(and god did nothing)

in darkness he went down
in a braille of feet and saltwater sand
to the sea awayed he
from the so-called promised land

who would be torn if not he for he
for the span of what was and never would be
his tears only added to the plan
a gram worth nothing, impotent man

in silence he laid down
under veil of nori and saltwater cran
to the sea awayed he
from a post-coital life spent in remand

who would mourn if not he for he
for the span of what was and never would be
his fears only added to the plan
a gram worth nothing, impotent man

child of god
he prayed for something good and true
slave of god
swallowed instead by the reckoning blue

in parentheses he drowned
into vale of drib and saltwater dram
to the sea awayed he
from the parochial feckoning hand

who would have borne if not he for he
for the span of what was and never would be
his tears and fears added to the plan
a gram worth nothing, impotent man

child of god
he begged for something good and true
slave of god
swallowed instead by the beckoning blue

child of god
into a sea of no avail
slave of god
to the reckoning sea travailed he

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019

58 thoughts on “(and god did nothing)”

  3. Loved your comments, Tony! 😁 Before getting on with the chitter-chatter let me vibe off the poem a bit more. Lots of people get bent out of shape by religion, specially the dogmatic flavors, and make the brave choice to split like you did, but alas too many of them throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have been blessed with wonderful mind-melting soul-melding numenal experiences so I don’t have to take it on faith, I know that the spiritual realm is real and especially the divine benevolence. And that makes a BIG impact on my life & attitude.

    So I’m hopin’ that your soul didn’t get warped into some kind of sour skepticism from your bad experience. There’s lots of stuff I could ref about this but I sure don’t wanna come across as another preachy beetchy. Then eureka I remembered this one, very moving and with two big buttons for ya: the man expressed his sublime experience very poetically, and it happened to his protagonist while he was drowning! Like when the ‘you’ of your poem jumped into the ocean THIS is what happened to him instead of what he/you were expecting.

    https://arieskindred.wordpress.com/2015/03/26/total-surrender/

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    • The drowning man saw the drama of the world: suns and stars rolled up, rolled down; choirs of men and animals, spirits and angels, stood facing one another, sang, fell silent, shouted; processions of living beings marched toward one another, each misunderstanding himself, hating himself, and hating and persecuting himself in every other being.

      I especially liked this bit. It made me feel, however briefly, a little less alone in the world… a little more connected. Oddly.

      Liked by 1 person

  4. I’m in a younger gen but my brother Vince (who you may recall from my nuthouse post) is your age and he has an in-frickin’-credible collection of comics, all genres, including some he got from our father. He shares freely with me so I’m up on the artform to a pretty high degree.

    Have you done any animation since college? Maybe you have some on YouTube or somewhere? I’m working on my first video, & animation is so cool but oops I’m gettin’ waaaay ahead of the game here! In any case I hope we can continue our little chat. I have some things in mind in tune with the subject of your poem, but will close for now.

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    • I’ve done no animation since college. My creative efforts have been mostly focused on comics as that is my first love, and always has been (although animation does come a close second). Would love to see the results of your first video! 🙂

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    • I’m cautiously complimented that you’d like to see my video. It’s not online yet cuz not finished, but I could send you a preview by email. Your addy is on Gravatar but as a traddie (just an old-fashioned gal 👧 with a few new twists 😈) I follow the custom that a lady shouldn’t go first in such things. So here’s mine and thou canst do what thou wilt, Milord:

      pflonightingale@gmail.com

      But we have a couple big hoops first. Today the political firmament is riven with strifes which divide people as strongly as the old religious ones. Partisans see perfectly human people in the opposite camp as evil perps of the most hideous heresies. A quick perusal of my blog will show ya where I’m at in that contentious spectrum. I have a feeling you would be amused & titillated by the gist of my video, but there might be some distasteful grist in the mill…

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  6. I read this book by a woman who plied the trade for a long time before opting out of the cult:

    She described everything with great sensitivity including the terrible inner struggle at the end to risk her soul by breaking from the group, which she had been in since she was a teenager. You would probably like that part.

    Did your own religious drama happen in Russia? Baptists must be a tiny minority there among the Orthodox & other Christian sects.

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    Reply

    • Mundane?? The wizardous land of Oz? Surely you jest! 😉 But ofc the grass is always greener across the pond, familiarity breeds contempt, etc.

      I wonder what drew you to the Cyrillic Empire where I guess you met Tati, had a show in Croatia & who knows what other adventures? 😁

      BTW I thought you were bretty gud at the language for an ESL person. But now that I know your true tongue of origin you have no excuses for any grammatical fraculations! 😆

      Liked by 2 people

  7. Yes indeed! It’s called the Children of God, which was the reason for my guess. They’re still in biz last I heard but on a much smaller scale than their glory days of the 1970s & 80s which was the peak of *flirty fishing*. Here’s another booklet cover about it:

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    • In all honesty, I seriously worry that I might have been totally sucked in by such tactics, an admission that admittedly doesn’t make me look very good on a whole number of levels… but, alas, it’s true.

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    • Miriam (the Harlot authoress) was one of the best flirty fishers because she was totally sincere. At least a minority of her “fish” (the men she converted) were very happy to have been won to the love of Jesus by means of her physical acts of love with them. Some of them fell madly romantically in love with her, and she weaned them away into love for Jesus as manifest in the group.

      This group practiced some pretty bad stuff, but it was only possible because of the positive collective experience underlying it. I.e. if people didn’t feel so committed to their religious family, the leader Mo (Moses David) couldn’t have got away with all the crazy stuff he made them do.

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    • There’s always a search for truth or peace or even a slice of chocolate cake at the heart of these things, and then they get distorted beyond all recognition. We humans seem to have a propensity to turn good and natural desires into something very very harmful. I don’t know why that is.

      Liked by 1 person

  8. I like poetry but I LOVE this kind of poetry! It’s top of the mark, hi-calibre, & just bee-yoo-tee-ful! Wonderful wordplay to vent such deep feelings, wow.
    It makes me curious which religious group you were in. You said “child of god” so I wonder if it’s this one:

    If so, then I’ll have more to say.

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    Reply

    • This is the group that went fishing for souls by using female believers as ‘bait’, yes? I watched a documentary about it once, but no, I was not part of this religious group. It was an ordinary conservative Baptist one. (And thank you so much for your very kind words!) 😛

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