Friday, May 19, 2017

If it smells like a rose …

If it smells like a rose …


It probably is
If it smells so.
Probably not
When you so know.

How so
With an institution?
Something as basic
As the American Constitution.

When a certain Article
Legitimates the manner
Of election,
Only one wins the banner.

An Amendment, First,
Announced freedoms
Institutionally allocated,
Created necessary legislative tediums.

When dissatisfied with
The banner bearer,
And institutional respect
Identifies no error,

Unhappy, some press
For executive removal and
Joined by legislative losers left,
Wax reproval.

Those left out
Lost.
Only left now with fire,
We teeter on chaos.

With ne’er a scintilla
Of deep inspection,
A thousand baseless fits
Form insurrection.

What then smells
Like a rose?
The Constitution
We chose!


Friday, April 28, 2017

Too Many Notes

Too Many Notes

Remember the line
By the emperor
In Amadeus? A whine
From an uneducated lecturer.

The king had no credentials
In the specialty of music.
His knowing only tangential
 He misused it.

“Too Many Notes,”
How did he know?
As emperor he outvotes
Those in positions below.

So, let’s take Bill Nye,
The all-knowing
Science guy,
Whose umbrage is showing.

This mere mortal
Who calculates the future for us all
Believes himself the portal
Of understanding, to him only befall.

It is not umbrage necessarily
That certifies his arrogance,
It is hatred of God, primarily
HIS ongoing creation. Nye is incensed.

“I can be God,
Science backs me up.
My purview is broad
With an overflowing of my cup.”

“The Church is destroyed.
It was science and I
Our method now enjoyed.
‘Lo, the hour of freedom nigh.’”

No, not so fast
You feeble one!
Your method cannot last,
Your work is actually finished, done.

Too many people on earth?
You’ve made a calculated threat
To God Who gives birth.
Your life, too, owed, debt.

Nye, you have no compassion,
Abortion is just another right.
Euthanasia is a process to cash in
Body parts of the dead,  a fury ignite.

You, of all scientists,
Should know science’s premise.
The Church gave you Enlightenment
Now time for your penance.

You cannot create the world,
You can only kill it.
Is that what your science will unfurl?
Can you undo what God writ?

Think it over.
You have a brain.
Give up your hostile takeover
And let the earth remain.


Ode to My Nose

 ODE TO MY NOSE

Perfectly positioned
On the front of my face,
Protrude two nostrils missioned
To cover a certain space.

Mine, appropriately shaped.
I don’t know about the rest.
Some exquisitely draped
In the form Romanesque.

Regardless, all of them drip
From time to time
Falling toward the lip
With an opaque slime.

Though in a dripping situation
That slime do I seethe,
I am grateful for my station
As a person who breathes.


Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Children

Children

Have you taken time to consider the source of life,
The unfathomable mystery of our being?
The richness of our breathing rife
With gracious gifts for our finite seeing.

Consider the children of our affection
Helpless but unwittingly trusting in our arms,
To nurture and provide protection
From the world’s devious charms.

What can a God-less society provide
As basis for the moral life?
Its secularist pendulum sways to one side,
But its return cuts as a knife.

The secular is never permanent
It changes with the winds
Bringing to our detriment
No stable community, our chagrin.

So how do we protect His little ones,
The Holy Vulnerables He loves so dearly?
For the good of our daughters and sons
Our tasks can be stated clearly.

'Roe v. Wade' is a prison,
Its legal cuffs allow no room
For the pre-born children of the One Risen,
He Who walked away from the tomb.

Now is the time
To turn the legal table.
A time now ripe and prime,
A sinful law to disable.

2017


Saturday, April 15, 2017

Mary At The Cross

Mary At The Cross

At the Cross her station keeping,
Stood the mournful Mother weeping,
Close to Jesus to the last.

Through her heart, His sorrow sharing,
All His bitter anguish bearing
Now at length the sword has passed.

Oh, how sad and sore distressed
Was that Mother highly blessed
Of the sole begotten One!

Christ above in torment hangs,
She beneath beholds the pangs
Of her dying, glorious Son.

Is there one who would not weep
‘Whelmed in miseries so deep
Christ’s dear Mother to behold?

Can the human heart refrain
From partaking in her pain,
In that Mother’s pain untold?

Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,
She beheld her tender Child,
All with bloody scourges rent.

For the sins of His own nation
Saw Him hang in desolation
Till His spirit forth He sent.

O sweet mother, fount of love,
Touch my spirit from above,
Make my heart with yours accord.

Make me feel as you have felt;
Make my soul to glow and melt
With the love of Christ, my Lord.

Holy Mother, pierce me through,
In my heart each wound renew
Of my Savior crucified.

Let me share with you His pain,
Who for all our sins was slain,
Who for me in torments died.

Mix’d with yours let my tears be,
Mourning Him Who mourned for me,
All the days that I may live.

By the Cross with you to stay,
There with you to weep and pray,
Is all I ask of you to give.

Virgin of all virgins blest!
Listen to my fond request:
Let me share that grief of yours.

Let me, to my latest breath,
In my body bear the death
Of that dying Son of yours.

Wounded with His every wound,
Steep my soul till it has swooned
In His very Blood away.

Be to me, I Virgin, nigh,
Lest in flames I burn and die,
In this awful judgment day.

Christ, when You shall call me hence,
Be Your Mother my defense,
Be Your Cross my victory.

While my body here decays,
May my soul Your goodness praise,
Safe in heaven eternally.
AMEN.


Source: Rev. Hugo H. Hoever, S.O.Cist., Ph.D., ed. Saint Joseph Daily Missal. (New York: Catholic Book Publishing Company, 1961, New Edition), 252-253.


This sequence hymn was established for Friday in Passion Week. It is included in one of the seven sorrows (dolors) of The Blessed Virgin Mary.


A sequence (Latin: sequentia) is a chant or hymn sung or recited during the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, before the proclamation of the Gospel. 



Friday, April 14, 2017

Per Omnia Secula Seculorum

Per Omnia Secula Seculorum

 After seventeen hundred years
Western man, enlightened,
Challenged ecclesial peers
With reason, new life to heighten.

Birthed in the tradition
Of The Way,
This rational ambition
Aimed to keep the Church at bay.

No longer any authority revealed,
No transcendent absolute.
A new rationale to wield
Fluid thought making the Word moot.

Indisputable benefit from
This thought-provoked alliance
New depths to plumb
Discovery of modern science.

Though great its gift
To humankind abound,
It began its drift
From absolute ground.

Progressive thought
Lives in the abstract,
Its moorings fraught
With no absolute truths to transact.

Enlightened people crown
Themselves with scientific certainty
Using governments and law to drown
Out any opposing views fervently.

They decide to call
Themselves secular,
To distance from all
The religiously spectacular.

The secular don’t want to hear
Of any tradition in the public square.
Rhetoric is what they fear
From traditionalist who dare.

Diversity is the thought of the day,
A tolerance for almost any.
But listen closely to what they say,
Because they tolerate not the many.

If Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh,
Or Yellow, Brown, or Black,
The secular consider them weak
Because of the Christian historical track.

The secular controls the square
Admitting only what it allows.
While denying who gave it air
To the ungodly it bows.

But there is no secular,
So to this thought make a moratorium.
God’s universe is bound molecular,
Per omnia secula seculorum.


WENjr

Thursday, March 23, 2017

My Musing Reason

My Musing Reason

At seventy-three I find
My thoughts and writings emerge
From my mind
With hardly a surge.

Then there are times
When an unknown Source
Creates lyrics of rhyme
Like water flowing its course.

That Spirit might hover
For hours, days, or weeks at a time.
Any writer covets this Lover
With powers so sublime.

In the low country of the tall palmetto
With that Source an artist wrote
A prose, a fluid libretto
Painting life from within an encircling moat.

But at the yellowing of his physical frame,
Came a visit from his Guide.
At first acknowledging his prosaic flame
 He then said, “Come home to Me, abide.”

There is a time for everything under heaven,
For everything there is a reason.
His artistic life was literary leaven,
Never a losing season.