Critic Cal

No one enters suit justly;       no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,       they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. They hatch adders' eggs;       they weave the spider's web; he who eats their eggs dies,       and from one that is crushed a viper is hatched. Their webs will not serve as clothing;       men will not cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity,       and deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil,       and they are swift to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;       desolation and destruction are in their highways. The way of peace they do not know,       and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked;       no one who treads on them knows peace. Therefore justice is far from us,       and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness,       and for brightness, b

This is a poem I started and abandoned a few times over the last year or so. Recent events have helped edge it towards something more of a thing. NIGHT TERRORS   Through dark and lonely reaches of the night It hunts me with a restless ruthlessness: The question — what if They in fact are right? They say it all comes down to might on might, And mine I cannot muster to contest Alone, and in the darkest realms of night. The world has ceased to render black and white To me; I do not know; I fear to guess; To Them, there is no question but They’re right. They vouch that They are walking in the light While, “wilfully contrary”, I digress And wander lonely in the dark of night. I am the orienteer of my plight. To retrace now would be to acquiesce… I cannot countenance that They are right. Day dawns, and braver others rise to fight; Till dusk there’s rumours of a just redress. But then I am alone, and it is night, And in the summing up, They’re counted right.

I remember the first time I choked on the word 'evangelical'. We had joined for the Sunday service of the  Metropolitan Community Church  [1] near our hotel in San Francisco. The (himself gay) minister had just given a raw and real sermon on either Luke 6 or Matthew 5 , I'm not sure – "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. [...] Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you." ( Luke 6 :27-28, 37). Hearing this passage applied in the particular context of deeply felt griefs inflicted on the LGBT+ community by the wider church was humbling to say the least. He welcomed us after the service – asked us what we were doing in the city and took an interest in our own church backgrounds. The 'e-word' was out before I had a chance to consider the extra political and personal loadings it i