Guest Priest
The guest priest at my parish seems to buy
The NATO propaganda absolutely.
Oh, he’s repeating every single lie,
The guest priest at my parish. Seems to buy
The whole cartoon. The truth need not apply.
I do resent his crap – but not acutely.
The guest priest at my parish seems to buy
The NATO propaganda absolutely.
–Tom Riley
Sunnier Version
“Shit, this is just a slightly sunnier version of Stoker’s Dracula, with Frodo playing Jonathan Harker, Gandalf playing Abraham Van Helsing, and Sauron playing the Count himself.”
Stephen King – wizard, yes, and idiot—
Tells us that Tolkien’s masterpiece is “sunny.”
He’s right – if bile, once spread on toast, is honey.
He’s right – if in our sphere just rulers sit.
It’s true that skies in Middle-Earth are lit
By a bright sun. Oh, look: there goes a bunny!
It’s true that hobbits can be cute and funny.
It’s also true that they display true grit.
One of them truly needs it: that’s the one
Who, with his squire, while sun and moon are wheeling,
Enters the Dark Lord’s realm. It isn’t fun,
Whatever Stephen King may find appealing.
In the end, when the sacrifice is done,
All he can hope for is some distant healing.
–Tom Riley
By the Waters of Babylon
A Babylonian captivity
Would be a whole lot easier to take,
Father, than your moronic homily.
It would not make my aging temples ache
Or cause my life to seem one big mistake.
I could deal with the heathen’s cruelty
And still hold to a faith that didn’t shake.
But all your gab just tortures lads like me.
If you’re our leader, then what fools we be!
The words you drool convince us you’re a flake.
At best, you manage imbecility.
Won’t you be silent, please, for Jesus’ sake?
If he won’t, Lord, then grant my soul this plea:
Send us to alien captivity!
–Tom Riley
(First appeared in Trinacria #3, Spring 2010.)
Father Quick
“Hi. My name’s Father Quick Rationale!
I befriend every guy, every gal,
by negating confession
with excuse and expression.
Hey, whatever you’ve done, I’m your pal!”
–Tom Riley
Absolution
(for Mrs. Margaret Gusky)
You come to me as penitent to priest–
but my church is the Church of Righteous Wrath,
its liturgy the verses of a beast
who’s mastered rhyme and pentametric math.
Naturally, you feel guilty on the path
I’ve pioneered, where lofty judgment spits
a whole destructive and digestive bath
on charity-professing hypocrites.
But don’t apologize for having wits.
The Lord does not demand of me or you
reduction of our brains to little bits
of matter that can only ah and ooh.
In liking stuff like mine, you’re not disgraced.
Rather, you demonstrate exquisite taste.
–Tom Riley
Loveliness
(for Maria Klassen)
I’m posting something lovely on request.
I’m cultivating all that’s light and fair.
You’re still not happy? Hey, I did my best!
I didn’t kill and eat and then digest
The neighbors’ dog. His flesh I chose to spare.
I’m posting something lovely on request.
I went to church. My failings I confessed.
The priest got up and sputtered: “Give me air!”
You’re still not happy? Hey, I did my best!
Where is the body buried of the pest
Who disappeared? I will not tell you where.
I’m posting something lovely on request.
I’m not maintaining honesty is best.
I’m holding back from every crime and scare.
You’re still not happy? Hey, I did my best!
In loveliness I’ve chosen to invest.
For malice I’m pretending not to care.
I’m posting something lovely on request.
You’re still not happy? Hey, I did my best!
–Tom Riley
Humble Penitent
To the priest who will not understand,
He confesses his greatness. As planned,
He receives absolution
Without stated dilution.
Ah, his brilliance can only expand!
–Tom Riley
De Patricio Romae Sancto
“He wasn’t even Irish.”
Patrick, you wop, we take you as our saint–
As we have taken Rome to rule our prayers.
One of us, critics might object, you ain’t–
But we don’t let such Saxons put on airs
Toward us: we send them homeward for repairs.
A dago you may be — but you are ours.
And, since you guide our heavenly affairs,
We know our Enemy, the Devil, cowers.
Oh, dash aside his superhuman powers —
And kick him soundly when he turns to flee!
Your heart is human, but your crosier towers
Over that dark, demonic entity.
For one day, make his hurtful actions cease–
That we may raise our drinks to you in peace.
–Tom Riley
(Just a note on the ethnicity of St. Patrick:
A priest I know once said of St. Patrick, during a homily on the saint’s glorious green feast day: “He wasn’t even Irish. He was probably English….”
I’ve never been so tempted to interrupt a homily. Indeed, I’m sorry now that I didn’t interrupt.
The statement that St. Patrick was “probably English” was mixed up with all sorts of stuff about the vanity of wearin’ the green and so on. I was, of course, wearing green when I heard the homily.
The priest had an English name – and I later remarked to him that there was a day when people with names like mine were hung up on trees for wearin’ the green by people with names like his.
The priest in question is generally an admirable and learned man – indeed, one of the finest clergymen I have ever known. He once corrected an error of mine concerning St. Thomas Becket. I was suitably chastened.
However, to suggest that St. Patrick was an Englishman by birth is to commit a blunder of stunning proportions. St. Patrick could not have been an Englishman.
The English – that is, the Germanic – invasion of Britain began around A.D. 400 in the southeast of the Island. Patrick was born in the west around 387, thirteen years before the Saxon incursion. Moreover, Patrick was born into a Christian family – and the English did not begin to convert to Christianity till 597. Remember that the “heathen” fought by King Arthur were, in fact, the English.
The region of Britain where Patrick was born remained almost completely Celtic, and not English, till about 600.
So if he wasn’t English, what was he?
Patrick was a man of Roman culture, certainly, and I admit the probability that he was a Celt – what nowadays we would call a Welshman.
Much more attractive, however, is the possibility – and it is a real possibility – that Patrick was Italian, the descendant of Roman colonists in Britain, of whom there was at one time a great number.
I find this idea attractive because of the traditional hostility in America, still present to some degree in my childhood, between Irishmen and Italians. I sometimes get the idea that I understand God’s sense of humor – and, according to my lights, this is just the sort of joke that makes God chuckle. Ha! The traditional Patron Saint of Ireland is really a dago! Hence, the poem.
I say nothing here about theories that St. Patrick as popularly conceived is a composite figure, a conflation of someone actually named Patricius with a less-known someone named Palladius. I don’t discount such theories: I simply have no interest in them.
I do say that we have certain knowledge of St. Patrick’s ethnicity – the ethnicity that St. Patrick chose, which is the ethnicity that really matters.
St. Patrick was Irish.
So there. T.R.)
Flammeus Gladius 