These are poems about atheism, agnosticism and the loss of faith. I grew up in an evangelical Christian family with missionaries, pastors, a deacon, and Sunday school teachers including my mother. But I read the Bible from cover to cover at age 11 and I couldn't understand how anyone could call the biblical god "good." I read the Bible from cover to cover again as an adult and came to the same conclusion.
In His Kingdom of Corpses
by Michael R. Burch
1.
In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many enraged discourses,
aghast, from some mountain peak
where He’s lectured men on “compassion”
while the sparrows around Him fell
and babes, for His meager ration
of rain, died and went to hell,
unbaptized, for that’s His fashion.
2.
In His kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to vent
in many obscure discourses
on the need for man to repent,
to admit he’s a lust-addled sinner;
give up threesomes and riches and fame;
to be disciplined at his dinner
though always he dies the same,
whether fatter or thinner.
3.
In his kingdom of corpses,
God has been heard to speak
in many absurd discourses
of man’s Ego, precipitous Peak!,
while demanding praise and worship,
and the bending of every knee.
And though He sounds like the Devil,
all good Christian men agree:
He loves them, indubitably.
Published by The Chimaera, Cyclamens and Swords and Lucid Rhythms
Nonbeliever
by Michael R. Burch writing as Kim Cherub
She smiled a thin-lipped smile
(What do men know of love?)
then rolled her eyes toward heaven
(Or that Chauvinist above?).
Keywords/Tags: Agnostic, Atheist, Chauvinist, Heresy, Heretical, God, Religion, Atheism, Nonbeliever
Is there any Light left?
by Michael R. Burch
Is there any light left?
Must we die bereft
of love and a reason for being?
Blind and unseeing,
rejecting and fleeing
our humanity, goat-hooved and cleft?
Is there any light left?
Must we die bereft
of love and a reason for living?
Blind, unforgiving,
unworthy of heaven
or this planet red, reeking and reft?
While “hoofed” is the more common spelling, I preferred “hooved” for this poem. Perhaps because of the contrast created by “love” and “hooved.”
Evil Cabal
by Michael R. Burch
those who do Evil
do not know why
what they do is wrong
as they spit in ur eye.
nor did Jehovah,
the original Devil,
when he murdered eve,
our lovely rebel.
Red State Religion Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch
I’d like to believe in your LORD
but I really can’t risk it
when his world is as badly composed
as a half-baked biscuit.
Enough!
by Michael R. Burch
It’s not that I don’t *want* to die;
I shall be glad to go.
Enough of diabetes pie,
and eating sickly crow!
Enough of win and place and show.
Enough of endless woe!
Enough of suffering and vice!
I’ve said it once;
I’ll say it twice:
I shall be *glad* to go.
But why the hell should I be nice
when no one asked for my advice?
So grumpily I’ll go ...
although
(most probably) below.
Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch
The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.
Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love’s wild insurrection
yield no certainty of a resurrection.
Man’s tried them both, has added tears,
chants, dances, drugs, séances, tombs’
white alabaster prayer-rooms, wombs
where dead men’s frozen genes convene ...
there is no answer—death is death.
So bury your son, and save your breath.
Or emulate earth’s “highest species”—
write a few strange poems and odd treatises.
"Altared" in the title is not a misspelling, but a play on the words "alter" and "altar" (as in a religious altar).
Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch
“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus (c. 345-402)
We had a common sky
before the Christians came.
We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.
The common stars above us?
They winked, and would not tell.
Yet now our fellow mortals claim
our questions merit hell!
The cause of our damnation?
They claim they’ve seen the LIGHT ...
but still the stars wink down at us,
as wiser beings might.
Well, Almost
by Michael R. Burch
All Christians say “Never again!”
to the inhumanity of men
(except when the object of phlegm
is a Palestinian).
Advice for Evangelicals
by Michael R. Burch
“... so let your light shine before men ...”
Consider the example of the woodland anemone:
she preaches no sermons but — immaculate — shines,
and rivals the angels in bright innocence and purity —
the sweetest of divines.
And no one has heard her engage in hypocrisy
since the beginning of time — an oracle so mute,
so profound in her silence and exemplary poise
she makes lessons moot.
So consider the example of the saintly anemone
and if you’d convince us Christ really exists,
then let him be just as sweet, just as guileless
and equally as gracious to bless.
Mayflies
by Michael R. Burch
These standing stones have stood the test of time
but *who* are you—and *what* are you—and *why*?
As brief as mist, as transient, as pale ...
*Inconsequential mayfly!*
Perhaps the thought of love inspired hope?
Do midges love? Do stars bend down to see?
Do gods commend the kindnesses of ants
to aphids? Does one eel impress the sea?
Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do the stars
regret the glowworm’s stellar mimicry
the day it dies? Does not the world grind on
as if it’s no great matter, not to be?
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose.
And yet somehow you’re *everything* to me.
Originally published by Clementine Unbound
Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch
A poem should be a wild, unearthly cry
against the thought of lying in the dark,
doomed—never having seen bright sparks leap high,
without a word for *flame*, none for the mark
an ember might emblaze on lesioned skin.
A poet is no crafty artisan—
the maker of some crock. He dreams of *flame*
he never touched, but—fakir’s courtesan—
must dance obedience, once called by name.
Thin wand, divine!, this world is too the same—
all watery ooze and flesh. Let fire cure
and quickly harden here what can endure.
Originally published by The Lyric
The ancient English scops were considered to be makers: for instance, in William Dunbar’s “Lament for the Makiris.” But in some modern literary circles poets are considered to be fakers, with lies being as good as the truth where art is concerned. Hence, this poem puns on “fakirs” and dancing snakes. But according to Shakespeare the object is to leave something lasting, that will stand test of time. Hence, the idea of poems being cured in order to endure. The “thin wand” is the poet’s pen, divining the elixir— the magical fountain of youth—that makes poems live forever.
O, My Redeeming Angel
by Michael R. Burch
O my Redeeming Angel, after we
have fought till death (and soon the night is done) ...
then let us rest awhile, await the sun,
and let us put aside all enmity.
I might have been the “victor”—who can tell?—
so many wounds abound. All out of joint,
my groin, my thigh ... and nothing to anoint
but sunsplit, shattered stone, as pillars hell.
Light, easy flight to heaven, Your return!
How hard, how dark, this path I, limping, walk.
I only ask Your blessing; no more talk!
Withhold Your name, and yet my ears still burn
and so my heart. You asked me, to my shame:
for Jacob—trickster, shyster, sham—’s my name.
To Know You as Mary
by Michael R. Burch
To know you as Mary,
when you spoke her name
and her world was never the same ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.
O, then I would laugh
and be glad that I came,
never minding the chill, the disconsolate rain ...
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom.
I might not think this earth
the sharp focus of pain
if I heard you exclaim—
beside the still tomb
where the spring roses bloom
my most unexpected, unwarranted name!
But you never spoke. Explain?
Belfry
by Michael R. Burch
There are things we surrender
to the attic gloom:
they haunt us at night
with shrill, querulous voices.
There are choices we made
yet did not pursue,
behind windows we shuttered
then failed to remember.
There are canisters sealed
that we cannot reopen,
and others long broken
that nothing can heal.
There are things we conceal
that our anger dismembered,
gray leathery faces
the rafters reveal.
ur-gent
by Michael R. Burch
if u would be a good father to us all,
revoke the Curse,
extract the Gall;
but if the abuse continues,
look within
into ur Mindless Soulless Emptiness Grim,
& admit ur sin,
heartless jehovah,
slayer of widows and orphans ...
quick, begin!
Bible libel (ii)
by Michael R. Burch
ur savior’s a cad
—he’s as bad as his dad—
according to your horrible Bible.
demanding belief
or he’ll bring u to grief?
he’s worse than his horn-sprouting rival!
was the man ever good
before being made “god”?
if so, half your Bible is libel!
yet another post-partum christmas blues poem
by michael r. burch
ur GAUD created hell; it’s called the earth;
HE mused u briefly, clods of little worth:
"let’s conjure some little monkeys
to be BIG RELIGION’s flunkeys!"
GAUD belched, went back to sleep, such was ur birth.
wee the many
by michael r. burch
wee never really lived: was that our fault?
now thanks to ur GAUD wee lie in an underground vault.
wee lie here, the little ones ur GAUD despised!
HE condemned us to death before wee opened our eyes!
as it was in the days of noah, it still remains:
GAUD kills us with floods he conjures from murderous rains.
stock-home sin-drone
by Michael R. Burch
ur GAUD created this hellish earth;
thus u FANTAsize heaven
(an escape from rebirth).
ur GUAD is a monster,
butt ur RELIGION lied
and called u his frankensteinian bride!
now, like so many others cruelly abused,
u look for salve-a-shun
to the AUTHOR of ur pain’s selfish creation.
cons preach the “TRUE GOSPEL”
and proudly shout it,
but if ur GAUD were good
he would have to doubt it.
un-i-verse-all love
by Michael R. Burch
there is a Gaud, it’s true!
and furthermore, tHeSh(e)It loves u!
unfortunately
the
He
Sh(e)
It
,even more adorably,
loves cancer, aids and leprosy.
One of the Flown
by Michael R. Burch
Forgive me for not having known
you were one of the flown—
flown from the distant haunts
of someone else’s enlightenment,
alighting here to a darkness all your own . . .
I imagine you perched,
pretty warbler, in your starched
dress, before you grew bellicose . . .
singing quaint love’s highest falsetto notes,
brightening the pew of some dilapidated church . . .
But that was before autumn’s
messianic dark hymns . . .
Deepening on the landscape—winter’s inevitable shadows.
Love came too late; hope flocked to bare meadows,
preparing to leave. Then even the thought of life became grim,
thinking of Him . . .
To flee, finally,—that was no whim,
no adventure, but purpose.
I see you now a-wing: pale-eyed, intent, serious:
always, always at the horizon’s broadening rim . . .
How long have you flown now, pretty voyager?
I keep watch from afar: pale lover and voyeur.
what the “Chosen Few” really pray for
by Michael R. Burch
We are ready to be robed in light,
angel-bright
despite
Our intolerance;
ready to enter Heaven and never return
(dark, this sojourn);
ready to worse-ship any gaud
able to deliver Us from this flawed
existence;
We pray with the persistence
of actual saints
to be delivered from all earthly constraints:
just kiss each uplifted Face
with lips of gentlest grace,
cooing the sweetest harmonies
while brutally crushing Our enemies!
ah-Men!
wild wild west-east-north-south-up-down
by Michael R. Burch
each day it resumes—the great struggle for survival.
the fiercer and more perilous the wrath,
the wilder and wickeder the weaponry,
the better the daily odds
(just don’t bet on the long term, or revival).
so ur luvable Gaud decreed, Theo-retically,
if indeed He exists
as ur Bible insists—
the Wildest and the Wickedest of all
with the brightest of creatures in thrall
(unless u
somehow got that bleary
Theo-ry
wrong too).
The Strangest Rain
by Michael R. Burch
"I ... am small, like the Wren, and my Hair is bold, like the Chestnut Bur?and my eyes, like the Sherry in the Glass, that the Guest leaves ..."?Emily Dickinson
"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry."--Emily Dickinson
The strangest rain, a few bright sluggish drops,
unsure if they should fall, run through with sun,
came tumbling down and touched me, one by one,
too few to animate the shriveled crops
of nearby farmers (though their daughters might
feel each cool splash, a-shiver with delight).
I thought again of Emily Dickinson,
who felt the tingle down her spine, inspired
to lifting hairs, to nerves’ electric song
of passion for a thing so deep-desired
the heart and gut agree, and so must tremble
as all the neurons of the brain assemble
to whisper: This is love, but what is love?
Wrens darting rainbows, laughter high above.
Note to a Chick on a Religious Kick
by Michael R. Burch
Daisy,
when you smile, my life gets sunny;
you make me want to spend all my damned money;
but honey,
you can be a bit ... um ... hazy,
perhaps mentally lazy?,
okay, downright crazy,
praying to the Easter Bunny!
A coming day
by Michael R. Burch
for my mother, due to her hellish religion
There will be a day,
a day when the lightning strikes from a rainbowed mist
when it will be too late, too late for me to say
that I found your faith unblessed.
There will be a day,
a day when the storm clouds gather, ominous,
when it will be too late, too late to put away
this darkness that came between us.
lust!
by michael r. burch
i was only a child
in a world dark and wild
seeking affection
in eyes mild
and in all my bright dreams
sweet love shimmered, beguiled ...
but the black-robed Priest
who called me the least
of all god’s creation
then spoke for the Beast:
He called my great passion a thing base, defiled!
He condemned me to hell,
the foul Ne’er-Do-Well,
for the sake of the copper
His Pig-Snout could smell
in the purse of my mother,
“the whore jezebel.”
my sweet passions condemned
by degenerate men?
and she so devout
she exclaimed, “yay, aye-men!” ...
together we learned why Religion is hell.
Published by Lucid Rhythms, The HyperTexts and Black Waters of Melancholy
Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch
Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.
Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.
Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some distant “heaven”
I never shall know.
If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?
Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!
Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.
Prayer for a Merciful, Compassionate, etc., God to Murder His Creations Quickly & Painlessly, Rather than Slowly & Painfully
by Michael R. Burch
Lord, kill me fast and please do it QUICKLY!
Please don’t leave me gassed, archaic and sickly!
Why render me mean, rude, wrinkly and prickly?
Lord, why procrastinate?
Lord, we all know you’re an expert killer!
Please, don’t leave me aging like Phyllis Diller!
Why torture me like some sap in a thriller?
God, grant me a gentler fate!
Lord, we all know you’re an expert at murder
like Abram—the wild-eyed demonic goat-herder
who’d slit his son’s throat without thought at your order.
Lord, why procrastinate?
Lord, we all know you’re a terrible sinner!
What did Japheth devour for his 300th dinner
after a year on the ark, growing thinner and thinner?
God, grant me a gentler fate!
Dear Lord, did the lion and tiger compete
for the last of the lambkin’s sweet, tender meat?
How did Noah preserve his fast-rotting wheat?
God, grant me a gentler fate!
Lord, why not be a merciful Prelate?
Do you really want me to detest, loathe and hate
the Father, the Son and their Ghostly Mate?
Lord, why procrastinate?
Be very careful what you pray for!
by Michael R. Burch
Now that his T’s been depleted
the Saint is upset, feeling cheated.
His once-fiery lust?
Just a chemical bust:
no “devil” cast out or defeated.
The Heimlich Limerick
by Michael R. Burch
for T. M.
The sanest of poets once wrote:
"Friend, why be a sheep or a goat?
Why follow the leader
or be a blind breeder?"
But almost no one took note.
Double Dactyls
Sniggledy-Wriggledy
Jesus Christ’s enterprise
leaves me in awe of
the rich men he loathed!
But should a Sadducee
settle for trifles?
His disciples now rip off
the Lord they betrothed.
―Michael R. Burch
Donald Double Dactyl
Higgledy Piggledy
Ronald McDonald
cursed Donald Trump,
his least favorite clown:
"Why should I try to be
funny as Donald? He
gets all the laughs
saying upside is down!"
―Michael R. Burch
Kingdom Freedom
by Michael R. Burch
LORD, grant me a rare sweet spirit of forgiveness.
Let me have none of the lividness
of religious outrage.
LORD, let me not be over-worried
about the lack of "morality" around me.
Surround me,
not with law's restrictive cage,
but with Your spirit, freer than the wind,
so that to breathe is to have freest life,
and not to fly to You, my only sin.
Modern Dreams
by Michael R. Burch
after David B. Gosselin
I dreamed that God was good, but then I woke
and all his goodness vanished—poof!—
like smoke.
I dreamed his Word was good, but then I heard
commandments evil, awful, weird,
absurd.
I dreamed of Heaven where cruel Angels flew
above my head and screamed, the Chosen Few,
“We’re not like you!”
I dreamed of Hell below, where prostitutes
adored by Jesus, played on lovely lutes
“True Love Commutes.”
I dreamed of Earth then woke to hear a Gong’s
repellent echoes in Religion’s song
of right gone wrong.
Star Crossed
by Michael R. Burch
Remember—
night is not like day;
the stars are closer than they seem ...
now, bending near, they seem to say
the morning sun was merely a dream
ember.
Post-Nashville Covenant
by Michael R. Burch
We love our God.
We love our guns.
We despise the weak.
Don’t call us Huns!
We love our kids.
We love our schools.
We love our guns.
Don’t call us fools!
We pledge ourselves
to the strong defense
of the Constitution
and our Mensch.
Once re-elected,
Trump will rule
with God and guns
and safer schools.
Wonderworks
by Michael R. Burch
History’s
mysteries
abound
& astound,
found
(profound)
the whole earth ’round,
even if mostly
underground.
uv been had
by michael r. burch
uv been had;
ur Dad’s a cad;
His priests are mad,
His pastors lying.
they only want your money, chum,
so why play dumb
and give it to ’em?
give them the boot and send them flying!
Come Spring
by Michael R. Burch
for the Religious Right
Come spring we return, innocent and hopeful, to the Virgin,
beseeching Her to bestow
Her blessings upon us.
Pitiable sinners, we bow before Her,
nay, grovel,
as She looms above us, aglow
in Her Purity.
We know
all will change in an instant; therefore
in the morning we will call her,
an untouched maiden no more,
“whore.”
The so-called Religious Right prizes virginity in women and damns them for doing what men do. I have long been a fan of women like Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Mae West, who decided what’s good for the gander is equally good for the goose.
sonnet to non-science and nonsense
by michael r. burch
ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to "believe"?
and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where our kids will stick their (k)no(w)'s(e)!
no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud's a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:
though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of shit.
twin nuggets of ancient whiz-dumb
by michael r. burch
oh, let it never once be said
that love for Gaud is dead!
wee love the way he murdered eve!
such awesome love! wee must believe!
wee love the way he sent a FLOOD
to teach wee babies to be good!
wee love the zillion births he aborted!
such awesome love cant clearly reported!
(so never mind the embryos
who died in their mommies’ drowning throes!
the unborn babes, the unborn lambs
all drowned for Gaud’s divinest plans!)
“do as I say, not as I do!”
cruel Hippo-Crit! does Jesus rue?
(if Christ were good he’d rue Gaud too.)
no! wee must love our abusive Father
and follow hymn meekly, mild lambs to the slaughter,
or he’ll burn us forever in Hiss terrible hell.
it’s so much safer to tell hymn he’s swell!
thus wee love our Gaud so loverly
hovering over us so smotherly!
wee love the TITHES his cons abscond.
wee love the Big Fish in Hiss pond.
And so wee say “whee!” to all this and that!
PS, also the earth is flat!
Why do faith, hope and love
always end up PUSH and SHOVE?
—Michael R. Burch, lines from “Christ, Jesus!”
Yet another Screed against Exist-Tension-alism
by Michael R. Burch
Life has meaning!
Please don’t deny it!
It means we’re fucked.
Why cause a riot?
Evangelical Fever
by Michael R. Burch
Welcome to global warming:
temperature 109.
You believe in God, not in science,
but isn’t the weather Divine?
Peers
by Michael R. Burch
These thoughts are alien, as through green slime
smeared on some lab tech’s brilliant slide, I grope,
positioning my bright oscilloscope
for better vantage, though I cannot see,
but only peer, as small things disappear—
these quanta strange as men, as passing queer.
And you, Great Scientist, are you the One,
or just an intern, necktie half undone,
white sleeves rolled up, thick documents in hand
(dense manuals you don’t quite understand),
exposing me, perhaps, to too much Light?
Or do I escape your notice, quick and bright?
Perhaps we wield the same dull Instrument
(and yet the Thesis will be Eloquent!).
The Final Revelation of a Departed God’s Divine Plan
by Michael R. Burch
Here I am, talking to myself again . . .
pissed off at God and bored with humanity.
These insectile mortals keep testing my sanity!
Still, I remember when . . .
planting odd notions, dark inklings of vanity,
in their peapod heads might elicit an inanity
worth a chuckle or two.
Philosophers, poets . . . how they all made me laugh!
The things they dreamed up! Sly Odysseus’s raft;
Plato’s Republic; Dante’s strange crew;
Shakespeare’s Othello, mad Hamlet, Macbeth;
Cervantes’ Quixote; fat, funny Falstaff!;
Blake’s shimmering visions. Those days, though, are through . . .
for, puling and tedious, their “poets” now seem
content to write, but not to dream,
and they fill the world with their pale derision
of things they completely fail to understand.
Now, since God has long fled, I am here, in command,
reading this crap. Earth is Hell. We’re all damned.
The King of Beasts in the Museum of the Extinct
by Michael R. Burch
The king of beasts, my child,
was terrible, and wild.
His roaring shook the earth
till the feeble cursed his birth.
And all things feared his might:
even rhinos fled, in fright.
Now here these bones attest
to what the brute did best
and the pain he caused his prey
when he hunted in his day.
For he slew them just for sport
till his own pride was cut short
with a mushrooming cloud and wild thunder;
Exhibit "B" will reveal his blunder.
God to Man, Contra Bataan
by Michael R. Burch
Earth, what-d’ya make of global warming?
Perth is endangered, the high seas storming.
Now all my creatures, from maggot to man
Know how it felt on the march to Bataan.
The Less-Than-Divine Results of My Prayers to be Saved from Televangelists
by Michael R. Burch
I’m old,
no longer bold,
just cold,
and (truth be told),
been bought and sold,
rolled
by the wolves and the lambs in the fold.
Who’s to be told
by this worn-out scold?
The complaint department is always on hold.
sonnet to non-science and nonsense
by michael r. burch
ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to "believe"?
and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where our kids will stick their (k)no(w)'s(e)!
no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud's a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:
though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of shit.
Heaven Bent
by Michael R. Burch
This life is hell; it can get no worse.
Summon the coroner, the casket, the hearse!
But I’m upwardly mobile. How the hell can I know?
I can only go up; I’m already below!
“Heaven Bent” is a pun on “being bent on Heaven” and the heaven/hell thing being bent into a different version, with the dying escaping hell here on earth. That would make death “heaven” even if there is no afterlife. “This life is hell,” “upwardly mobile” and “how the hell” are also puns that can be read two ways. I wrote this poem in high school, around age 16 in 1974, but was unhappy with the third line and forgot about the poem. I stumbled upon it on on July 4, 2006 —ironically, Independence Day — and the third line occurred to me.
The beauty of the flower fades,
its petals wither to charades...
—Michael R. Burch
the U-turn poem
by michael r. burch
Life so defaulty,
Life so unfair,
why do wee prize U,
what do U care?
LORD who lets unborns
drown in a flood,
CELESTIAL ABORTIONIST,
r U sure Ur understood?
Hellion
by michael r. burch
cold as stone,
cold to the bone,
so cold inside even icebergs moan,
such is ur Gaud on hiss icy throne.
lines written for a luverly Gaud who cant be bothered to save pisspot peeple who guess wrong about which ire-ational re-ligion to believe.
“Hellion” is a pun on “he-lion” as in the “Lion of Judah” and “hell-lion.”
yet another ode to a graceless faceless Creator albeit with thoughts of possibly rescinding prior compliments
by michael r. burch
who created this graceless universe?
why praise its Creator? who could be worse?
why praise man’s Berater with obsequious verse?
job’s wife was right: he’s nobody’s nurse.
ur-Gent prayer request
by michael r. burch
where did ur Gaud originate?
in the minds of men so full of hate
they commanded moms to stone their kids,
which u believe (brains on the skids)
was “the word of Gaud”!
debate?
too late & of course it’s useless:
please pray to be less clueless.
The title involves a pun, since the “ur-Gent” would be the biblical “god.”
Religion is regarded by fools as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. — Seneca, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Non-Word to the Wise
by Michael R. Burch
The wise will never cry, “Save!”
The wise desire a quiet grave.
sonnet to non-science and nonsense/nunsense
by michael r. burch
ur Gaud is a fiasco,
a rapscallion and a rascal;
he murdered lovely eve,
so what’s there to “believe”?
and who made eve so curious?
why should ur Gaud be furious
when every half-wit parent knows
where bright kids will stick their no’s(e)!
no wise and loving father
would slaughter his own daughter!
ur Gaud’s a hole-y terror!
CONSIDER THE SOURCE OF ERROR:
though ur bible’s a giant hit,
its writers were full of shit.
We Know It All
by Michael R. Burch
We rile. We gall. We know it all
because we’ve read the Bible,
which tells us genocide’s “God’s will”
along with bashing in kids’ skulls
and other forms of libel.
The earth is flat, our Book says so!
The Lord will torture our rational foe!
(We lack the compassion to tell the fiend “No!”)
God’s on his throne, the Angels are winking,
applauding our lack of critical thinking.
We’re drowning in crap. We’re stinking and sinking.
Eve once petted friendly T-Rexes!
A “witch” should be stoned for unprovable hexes!
It’s a “sin” to make love if one’s lover has exes!
Girls were enslaved and raped by their “masters”!
Our Book is the source of so many disasters!
The earth’s overheating? Let’s burn it up faster!
Yet Another Shitty Ditty
by Michael R. Burch
Here’s my ditty:
Life is shitty,
Then you get old
And more’s the pity.
Truth be told,
We’re bought and sold,
Sheep in the fold
Sheared lickety-splitty.
But chin’s up,
What’s the use of crying?
We’ve a certain escape:
Welcome to dying!
Hellbound
by Michael R. Burch
Mother, it’s dark
and you never did love me
because you put Yahweh and Yeshu
above me.
Did they ever love you
or cling to you? No.
Now Mother, it’s cold
and I fear for my soul.
Mother, they say
you will leave me and go
to some compassionless “heaven”
I never shall know.
If that’s your choice,
you made it. Not me.
You brought me to life;
will you nail me to the tree?
Christ! Mother, they say
God condemned me to hell.
If the Devil’s your God
then farewell, farewell!
Or if there is Love
in some other dimension,
let’s reconcile there
and forget such cruel detention.
Lines for My Ascension
by Michael R. Burch
I.
If I should die,
there will come a Doom,
and the sky will darken
to the deepest Gloom.
*But if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.*
II.
If I should die,
let no mortal say,
“Here was a man,
with feet of clay,
or a timid sparrow
God’s hand let fall.”
But watch the sky darken
to an eerie pall
and know that my Spirit,
unvanquished, broods,
and scoffs at quaint churchyards
littered with roods.
*And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.*
III.
If I should die,
let no man adore
his incompetent Maker:
Zeus, Yahweh, or Thor.
Think of *Me* as the One
who never died—
the unvanquished Immortal
with the unriven side.
*And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.*
IV.
And if I should “die,”
though the clouds grow dark
as fierce lightnings rend
this bleak asteroid, stark ...
If you look above,
you will see a bright Sign—
the sun with the moon
in its arms, Divine.
So divine, if you can,
my bright meaning, and know—
my Spirit is mine.
I will go where I go.
*And if my body
should not be found,
never think of me
in the cold ground.*
Keywords/Tags: god, Jesus, Christ, Christian, prayer, Bible, angel, atheist, faith, blasphemy, heresy, heresies, heretic, heretic, heretical, pagan, pagans, god, gods
Published as the collection "Nonbeliever"