Joseph Spring's Blog, page 7
December 11, 2018
Census in Bethlehem (Version 2)
With Christmas fast approaching and my family already in holiday mode, I took to revising a poem for the season. Here it is, dusted off with line breaks improved and some phrasing reconsidered. I’ve kept it in 4 voices. Enjoy!
Census in Bethlehem
JOSEPH
My older cousins got here first and even filled the shed,
but uncle says he’s got a cave where we can lay our heads.
He cleaned it out, but had no other place to put his ewe,
but that’s okay, we’ll be alright; we’ll leave ‘fore Mary’s due.
JUDEAN
Aha! The gods have smiled on me; the gov’ner’s called mankind
to gather here in hungry hoards; my profits come to mind:
They’ll pay for nuts at twice the price, they’ll sleep behind my stall.
Ah, David! It’s a providence that softer beds are full.
It’s money time, salvation’s here, the night is swelling loud.
I hear that some are even letting stables to this crowd.
SHEPHERD
I’m glad we’re on the skirting hills beyond the city’s wall,
For though the thrum and music drifts, it’s quieter, all-in-all.
And here of course we see more stars – their gentle, painted light –
Yes, this we have, and richer sleep – not so the urbanite.
But now! What terror, growing star, is falling to the ground!
An angel and a heav’nly host! So bright and closing round!
And so at last God’s wrath has come to splay us on these rocks.
As payment for our daily sins He’ll feast upon our flocks.
ANGEL
No, no, dear man, be calm and still: Fear not, for you dear men,
are first to hear our news of joy that lands in Bethlehem.
Within that town, that bustling place, there comes a treasure true;
“The heel that crushes and is bit” is given now to you.
Look down into the yellow streets beyond the loud bazaar,
and find a babe in cloth and trough beneath the newest star.
Then filling up the skies they sang: All glory be to God
and peace to all with whom he’s pleased upon this earthen sod.
The shepherds ran through town and found that blessed stable ward
with newborn child, Emmanuel, called Jesus Christ: the Lord.
December 6, 2018
Please buy my first book
Hello followers,
Thank you for your support in reading my poetry published on http://www.joespringwrites.com. I hope you enjoy it, and I really appreciate your comments.
I have published some poetry in a short kindle book, which is now on sale. Some of the content will be familiar if you’ve been following along over the past two years, and some are previously unpublished.
I’ll really appreciate your support and ratings!
You can get it here, for about the price of a cup of coffee! http://a.co/d/7jDRSSb

Thank you!
Joe
November 29, 2018
The Axe is Recovered
The prophets’ sons were making house when one had cause to shiver:
while chopping trees, his borrowed axe head flew into the river
and with a splash his heart sank deep for somewhere in that wet
the axe was lost! The Jordan plunged him into crippling debt.
Appealing to the prophet strange, “Elisha, help me please!”,
he pointed to the river running past the fallen trees,
“It fell in there and surely sank in mire and mud so deep
that I will spend my rest of days the payments up to keep!”
Elisha, filled with holy power to heal, that men would note
that great salvation comes from God, then made that iron to float.
The man rejoiced, and fetched the axe head, hauling it to shore-
the Holy Scripture ends right there. He doesn’t tell us more.
And so we’re left to ponder why this miracle took place.
like many of Elisha’s works, it’s such a baffling case.
To me it seemed a kindness odd to help a single man
with such an individual grace. But isn’t that God’s plan?
He chose that man before the axe had ever tasted lumber
just as he saves specific souls by name or ID number.
November 12, 2018
Transhumanism
Somewhere about there’s a slithering sound of man’s enmity,
causing excitement and casting the seeds of calamity,
claiming enlightened revision of old postmodernity.
Oh! But the thought is as novel as man in eternity.
Lewis and Ransom have shown us to view the transhumanists
in the same light as Mark Studdock and Feverstone’s futurists:
some are as wholly committed as Babylon’s atheists;
others are following blindly the lure of these dataists.
Tempted to self-exultation, they’re striving for deity;
how can this hideous fate be the talk of society?
Dreams that dilute all the values and truth of humanity,
genuine glory exchanged for a dead singularity.
November 1, 2018
Forgive me, Dactyl
(see Pentadactyl)
Thinking again about dactyls and how they don’t tolerate
stress out of place or the sneaky insertion of syllables,
gladly and humbly I wonder, perhaps I should moderate
poetry calling them dinosaurs, bigots and imbeciles.
P’raps we should think of a dactyl as champion of chastity,
raising the banner of vehement structural sanctity,
hating the sin of iambic compulsion of poetry,
leading the poet in pathways of diligent purity.
A dactyl (/ˈdæktɪl/; Greek: δάκτυλος, dáktylos, “finger”) is a foot in poetic meter…. In accentual verse… it is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables (SOURCE)
October 12, 2018
A Sonnet (The bear and bull make stomachs lurch)
The bear and bull make stomachs lurch
when headlines hold the hopes of men.
Some will kowtow, or kneel in church,
anything to put Martha in power again.
For Martha’s scurrying sustains the world,
is the creator of life, civil and modern.
Until upon their beds are curled
half of humanity, work forgotten.
Then what invisible hand makes beat
the hearts which sleep to wake at morn?
Who binds the sky and grows the wheat
and rolls the earth on which we’re borne?
Give praise to Jesus, read what he said
and ask the Father for your daily bread.
September 19, 2018
An Intolerable Sound
Feel, how softly down the throat
this morsel with its sugar-coat
slithers! It’s like an antidote
to all the things the apostles wrote.
Their words are foul, a ringing sound,
but here’s a cure our team has found
– a world of doctrines, gathered round –
a constant dose til their words are drowned.
OUT with the droning of ancient apostles!
What we hanker for is something novel:
something mystical, Pentecostal,
stories with vigour and moral muscle!
And – ah – a teaching to cure the itch
in our ears and feed the dreams of the rich.
It’s a pleasing plan without a hitch,
a passionate, pragmatic religious pitch.
So come, let’s lie where the sea wave beats
to swash our ears clean of bleats.
We’ll feed on low-fat milk, and sweets,
all sorts of soothing pills and treats.
We’ll share with all who wander there
in easy, light, permissive air
where no one judges, and none forbear
and life could lead us anywhere.
This is freedom – feel its chains!
This is where the individual reigns
where no supposéd truth constrains
our steering hearts and creative brains.
We’ve come so far.
Recall those trapped
in squirming seats as preachers yapped?
Where are they now? More tightly wrapped
in the grasp of God! How very apt.
September 7, 2018
Randburg Harriers Road Race
The road rose up to meet…
(Is that a blessing at all?)
Well, on the mountain, our feet
did up from heaven haul.
The syrupy hills kept turning,
the tar did backwards tug
but, hearts and lungs burning,
we onward, upward dug.
Breathlessly we lamented
’til, after a lengthy while,
the harrying road relented
for a single treacherous mile.
Then up it loomed again!
And hot the sun did shine.
Our minds and legs did strain
to picture the finish line.
Spurred on, we did ascend,
the mountain lost its fire,
we fought it to the end
and won the runner’s desire.
And now with slopes behind
knowing they did not smother
our hopes, we are inclined
to sign up for another.