Me from a joke that surely must exceed
The limits of good taste for connoisseurs
Of wedding conduct, namely one I’d planned
To use when I was father-of-the-bride
To Clare, but which (I’m pained to say) was banned
By everyone except—and this point I’d
Here like to emphasize—the very one,
Our Jenny, who at that time thought it might
Go down quite well, but may now wish she’d done
More to dissuade me. Granted, it’s not quite
The sort of thing that custom would condone
Even in these licentious times, but why
Let force of custom regulate our tone
Through rules of good behaviour that apply,
If anywhere, then only where those rules
Are drawn up to exclude the very thought
Of someone who, like Jenny, could make fools
Of all the rulebook-sticklers.
Still I ought
To preface it with “Sorry, Jen” since she’s
Now looking slightly worried (who can blame
Her, honestly?) and thinking: no, Dad, please
Not that one, or just hoping that I’ll tame
The punchline, or recalling all those times
It flopped, or someone didn’t get the hang
Of it, or (as may happen with these rhymes)
It came back at us like a boomerang.
So: it’s about that time when Jen asked Dave
If he’d give his opinion on the dress
She’d bought to go away in, and so save
Her asking Clare or Mum to come and bless
Her choice of what to wear on honeymoon.
Her question, “Do I look too big in this?,”
Addressed to Dave, came just a bit too soon
For him to think, step back from the abyss,
And take the question straight. Thing is, she posed
It coming from the bathroom framed against
An open door that instantly disclosed
Her perfect figure, yet—although he sensed
The coming storm—he somehow couldn’t check
Himself before he said it: “Yes, but it’s
Such a small bathroom.”
Get it in the neck
No doubt I shall, not Dave, which quite befits
The case since—let’s be absolutely clear
About it—poor old Dave in fact played no
Part in all this and it was my idea
So crudely to debase the tone with so
Unsuitable a joke. I’ll make amends
Now, if I can, by trying to convey
What won’t need spelling out for Jenny’s friends,
Who’ll guess already what I’m going to say
Because they’ve made this lengthy trip to share
Her great event and show not just how much
She means to them but how she’s part of their
Own past and present lives, and apt to touch
Those lives more deeply through her special gift
For love and sympathy.
I know you’ll each
Have much to say of how she’d often lift
Your spirits at some low point, how you’d reach
For Jen’s phone-number when you’d been through some
Life-crisis, or how far she’d go to try
And make things better. It’s a gift I’ve come
To recognize in her from years gone by
Right back to school-days when she’d always be
Not merely “popular” but one of those
Who formed long-lasting friendships that would see
Her mates through their recurrent highs and lows,
With Jenny just the one they’d always choose
As confidante in both. I guess that’s what
It took—putting yourself in others’ shoes
Like that—to let your colleagues know you’d not
Give up on your tough job, your work with all
Those victims of man’s inhumanity
To man, but make it something I should call
A true vocation, if such vanity
Were not the sort of thing you’d think absurd
And shut me up. At all events it’s great
That you’ve spurned the big money and preferred
To do the kind of job where you relate
To lives and people, rather than the kind
That shuts them out.
Dear Jen, there’s so much more
I’d like to say, but then you’d quickly find
It just too much and silently implore
That I should now sit down. Just let me run
On for a verse or two and say how glad
We are, your Mum and Dad, that it’s begun,
This marriage of true minds, this launching-pad
For our best hopes, since “Jen and Dave,” along
With “Clare and Jake,” is now the sort of phrase
That sounds so right it cancels every wrong
From way back. One thing missing in today’s
Updated ritual was the bit that laid
Down how the minister should ask the bride’s
Dad—after telling everyone how they’d
Best speak now of impediments besides
Blood-kinship of a Hapsburg type—if he’s
The one who’s come to “give this woman away,”
Suggesting he’s now lost the chance to seize
Some inverse dowry that lot ought to pay
For his fair daughter’s hand. It doesn’t feel
Like “giving you away” at any price,
Nor like some hard-negotiated deal,
But more the kind of match that leaves us twice
Blessed with a son-in-law and daughter whose
Devotion to each other simply shines
Out from them, though—like all the best-laid clues—
It doesn’t grab attention but combines
With everything about them so that now
It’s hard not to suppose they must have been
Predestined to meet up, or anyhow
That some good angel must have overseen
Their life-lines all along.
The thing that I
Had most in mind (but went a bit off-course)
Was what a joy to raise our glasses high
To Jen when she’s so long been a huge source,
For Alison and me, of all the pride,
The love and admiration that could go
To fill her parent’s hearts. You want to hide
Away out of embarrassment, I know,
When I say all this sentimental stuff,
But it needs saying—if you’ll just endure
One moment more—because you’re apt to tough
It out, or (more like) put the lid on your
Emotions and get on with what most needs
Attending to at home or work. I think
That’s a great thing about you—better deeds
Than endless agonizing—but the chink
In all that psychic armor sometimes shows,
And it’s at just those moments you reveal
What‘s always seemed, to anyone who knows
You well, how self-involvingly you feel
Their troubles in relation to your own
Well-hidden yet no less demanding sorts
Of worry.
But enough: let’s not postpone
The moment: contrary to all reports
My speech had a big point to get across,
And it was just to say that Jenny’s choice
Of Dave and his of her involves no loss
For us but every reason to rejoice
With all our hearts. And so I bid you: pray
Be now upstanding with me, raise a toast
To this loveliest of brides, and bless the day
That, of
all days, will always matter most.
THE BEAUTY OF IT
I would have preferred to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work—for example, a lawn-mower.
I didn’t put it in the hands of bandits and terrorists, and it’s not my fault that it has mushroomed uncontrollably across the globe. Can I be blamed that they consider it the most reliable weapon?
—Mikhail Kalashnikov
The beauty of it was how it would take
Apart in twenty seconds flat, reveal
The bare mechanics, never jam or break,
And so let first-time users get a feel
For how it worked. That’s why my gun could make
Of raw recruits sharp-shooters who can deal
With dicey situations apt to shake
The nerve of those whose fancy guns conceal
All that mere nuts-and-bolts stuff for the sake
Of slick appearances or sex-appeal.
They used to ask me: don’t you lie awake
In the small hours and see the blood congeal
On piles of corpses and not share the ache
Of lost or shattered lives? But since the real
Blame lies with others, not myself, I’ll stake
My case on it: those wounds aren’t mine to heal.
* * * * *
Not sleeping well just lately; it’s my own
Now close-up death makes what I’ve done acquire
Such haunting power. There’s that discomfort-zone,
That moral no-man’s-land where those who fire
And kill bear no more guilt, if truth be known,
Than those like me who aimed a good bit higher,
Strove for invention’s accolade alone,
And so bid conscience happily retire
As long as my invention helped postpone
My day of reckoning. Now they all conspire,
Those untold deaths, so that at last I’m thrown
Into such thoughts as question my entire
Life’s work. When I unwrap this thing that’s blown
Whole dynasties away my one desire
Is to find some design-fault and atone
For everything the death-squads so admire.
A DIFFERENCE OF VIEWS
Did Origen believe in the salvation of the devil? He clearly believed that all rational souls were able to be saved and this would, on Origen’s view of the nature of demonic forces, have included the devil and his demons. So the accusation was stirred up that he taught the salvation of demons.
—Robin Parry
At that greatest of all spectacles, that last and eternal judgment, how shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many magistrates liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot fires; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers tripping more nimbly from anguish then ever before from applause.
—Tertullian, De Spectaculis
God’s mercy knew no bounds, or so it seemed
To Origen, who put the case that Hell
Might still be empty since Christ’s death redeemed
All sins and sinners, even those who’d swell
Its ranks if all the candidates were streamed
On stricter lines. His thought: since none can tell
What God decrees, why kid ourselves we’ve teamed
Up with Him to select the personnel
For Satan’s crew? Redemption-stories themed
On mass-damnation warned him he should quell
That vengeful strain and be the one who dreamed
That Satan could escape hell-fire as well
Since this might always be the message beamed
By a wise deity whose blessing fell
Alike on those whom providence esteemed
God’s own and those predestinate to dwell
In darkness. Origen’s idea looks all
The nobler if you think how they preferred,
Those others like Tertullian, to forestall
Such civilising thoughts in case they blurred
The line twixt saved and damned or Saul and Paul.
‘This I believe because it is absurd’,
Tertullian said, and slammed the Christian ball
Straight back into the court of those who’d heard
The sheep-and-goats stuff but been less in thrall
To versions of it that more deeply stirred
The old blood-lust. So that we’d hear its call
Ring loud and clear, Tertullian gave his word
That, if their heavenly joys began to pall,
Then God’s elect could watch the pains incurred
By those whose sins demanded they should fall
Into the fiery pit that once deterred
The righteous who now fixed their downcast gaze
On torments fresh devised and fit to cheer
Their jaded souls. To justify God’s ways
To man or make His purposes appear
Less psychopathic might deserve high praise
From those, like Origen, of less severe
Doctrinal bent for whom auto-da-fé’s
On that scale don’t too readily cohere
With what their own theodicy conveys
Of His benign intent. Yet why should mere
Compassion—now we hear Tertullian raise
His counter-claim—so dominate the sphere
Of judgment that its influence betrays
The same Old Adam who once lent an ear
To Eve’s request and started the malaise
That came of letting human hope or fear
Dictate in matters where God’s will alone
Should carry weight. So he, Tertullian, screwed
The stakes sky-high and set out to atone
For Adam’s sin by sending Adam’s brood,
Or most of them, to their appointed zone
In that vast torture-house where there accrued
All wages of all sins, all wild oats sown,
And every fall from grace God might include
In their last reckoning at the judgment-throne.
So, should some blessed soul be in the mood
For spicier stuff once Heaven’s fare had grown
A trifle stale, their bliss was soon renewed
And heightened by reflecting how each moan
Sent up from Hell or glimpse of one who stewed
In seas of fire just might, if truth be known,
Be what brought final quittance for some feud
Long past. Since even blessed souls are prone
To gloat, those sounds and sights could be construed
As perfectly recapturing the tone
Of mother-in-law, or pleasurably viewed
As some old friend-turned-enemy now thrown
Below though rated tops by viewers glued
To his infernal pains. That this be shown
Quite fitting, though its fittingness elude
Less sapient types, was why Tertullian bent
His intellect to talking up that line
Of grand guignol. He wanted our assent
To pleasures that, should they lack such divine
Endorsement, we’d most likely represent
As plain sadistic or another sign
Of some perverse compulsion to invent
New tortures that exquisitely refine
The viewers’ taste. Else they might soon relent
And think to question whether a benign
Or caring God could possibly have meant
His favoured few choice spirits to recline
At ease while, down below, their loved ones spent
Eternity where, by His sole design,
Each one at every moment underwent
The very torments that might best combine
To conjure flat despair. Thus He’d pre
vent
Their ever working up the moral spine
Not only, those who wished it, to repent
But—those of Satan’s party—to enshrine
“Non serviam” as flagging their intent
To shove His edicts where the Sun don’t shine
And pay no more instalments of rack-rent
To God’s slum landlords. Should the righteous pine
For something more appealing—less in hock
To God’s idea of how things ought to go
With miscreants—then building up the stock
Of Origen might be one way to show
How stern Tertullian need not put a block
On shared humanity, why letting go
Of Hell might leave no victims in the dock
To face God’s wrath, and lastly, apropos
Those tortures that enthralled the pious flock
Of His elect, how switching such tableaux
For others less sadistic could unlock
New springs of sympathy that might bestow
Such fellow-feeling as forbade them mock
When told to by the Moloch-God. And so,
If you’re out to apportion blame, don’t knock
Kind Origen who bucked the status quo
Of God-think in his time and caused such shock
Amongst the orthodox that it left no
Choice for them but to reprimand, defrock,
Or persecute those few who looked below
The radiant heights and saw what it denied,
Their first Apartheid rule. It said: ignore
Those pleading voices from the other side
Since why that gulf unless God fixed it for
His own good purpose: namely, to divide
For the Tempus-Fugitives Page 9