Ephemeral Wave – 14th November 2022

 Ephemeral Wave – 14^th November 2022

 

Twas Midterm Election Time,

For the Stars and Stripes Tribe.

Spending many a dime,

Rhetoric they imbibed.

 

Elephant Tribe trumpeting The Red Wave,

Donkey Tribe timidly trying to look brave.

Elephant Tribe promoting crazy candidates,

Donkey Tribe fearing approval rates.

 

However, twas not to be,

Voters stunned each side.

Slender house majority,

Slimming elephantine pride.

 

Why this result?

Donkey Tribe’s policies were asinine,

Elephant Tribe’s ideals were sublime,

Yet voters gave Biden more time.

 

Pundits proved poor political analysts,

Cone Man cone-sidered.

‘“The Red Wave” existed in their imagination,

And was ephemeral outside their tribe ...'

 

© Craig Turne

Musical Ministers - 25th October 2022

 Musical Ministers - 25^th October 2022

 

Twas time Cone Man

Burst forth in verse.

Tumult shocked Common Man,

Tribal leaders were shockingly perverse.

 

Tories proud of their ‘stability’,

Projecting visions of tranquility.

Tories dismayed at their inability,

Prime Ministers serially sent to Coventry.

 

Cameron thought he knew best,

Cameron was shocked by Brexit.

May thought Remaining the best,

May sent on her merry way to the exit.

 

Johnson was jolly good fun,

Johnson was a jolly good clown.

Truss promised to get things done,

Truss after 44 days, went down.

 

‘General Election’ cried Starmer,

Tories saw no going back.

Hoping to make stormy seas calmer,

Sending for Sunak.

 

‘Blazing cones!’ Cone Man exclaimed.

‘This is worse than Game of Thrones ...’

 

© Craig Turney

Le Deluge – 11th September 2022

 Twas the Day of the Sun,

Weather overcast and bleak.

Seven irreplaceable days run,

Cone Man reviewed the last week.

 

The Commonwealth’s Queen died,

Marxists and republicans rejoiced.

“Long live the King” royalists sighed,

Gratitude for her reign realists voiced.

 

New King on the throne,

Old queen’s shadow long.

Dead as a stone,

Her presence still strong.

 

Dying respected by all,

Seven decades of selfless service.

Dying just as Autumn began to fall,

Sad subjects facing wintry ice.

 

Louis XV said: Aprez moi, le deluge.”

Meaning: “After me, the flood.”

After Louis died in 1774, many sort refuge,

From a Europe drenched in blood.

Seeing sundry storm clouds gathering,

Cone Man sadly sighed: “Aprez Liz, le deluge.”

 

© Craig Turney

Cone Ranger – 9th September 2022

 Twas Freya’s Day, Cone Man ranged

About his worksite, checking cones.

Confirming nothing had changed

While he’d rested weary bones.

 

Different cones than found

In Elysian Fields, he sighed.

Pavement he would pound,

Control traffic he tried.

 

Work ranged far and wide,

Many places he would see.

Standing by remote roadside,

Financial freedom was not free.

 

Freedom, nevertheless,

From navel-gazing,

Angst ridden stress,

And bored grazing.

 

Labour leavening boredom,

Senses heightened by danger.

Spare time now a precious freedom,

The lot of the Cone Ranger.

 

© Craig Turney

Cone Man’s Return – 8th September 2022

 Twas Thor’s Day, sunny September day,

Cone Man thanked his God in verse.

Thankful too for a weekly payday,

Filling his meagre purse.

 

Over three years since exile,

From the Great Hall of Wisdom.

Driven all the while,

Suffering dearth, enjoying freedom.

 

Thirty-nine months of ceaseless quest,

Selling, writing, gardening, collecting cans.

What to do? What path was best?

Making plans, ever more plans.

 

“The man that does not work should not eat,”[1]

Counselled Saint Paul the sage.

Cone Man cone-curred, enduring heat,

Labouring beside men half his age.

 

Ironically the standard device,

Ubiquitous in his new profession.

Although using every device,

Cones were their most prevalent possession.

 

© Craig Turney

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[1] 2 Thessalonians 3:10

The True Vine – 8th July 2022

 

The True Vine – 8^th July 2022

 

In Eden the Snake

Tempted Eve with the Apple.

Adam too, a bite, did take,

And had harsh reality, to grapple.

Labouring without a break,

Ejected from Eden, weeping couple.

 

Adam had to plough and grow,

Eve had to cook and sow.

Abel was felled by Cain’s blow,

Trials, their brows would furrow.

 

Vegetables were their relentless need.

What crop to plant? Which ground arable?

An inedible vegetable was a “weed”,

An edible weed was a “vegetable”.

 

By and by, the Sons of Adam,

Grew wheat, then olives and grapes.

By and by the Daughters of Eve,

Sewed worsteds, then silk and drapes.

 

Civilization presented Adams Sons

With questions more refined.

Growing louder at planting seasons,

As men strove to create red, fine wines.

Patiently, painfully searching for reasons:

“For best grapes, which varieties of vines?”

 

Man’s quest for the best wine ended

at a wedding feast in Cana.

When the banquet master exclaimed:

“You have saved the best till now.”[1]

 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.”[2]

© Craig Turney

---

[1] John 2:1-10

[2] John 15:1

The Good Shepherd - 7th July 2022

 The Good Shepherd

- 7^th July 2022

 

Two millennia had passed since

The birth of the Cult of the Shepherd King.

Storms of heresy oft made the Cult wince,

Yet the Cult survived everything.

 

The Cult forcefully advanced,

Forceful men laid hold of the Cult.[1]

Followers of “The Way” sang and danced,

Saul of Tarsus, taking insult,

Vowed this heresy must be lanced,

Achieving a Damascene result.

 

Saul became Saint Paul,

Paul’s letters became books in the New Testament.

Rome’s Empire would inevitably fall,

New Testament creating a Kingdom permanent.

 

Many followed the Folly of Saul,

Kill the Cult they tried.

Die the Cult must, Diocletian decreed,

De-Christianize France Robespierre cried,

“There is no god” asserted the Atheist Creed,

“Modern Man needs no God” Materialists lied.

 

Yet captive subjects always became free,

Fall every empire must.

Sheep without a shepherd are not free,

Needing laws and leaders to trust.

 

“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”[2]

 

© Craig Turney

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[1] Matthew 11:12

[2] John 10:11

The Resurrection and the Life – 16th May 2022

 The Resurrection and the Life

 – 16^th May 2022

 

Twas Thor’s Day, cold and Autumnal,

Cone Man contemplated life’s twilight years.

Youthful dreams, leavened by many a fall,

Wasted time the worst of his fears.

 

Five and twenty years in librarianship vested,

Only to see this career sprawl in the dust.

By life’s disappointments sorely tested,

Continue to strive middle aged males must.

 

Others had far better reason to despair,

Martha and Mary, sisters of poor dead Lazarus.

Man of their family, their brother, their care,

Lazarus lay in his tomb making no fuss.[1]

 

Their old world was ending,

And indeed, would truly end.

Their new world was pending,

The temple’s curtain it would rend.[2]

 

Bethany, Jesus finally approached,

“Lord, if you had been here,

My brother would not have died.”

Martha and Mary tearfully reproached.[3]

“Lazarus, come out.”[4] Jesus cried,

From the opened tomb Lazarus approached.[5]

 

“I am the resurrection and the life.”[6]

 

 

 

© Craig Turney

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[1] John 11:17

[2] Mark 15:38

[3] John 11:21;33

[4] John 11:43

[5] John 11:44

[6] John 11:25

The Way and the Truth and the Life – 6th May 2022

 The Way and the Truth and the Life – 6^th May 2022

 

Twas Wodin's Day, in a world worrisome,

Lon, La Tes Tribe’s Lord,

Paid a mighty premium,

Pouring wealth from his hefty hoard,

Unleashing outraged pandemonium,

Lon was now Twitter’s Overlord.

 

Lon's acquisition prompted wild hope,

Others expressed wary derision.

‘Free Speech’ party saw Lon as their Pope,

‘Social Justice’ saw a source of division.

 

Lon believed Twitterverse was big enough,

To accommodate myriad clashing visions.

'Social Justice' thought 'Free Speech" hateful, rough,

'Free Speech' thought 'Social Justice' enslaved to fickle fashions.

Both parties thought the other full of villains,

Neither party understood opposing passions.

 

None doubted that men lied,

Or truthfully spoke nonsense.

Men whose truthfulness was their pride,

Were often misinformed, ignorant or dense.

 

Men could not make perjury a hanging offense,

Men had to err on the safe side.

Politicians showed uncommon common sense:

Enact capital punishment for perjury, and you died.

 

“So” Cone Man reflected,

“The question is not who is lying,

but who is telling the truth?

And how to prove that you’re not lying?”

 

“Statements” he shrugged,

“The greater they come, the harder they fall”.

The harsh reality was simple and rugged:

Absolute claims were divine truth or demonic gall.

One absolute statement surmounted them all,

Jesus was who he claimed, or a madman or fiend.

 

“I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me”.[1]

 

© Craig Turney

 

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[1] John 14:6