Poetry, April 2

[jade_sabre]

So today was Good Friday, and at service I was listening to them chant the Gospel, and about how Pilate gets such a raw deal, and how I love the fact that he says "What is truth?" And then I've been listening to Jesus Christ Superstar as is my wont, and anyway all of that together seemed to make the following poem somewhat appropriate, and so, from Stevie Smith:



Sunt Leones
The lions who ate the Christians on the sands of the arena
By indulging native appetites played was now been seen a
Not entirely negligible part
In consolidating at the very start
The position of the Early Christian Church.
Initiatory rights are always bloody
In the lions, it appears
From contemporary art, made a study
Of dyeing Coliseum sands a ruddy
Liturgically sacrificial hue
And if the Christians felt a little blue-
Will people being eaten often do.
Theirs was the death, and there's was a crown undying,
A state of things which must be satisfying.
My point which up to this has been obscured
Is that it was the lions who procured
By chewing up blood gristle flesh and bone
The martyrdoms on which the church has grown.
I only write this poem because I thought it rather looked
As if the part the lions played was being overlooked.
By lions' jaws great benefits and blessings were begotten
And so our debt to Lionhood must never be forgotten.

Comments

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Oooh, a very interesting take on it.

[philia-fan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love Stevie Smith!!! Most people look at me funny when I quote her...