The Passion Stated As Jazz

THE PASSION STATED AS JAZZ

(A poem some people will just have to understand.)
 
“It is a terrible thing to be happy!
How pleased we are with it!
How sufficient we think it!
How,
being in possession of the false aim of life,
happiness,
we forget the true aim,
duty!”
                                                      Victor Hugo, Le Miserables
 
The act of pain is received and self
Gifted through the anguished response to love
 
To and through the father.
 
This love bleeds through the descending veil of
Administered forty nine stripes. Our only hope
 
Our only chance for salvation is gifted us and
 
We perhaps mistake it for a ticket to happy town. He died
To make us happy is the catch phrase
 
We dare not speak or even consciously
 
Acknowledge less we find ourselves seeing ourselves our
True selves in the mirror of the
 
Word. Christian means “Little Christ” but where
 
Is our Gethsemane our Calvary our ugly place of the
Skull where we forsake this merry go
 
Round laughter and grinning containing joyless
 
Happiness and money. Yes, we cannot forget the
Money. We think prosperity equals Holiness and this
 
Holiness is displayed in how we manicure our
 
Front lawns to protect the property values and
Important little sensibilities of the neighbors and
 
Appear the good little Christian to the world.
 
This Jazz is a Cinderella song,
If the shoe fits put it on…
 
The act of pain through the anguished response to
Love bleeding through the descending veil of
 
Forty nine stripes.
 
This is the joy!
This is the duty!
This is the song!
 
This is and always has been our only freedom.  

 

From Book: "Christian Poems and Other Radical Explorations"


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