LoSoRhyMo #13

I read some lines from Les Murray’s poem ‘Poetry and Religion‘ somewhere recently, and they became an ear worm. It’s a wonderful poem, and very challenging to readers like me who have no sense of the religious.

Sonnet #13: Not exactly Ars Poetica
Every poem’s a small religion
said Les Murray. P’raps that’s true
of his. Mine’s more a kerbside pigeon
[I’ve found a rhyme – now from the slew
of possibilities find reason]:
puffed up in the mating season
it coos alliteration, rakes
the ground with fanned iambics, makes
a strut around its object. Full
religion, Les says, is the large
poem. Buddha, Jesus, Thor,
the Prophet, Moses: metaphor.
Oh Dawkins! If no god’s in charge
poems like pigeons when they fly
in large flocks can blot out the sky.

Added later: Close readers will notice that this one has 15 lines. All I can say by way of explanation is ‘Oops!’

And later again: perhaps the last six lines should have gone:

Full
religion, Les says, is the large
poem. If no god’s in charge
can poetry be meaningful?
Shall poems like pigeons when they fly
in large flocks obfuscate the sky?