Not absent - still here!
Keep Calm and Carry On Poeming. 😂
My long life reaches an imminent close;
There’s no escape – that’s just the way it goes.
I hope to go gentle, futile to rage.
Religion has no power to engage
So end of life is waiting with no cure,
And for me the next act remains obscure;
I know I’m here only because I’m here –
The rest imponderable:
Why just now in infinite time and space
I appear then disappear without trace?
I’m subject to cosmic indifference -
A nothing speck of no significance.
From where did I emerge, where will I go?
No answers have been forthcoming, and so
I’ll forget this quest, persist with the rest
Of this life as I find it.
Optimistic Speculative Postscript:
However surely there is a good chance
Life everywhere exists in abundance;
I have a feeling, it’s perhaps empty,
I’ll pop up again, the chances plenty.
If there is another start would there be
A distant universe where I’d be free?
A place not too near, an advance on here;
Though the ‘I’ that’s me won’t know…
But Then Again –
What’s that if not a religion started -
A bid to be somewhere when departed.
Did my subconscious refuse to admit
Lack of grounds for a meaningful exit,
Could not cope with the prospect of the void,
Imagination in free fall deployed
To silence the fear just hovering near -
I also susceptible?
Well reincarnation allows some clout
For all those plagued with all manner of doubt;
Likely a deity will do as well:
Temple, Church, judgment and heaven or hell.
For those who must have a faith to survive
Belief enables peace, a chance to thrive,
Endorses their need to live, love and breed
And not face meaninglessness.
So where am I now? I made an attempt
To find an argument which might preempt
A religious solution causing strife
For those at ease without an afterlife.
An alternate insight at my third verse
Rendered my arguments weakened and worse:
A challenge ‘why’ needed to rectify
that, sends me back to the start……..which is good.
-
Author:
Doggerel Dave (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: October 28th, 2020 23:33
- Comment from author about the poem: Want me back as the commonplace joker? I've still got some time..... PS:Apologies to all the religious here (quite a few) I hope you are all well.
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 27
Offline)
Comments3
Organised religion is a farce, I used to be involved in christianity, I used to be a Chaplain at one point but over the last few years I have parted from christianity and all its untrue beliefs. I still belive Jesus existed but I look upon him as the first Hippie.
I still believe in god but it is MY god. I still go to church as I enjoy singing in the choir, meeting good friends and have free car-parking in town.
May YOUR god go with you Dave.
Andy
Thanks Andy you are a champ (get up early don't you?) I can always rely on encouragement from your quarter. From MINE you got most of my meaning right with the exception of the existence of a god - any god. I just can't get my head around it. This is not aggressive with respect to a god per se, although I do have my reservations about some churches and their practices (your organised religion). Love old English cathedrals though!
Take care, Dave
In addition to the Catholic intelectual tradition among Catholic Christians worldwide, I love the great traditions of the Sacraments and Holy Mass. Granted, I was away from the Church for nearly 30 years and reluctant to engage with anyone that proclaimed to be religious and so I feel like I know where you’re coming from. This is a superb write with a fantastic cadence to it ... my favorite type of poem to read as well ... one that explores the deepest questions concerning our very meaning or in the case of nihilism - no meaning what-so-ever. When you ask this question, even to an atheist, nearly all will respond in the affirmative: wouldn’t you want there to be an afterlife so that you could meet your loved ones again after your departure from this life?
Thanks for your approval of the poem Gary. Here I'll just answer your last question (leave your other concurrent points attached to your entries 'til I have time to give them mature consideration):
A response to 'would you want' in the affirmative has nothing to do with the reality - merely an individual emotional reaction, which is after all what keeps people religious - and good luck (see my penultimate stanza)
Dave
I have also pondered on all these possibilities and am not religious but would say spiritual, not that I believe in spirits as such. I have been pushed into the area of panphysicism and Spinosa's God. I loved the poem and its dilema.
(Just got back from ten day's holiday and only now getting back into the swing.)
Thanks for that, Soren - I couldn't claim it as my best poem , but certainly it was sometime in hatching.
BTW, the genesis (🙂) of the poem is in the third line "I hope to go gentle, futile to rage." Which is a direct refutation of the Dylan Thomas poem "Do not go gentle". Now while I like DT, I feel that although he was transferring his own grief at his father's impending death and in that context I could understand, the literal meaning was way off and part of 'Finale' was an attempt to refute it.
I did have a sniff around panphysicism and Spinosa's God, neither of which I was aware of. While I found P very interesting and will assuredly return, S was for me less engaging (the word God always has that negative effect.)
Glad you found the poem.
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