fooling god - louise erdrich

I must become small and hide where he cannot reach.
I must become dull and heavy as an iron pot.
I must be tireless as rust and bold as roots
growing through the locks on doors
and crumbling the conderblocks
of the foundations of his everlasting throne.
I must be strange as pity so he'll believe me.
I must be terrible and brush my hair
so that he finds me attractive.
Perhaps if I invoke Clare, the patron saint of television.
Perhaps if I become the images
passing through the cells of a woman's brain.

I must become very large and block his sight.
I must be sharp and impetuous as knives.
I must insert myself into the bark of his apple trees,
and cleave the bones of his cows. I must be the marrow
that he drinks into his cloud-wet body.
I must be careful and laugh when he laughs.
I must turn down the covers and guide him in.
I must fashion his children out of playdough, blue, pink, green.
I must pull them from between my legs
and set them before the television.

I must hide my memory in a mustard grain
so that he'll search for it over time until time is gone.
I must lose myself in the world's regard and disparagement.
I must remain this person and be no trouble.
None at all. So he'll forget.
I'll collect dust out of reach,
a single dish from a set, a flower made of felt,
a tablet the wrong shape to choke on.

I must become essential and file everything
under my own system,
so we can lose him and his proofs and adherents.
I must be a doubter in a city of belief
that hails his signs (the great footprints
long as limousines, the rough print on the wall).
On the pavement where his house begins
fainting women kneel. I'm not among them
although they polish the brass tongues of his lions
with their own tongues
and taste the everlasting life.

Erdrich, Louise. "Fooling God" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 326-328.

poetry and religion: les murray

Religions are poems. The concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture

into the only whole thinking: poetry.
Nothing's said till it's dremed out in words
and nothing's true that figures in words only.

A poem, compared with an arrayed religion,
may be like a soldier's one short marriage night
to die and live by. But that is a small religion.

Full religion is the large poem flowing in repetition;
like any poem, it must be inexhaustible and complete
with turns where we ask Now why did the poet do that?

You can't pray a lie, said Huckleberry Finn;
you can't poe one either. It is the same mirror:
mobile, glancing, we call it poetry,

fixed centrally, we call it religion,
and God is the poetry caught in any religion,
caught, not imprisoned. Caught as in a mirror

that he attracted, being in the world as poetry
is in the poem, a law against its closure.
There'll always be religion around while there is poetry

or a lack of it. Both are given, and intermittent,
as the action of those birds - crested pigeon, rosella parrot -
who fly with wings shut, then beating, and again shut.

Murray, Les. "Poetry and Religion" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. Ed. David Impastato, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 127-128.

the translation of raimundo luz: my imitation - scott cairns

I sold my possessions, even the colorful pencils.
I gave all my money to the dull. I gave my poverty
to the preseident. I became a child again, naked
and relatively innocent. I let the president have my guilt.

I found a virgin and asked her to be my mother.
She held me very sweetly.

I watched father build beautiful shapes with wood.
He too had a gentle way.

I made conversation in holy places with the chosen.
Their theater was grim.

I suggested they cheer up. Many repented,
albeit elaborately.

I floated the wide river on a raft.
I set Jim free.

I revised every word.
One morning, very early, I was taken by brutes and beaten.
I was nailed to a cross so sturdy I thought
father himself might have shaped it.

I gestured for a cool drink and was mocked.
I took on the sins of the world and regretted my extravagance.
I gave up and died. I descended into hell
and spoke briefly with the president.

I rose again, bloodless and feeling pretty good.

I forgave everything.

Cairns, Scott. "The Translation of Raimundo Luz: My Imitation" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 157.

the translation of raimundo luz: my incredulity - scott cairns

Lazarus, of course,
is another story altogether.

Lazarus does not
engage my better self, nor interest me.

Drink twice from the same
wrong cup? Say the idiot boy falls down,

gets back up and falls
again - this is some great trick?

Our giddy crowd should swoon?
Does the first runner turn back to mock the lost?

And if he does, should we
praise him for his extravagant bad taste?

No. His sort will not
profit close attention. His story -

neither lawful nor
expedient. Tear your linens to winding cloth.

Wrap him once for all.
When you've finished with your napkin, bind his lips.

He has had his say.
Bury Lazarus as often as it takes.


Cairns, Scott. "The Translation of Raimundo Luz: My Incredulity" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 319-320.

the pastor praises the creator - david citino

Dearly beloved, I mean today
to praise the God who gave the tribes
wine, the crisp flesh of suckling pig,
then told them "Thou must not."

Who gave them swords and ploughshares,
lambs and lions, demons and redeemers.
Who made half of them like pestles,
half like mortars, then told them

in themselves they were complete.
Cool soothing fingers and fevers
between the legs. Reason and gooseflesh,
curtains and candles, lightning and oak,

seven days to live and as many sins,
lungs and mold, books and blind men, veins
and age. Who fashioned them a harvest home,
then created wanderlust and roads.

Citino, David. "The Pastor Praises the Creator" Upholding Mystery: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Poetry. David Impastato, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 262.