The Lord’s Fire
The light is really eerie,
People stand and stare;
The sunlight has a copper tone
From smoke that’s in the air
The fires are still burning
The threat is far from gone
And reality is so hard to take
On the coming of the dawn.
In the midst of all the anguish
A man came to my gate
He waved a bible at me
And spouted words of hate.
Elwin, odd name for a Korean
But that’s the name he gave,
Elwin told me that the fires
Were signs of God’s dismay.
The fires were just a foretaste
Of the biblical farewell;
When God will lose his temper
And send us all to Hell.
I tried to reason with him
How his notion was absurd
But he talked across the top of me
And never heard a word.
There’s a limit to my patience
When giving fools their say,
“You’re reciting, not discussing,
You’re a blemish on my day!”
"Your God is not a pleasant one,
Full of hate and spiteful malice,
You’re living in a wonderland,
Your ‘loving God’ is callous."
“So, give me a break, O Man of God,
I can’t handle any more”
He headed off down the street
Peddling misery, door to door.
The light is really eerie,
People stand and stare;
The sunlight has a copper tone
From smoke that’s in the air
---
© J Cosmo Newbery
---
Print this post
The light is really eerie,
People stand and stare;
The sunlight has a copper tone
From smoke that’s in the air
The fires are still burning
The threat is far from gone
And reality is so hard to take
On the coming of the dawn.
In the midst of all the anguish
A man came to my gate
He waved a bible at me
And spouted words of hate.
Elwin, odd name for a Korean
But that’s the name he gave,
Elwin told me that the fires
Were signs of God’s dismay.
The fires were just a foretaste
Of the biblical farewell;
When God will lose his temper
And send us all to Hell.
I tried to reason with him
How his notion was absurd
But he talked across the top of me
And never heard a word.
There’s a limit to my patience
When giving fools their say,
“You’re reciting, not discussing,
You’re a blemish on my day!”
"Your God is not a pleasant one,
Full of hate and spiteful malice,
You’re living in a wonderland,
Your ‘loving God’ is callous."
“So, give me a break, O Man of God,
I can’t handle any more”
He headed off down the street
Peddling misery, door to door.
The light is really eerie,
People stand and stare;
The sunlight has a copper tone
From smoke that’s in the air
---
© J Cosmo Newbery
---
Do you think it is the hot weather that brings them out? We have been getting a lot of bush cockroaches in the house of late.
ReplyDeleteBTW: What religion was he from?
ReplyDeleteman, i wish you all a relieve of those fires!!!
ReplyDeletei remember when one of our mountains sides burned just 30 miles down the road ..
the sky really was eerie and we could smell it.
and a few years ago during a severe drought (and we are still in one) our backyard neighbor set the woods that adjoin our properties on fire accidentally ..
i hate those god peddlars.
myself, i'm not religious at all. but the pastor of my in-law's church says that god created the earth to run on the laws of nature ..
Church of God, I think they may have been the same folk who visited you.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed that.
ReplyDeleteTerrible thing to happen and those crazy arsonists. What is the fun in doing that?
Is everything okay now? Because it's not headlines anymore, we don't hear or read about it no more.
You've captured the sense of this this calamity very well... right down to the eerie copper light and the stricken crazies. End game comes to mind. Thoughtful poem, and thought-provoking. So glad you're back safe...
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of you since I heard about these fires... you are the only person I know in Australia.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't stand when people use terrible tragedies to make ridiculous statements like Elwin.
We get the door-to-door ones here, too. They give away flyers and books, then ask if they can come back in a few days once you've had time to read them so they can discuss your salvation with you. I've gotten to where I don't answer the door on Saturday mornings anymore.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong, I go to church. I am a Christian. I believe in God. But I don't buy into the scare tactics many use to try to frighten nonbelievers. They just push people further away, in my opinion. They pushed me away for years.