O John

O John who lay his head on Our Lord's breast in the Cenacle because thou wert innocent and pure. Who stood at the foot of the Cross when all the apostles fled. Who wrote the greatest of the Gospels, the Word Made Flesh. Pray for us in our vileness and impurity. Hope for us in our innocence. We are children of the devil, let us become children of God. Make us white as the virginal snow which falls from the heavens every day in some corner of the world as the manna fell from heaven for forty years in the desert. Let us be fed by the Word made flesh. Do not abandon us before the throne of the devil. Lead us up to the throne of the good God. The Cross you stood witness by for three hours on Good Friday to atone for thou falling asleep in the garden while Our Lord was in his first agony.

Poem # 2

It is Winter,
         after Noon.
Little children are carrying
Groceries for Mother.

A leaf falls, the Moon is near full,
The cars in turn are hopping.
The ladies are flutter like Flakes of Snow,
Another leaf is dropping.

Everything is in it's Place,
And all the Names are true,
Crickets brushing Cobble Stones,
And all the Jays are Blue.

The Music of the Spheres
Is Singinging along.
Robin and his Merry Men
Are dancing to this song.

Oh No!
There is only a Drop
                             left
                                 in
                                   Our
                                        Glass!

But Baby's there to sweep the sand
The world is safe at last.

Hooray!

Poem # 2 by Julian Moore

I wrote this a decade ago and just discovered it in my brother's Gideons Bible tonight. I wanted him to edit it but he did not. So I guess he thought it was perfect.

The Parable of the Onion

I find The Brother's Karamozov to be greatest novel written by a fallen man that I have ever read. The Novel is a fallen art form. The cry of Adam after the fall, trying to make sense of his misery after he lost the gifts of God. The tragedy of Don Quixote is that he loses the faith in the end after he is defeated and dies a broken man. But the Brother's Karamazov is a Novel of Hope. Dr. White sees in it an act of hope and a sign of the future conversion of Russia in fulfillment of the Fatima prophecies. Alyosha is the fictional character I adore and relate to the most. Who most touches me. People say he is boring. I see that as a sign they are bad people. I often think about Dostoyevsky and hope he is in heaven. He was buried in a Russian Orthodox Monastery. Thinking of EENS, we would assume he is damned, but we can always hope for a deathbed conversion to Catholicism. I would hope Dostoyevsky is in heaven more so than nearly any other man who died apparently outside the visible structures of the Church.

The two most important parables in the novel are "The Grand Inquisitor" and "The Parable of the Onion". I will be silent on the first and focus on the second. There is a wicked soul in hell who only ever performed one good act in her entire life. One day she saw a beggar at her door and she gave her an onion. So after she was damned her guardian angel told the good God about the onion and the good God told her to take that onion and offer it to the damned soul and if he could draw her out of hell using that onion she could be saved. So the angel offers the onion to the damsel and starts to draw her out and she is getting near out of hell. The other souls see her and cry out. "save us! Let us hold on to thy skirts so that we too can get out and be saved!" But the damsel was wicked. She did not want to help out the other poor souls. She wanted to be saved alone. And she had no faith. She thought that if the other souls grabbed on to her the onion would break. So she started kicking the other poor souls and crying out "It is my onion, not yours. Mine!" And as she cried out "Mine!" the onion broke and the damsel fell back into hell, deeper than she was before and remained there forever. Because she no compassion on her fellow souls in hell.

I feel that I have been through hell and I hope to be drawn out. I want to hold onto my onion until the sweet sweet end. I will try not to kick the other poor souls who cling on to me but instead to help them come aboard and maybe some of us will be drawn up to heaven and have peace in the bosom of Abraham forever and ever.

P.S. I saw someone from the hospital today. I will not share his name because it should remain private. He was Jewish. He looked old and feeble in the hospital and he was old and feeble today with a nurse walking with him.

A River of Tears

I have learned how to cry again;
A river of tears.
It is not a torrent but a leaky faucet.
For a while I could not cry,
But now I am able.
For my sins, for those of the world,
For my poor Emily;
Was she ever real or just a fig tree
Of my imagination?
A bitter fruit or a dove?
I am not innocent. I am so very innocent.
I am a crow. I am a dove.
I am a poor sinner.
I speak to the pines;
I pine away for my poor poor soul.
I am innocent as a dove as wicked as the raven
Who gouged out poor Gesmas' eyes
after the crucifixion
While he was still alive.
He screamed out in pain,
But God did not hear him.
For his blasphemies before the face of our redeemer,
Repentance was not for him.

There is a mouse in our house.
My mother wants to kill him,
But I am kind to him.
I want him to stay.
I will feed him tea and oranges
That come all the way from China.
Did I tell you that my father
Looks just like Leonard Cohen?

I cry when I think about the Annunciation.
And I cry when I think of the Crucifixion.
The conception and the redemption.
I am not afraid. I have no fear,
For the good God is with me;
He comforts me and give me peace
In this world of pain; For pain is dear to me.
It helps me grow and mature.
Without pain there is no progress,
Without progress, no victory.
Through pain and through prayer
Suffering and giving thanks
The two-handed engine of Saint Peter
That the poets sing of in forbidden poems
The songs of victory of the losers
The poet who won the laurels of earthly victory
But lost the heavenly crown of glory
The boxer who won the corruptible crown
But lost the eternal crown in heaven.

They speak of Esau selling his birthright
For a bowl or lentils. I have eaten lentils
And they are sweet and lovely.
I would not trade them for the world;
They give me solace in this world of pain.
But my soul is worth more than a thousand
Bowls of lentils. An infinity of lentils.
The pearl of great price is bought cheap
It only costs a few Hail Mary's
But its value is beyond measure.
I will feast on Mondays and Tuesdays
And Thursdays and Sundays.
I will Fast on Wednesdays and Fridays
And Saturdays.

The Cross, the Cross, my kingdom for the Cross.
The world for the Cross, but who would make that trade?

I had a vision in the hospital. A man sold his soul for a year worth of pleasure,
And the pleasure passed and he was bitter.
Then he came back and sold his soul again for a month of pleasure,
And the pleasure passed and he was bitter.
Then he sold his soul again for a week of pleasure,
And the pleasure passed and he was bitter.
Then he sold his soul again for a day of pleasure,
And the pleasure passed and he was bitter.
Then he sold his soul again for an hour of pleasure,
And the pleasure passed and he was bitter.
Then he sold his soul again for a minute of pleasure,
And the pleasure passed and he was bitter.
Then he sold his soul again for a second of pleasure,
And the pleasure passed and he was bitter.
He kept on selling his soul again and again;
And each time his soul was worth less and less,
And the pleasure gained was less and less.
But the devil made the trade;
Again and again and again.

In my vision he did not die;
His soul was dead of course,
But the Judgment had not yet come.
He was too ashamed to turn to the Lord.
His sins were too great.
But we must pray that he does so turn.
With the help of the Blessed Mother,
He must come before the seat of the Good God.
Before the Cross, in the wedding garment
Fashioned by His Mother, and beg the pardon
Of the Good God he so often blasphemed.

And all will be forgiven, but he must turn.
As often as you sell your soul to the devil,
God is willing to pay the ransom.
All he asks is to love him and forgive others
As you have been forgiven.
And he will soften your heart of stone
And make it flesh and blood.
And you will cry a river of tears
For a year; for thousands of years
And you will have peace and happiness
For the rest of your days
And you will be buried happily
In an unmarked grave.

But the angels will remember you and the good Mother too
And nothing on earth will be as beautiful as you.

A poem of happy tears by Julian Moore.

Blue Parakeet

I was walking around the neighborhood and I saw a bird that looked like a blue parakeet. She was with a bunch of sparrows as if they were friends. They were eating together so I watched them eating. When I came closer they flew into tree branches and I watched them for a while.

On my second walk I went to the bird store and talked a little to the owner. I saw blue parakeets there so I told him that I saw one outside flying around. And he told me how some people buy birds from him and take them outside and let them fly away. "For Good Luck". And I said how then maybe they could live in the wild. Then I wondered if the birds fly back to the bird store. So he sells them, people release them for good luck, they come back to the store and he sells them again. That would be some racket. But I like the store. It is one of my stops on my walk to Atlantic Avenue.