a fairly common happening, and while I note the attempt to parallel that with god notion I don’t think it rises far enough from a grumble to have that work.

Maybe I’m ignorant of something specific about the abbey that would alter that?

I bet others will think differently. I wanted to give my honest read and am willing to see it differently. I’ll come back if I have suggestions but your poems are so your style I doubt they’d be helpful.

[Deborah J. Shore]

Hi, David,

This strikes me as trying a tad too hard with the grand gestures/connections. And piling in the explanations gets prosaic to boot. I think that connecting the conceit both to the temptations of Christ as well as to the human relationship to God is part of why it doesn't hold for me. Additionally, I would generally find it hard to jump from the convenience of credit cards directly to the temptations of earthly power. It might work better just focusing on God, and here is my quick slash and paste example of how that might look.

Also, I might make the first line the title just to trim, to universalize (it will still be clear it is a specific abbey), etc.

Originally Posted by David Callin

At the Abbey entrance,
normally card only
according to the signs,
they are asking for cash.
Their Internet has been down
all week, with little prospect
of early resolution,
no matter how often they call.

Isn't that always the way
with those great providers,
who offer you the earth:
vast, impersonal,
and utterly unhelpful,
hopefully not like Himself.
hopefully unlike God.

Good to read you,
Deborah

[David Callin]

I've fallen into that trap with the card, Carl, but it is an exclusive movement to get into. Some people need cash, and its absence also impedes the odd charitable gesture. Who has loose change any more? Actually, I do like to keep a supply about me. Or you just end up as we did in a Pret in London recently, where, rather than giving a homeless guy cash, you just buy him a nice sandwich and a salad. Which, to be fair, is probably a better idea.

That's fair enough, John. It was the effusion of a moment, which I duly jotted down. Sometimes they come off and sometimes they don't. But Walsingham is a funny place. Stuffed with religiosity, like an outpost of pious Italy in North Norfolk.

Hi Deborah. Thanks for your take on it. I will have a think about those tweaks.

Cheers all

David

[Jim Moonan]

.
I don't dismiss this like the others. I like the easy leap of your thoughts — because your thoughts often have caveats and grist for tangental thinking (my favorite form of thinking : )). For example, the last line casually injects gender into the conceit of the poem and, in so doing, adds a surprising final dig at the rest of the poem's parabolic nature. It led me to thinking of how men through the ages have concocted a God paradigm to be a reflection of themselves and how self-incriminating that is. That led to thinking of how women have been quashed through the ages. Brutalized in the strict sense of the word. In retrospect our assigning a gender to a force we cannot fathom is primitive.

Anyway, when a poem presents itself we try our best to write it down. That's what this poem represents to me: an easy target churned into verse. John pointing out that "the internet being down and the inconvenience of not being able to use your card is a fairly common happening" seems to miss the point, imo. The fact, too, that he goes on to say the poem "lacks most of your usual wit and charm" seems to imply that your brand of wit and charm are necessary to elevate this poem. But maybe it lacks elevation because religiosity fails to elevate these days. It's a tired, beleaguered, hollowed out institution. Hence, there is an emptiness to the N's revelation.

Isn't it ironic that religion in contemporary poetry under any guise seems to almost always spark an intellectual backlash? But let a child kneel beside their bed and pray to a God they've been told is listening for happiness in exchange for goodness and our hearts ache with desire to be a child again.

It sounds both silly and profound to say "God is Dog", but it's entirely possible in the scope of my imagination to think that God is neither male nor female — especially not human. If God exists as a human then all humans are collectively God. That's a cop-out. But what about dogs? What about our capacity for unconditional love? Why is God always representative? Transactional? Why can't it just be understood that a force, an energy we cannot fathom, is present within every thinking thing? A dog in our heads? Get on with the miracle of living and dying? Let go?

Maybe I'm just in another one of my morning moods...

.

[John Riley]

Jim, I have to say you couldn’t be more wrong about me and religiosity, which, btw, has little to do with the theme that I see. Regarding me, although I am not a Christian, I have an intense interest in everything religious. Stacked beside my chair right now is a study of the Abraham and Issac almost sacrifice and how it penetrated both books of the Bible. Another is an analysis of how Yahweh became the god of the Israelites. Two are on how the Hebrew Bible was written. There’s more. At this moment I’m reading about the massive conflicts between Jesus and Paul.

My issue with David’s poem is I felt that the parts didn’t make a whole, not what it was about. I thought I made that clear. Perhaps it’s best to focus your comment on the poem and not editorializing on the other comments.

[Jim Moonan]

.
John, does this make us two kettles calling each other black???
So be it. We are two black kettles. I mean that lightly. My reference to your comments was simply meant to juxtapose my own reading with, for example, yours. I could have just as easily taken issue with Deborah or Carl. We do it often here in the spirit of dialog. I certainly didn’t mean to cross the line. If I did, I respectfully step back.

Wrong or right, we all have the privilege of seeing different themes in the same poem. My comments, in part, were focused on what I thought you and others overlooked, in hopes of maybe persuading you to re-read with a new view: religion has been deflated to be a shell of what it once was. It’s on the blink. That’s what I got from the poem. I did, in fact, notice the decided shift in David’s usual tenor that includes generous amounts of wit and charm. I thought that to be intentional, even if it was unintentional.

Your readings sound interesting and I wish I could claim to be as steeped in classical religious literature and literature as a whole. Alas, it’s all I can do to read the NYT op-eds : ). I rely on poetry and its fallout to balance the scales. At this point in my creaking life I’ve made a calculated decision to not stress over my lack of book knowledge. Since becoming a Spherean there has been a welcome uptick in my reading activity. I have some book knowledge, but not nearly the amount that many do here. I’m grateful that it doesn’t negate my thoughts/ideas, and I’m always willing to eat crow, a hat, or swallow a bitter pill if I have to. Humility is my harbor.

Funny you should mention the Abraham and Issac almost-sacrifice. Just yesterday I came across one of my favorite L. Cohen songs/lyrics. Here its is. When I played guitar this song was one of my favorites to play.
The biblical story of Abraham and Issac is among the most chilling accounts in the Bible (and that’s saying something when you think of the plethora of punishment that the Old Guy inflicted). Then comes the new and improved testament when God largely reinvents himself by sacrificing his “only son”. It’s quite a turn around. I’m waiting for the third installment of the Bible to be found under a rock : ). As literature, I find the Bible a chore to read. I’ve read it, but it largely bores me.

My tongue is in my cheek for most of this response. You know how much I respect your poetic visions and opinions. I must admit that, even as I wrote my original response, I anticipated blowback. I’ll take it. But I still contend the poem is more than meets the eye of most readers thus far.

Don’t shoot me. You’ll only lose a fan : )


This is agreat live version of Cohen singing "The Story of Abraham and Issac" with artwork to compliment the story. Live in concert, Cohen was another dimension entirely. Transcendent.


.