JEREMIAH CHAPTER 9 - 17

JEREMIAH 9

1 I wish my head a reservoir,
My eyes a fountain-gate ajar
Pouring out tears both day and night
For the slain of my people’s right!
2 I wish I had in wilderness
An inn for pilgrims in address,
So I might leave my folk and go
Away from them, for they’re not slow
Committing their adultery,
Treacherous men in assembly.
3 And they bend their tongues like their bow
For lies, but have no valiant show
For truth upon the earth; for they
Proceed from evil in the way
To evil, and they don’t know Me,
Says YHWH Lord of eternity.
4 Take heed every one of his neighbour,
And trust not any brother’s labour;
For every brother will take over,
And every neighbour slander rover.
5 And they’ll deceive each one his neighbour,
And they will not utter the truth;
They’ve taught their tongue lies from their youth,
And tire themselves in doing sin.
6 “Your house is in deceit’s own bin;
Through deceit they refuse to know
Me,” says YHWH and not speaking slow.
7 So says YHWH of hosts, “See, I’ll melt
Them and try them for what they’ve spelt,
For how shall I do for the spawn
Of My folk in the dusk and dawn?
8 “Their tongue’s an arrow shot, it speaks
Deceit: one speaks peace while he seeks
Against his mouth a heart that reeks.
9 “Shall I not visit them for these?”
Says YHWH; “shall not My soul at ease
Be avenged on such nation’s sleaze?”
10 For sake of mountains I will take
Up weeping and wailing and make
For desert dwellings lamentation,
Because they’re burned up in their station
So no one can pass through them there,
Neither can men hear cattle’s share
In that place, both the birds that fly
And beasts have fled beneath the sky.
11 I’ll make Jerusalem a heap,
A den of dragons and a keep
Of desolation every town
Of Judah without dweller’s crown.

The birds have fled, they say, from where I live,
And those that used to fly north transitive,
Now stay in Africa and meet the air
With subtle cries and so weather the share.
The climate change is what roughs up the bill
According to one, while another still
Doubts that is so significant in fill.
The argument goes on, and the few that
Cross the Middle Sea are often shot at
By the Maltese, who have no other sport
Than shooting birds, according to report.
And yet, Beloved, I’ve heard the symphony
Of avian voices from my woods and tree
Confessing morning in their poetry.

12 Who’s the wise man to understand?
To whom has YHWH’s mouth uttered band,
So he can declare what he heard,
Why the land perishes a brand
Burnt like a desert where none’s stirred?
13 And YHWH says “Because they’ve forsaken
My law which I set as their ration,
And have not now obeyed My voice,
Neither walking in that law of choice;
14 “But have walked after the vain thoughts
Of their own heart, in Baalim’s lots,
Which their ancestors taught in plots;”
15 Therefore says YHWH of hosts, the God
Of Israel, “Behold the pod
I feed them, this folk, with wormwood,
And give them drink of gall for good.
16 “I’ll scatter them among the folk,
Whom neither they nor any bloke
Of their ancestors have known, and
I’ll send a sword after their band
Till I’ve consumed them every strand.”

The giving of bile for drink is result
Of seeking golden ways and means’ tumult:
The golden era, the nostalgic turn
Toward the hope that I may trample urn,
The cold and flashing glitter of the deed,
The body of the idol of my greed,
All these return to bile at last when seed
Has sprouted and the evil share appears.
Where god’s flesh is eaten, let arise fears.
The bile was first drunk at the foot of Mount
Sinai itself, where golden calf in count
Was ground and mixed with drink turned golden hue.
Beloved, let me reject the bile and crew
Of idols made of gold and golden brew.

17 Says YHWH of hosts, “Consider now,
And call for mourners to avow,
And send for cunning wives to come.
18 “And let them hurry quarrelsome
To wail for us so our eyes can
Run down with tears, our eyelids’ span
Gush out with waters and not rum.”
19 A wailing sound’s heard from Zion,
How are we spoiled, greatly undone,
Because we have forsaken land,
Our dwelling cast us on the sand.
20 Yet hear YHWH’s word, you wifely crew,
And let your ear receive the due
Word of His mouth and teach your daughters
The wailing of lamenting plotters.
21 For death has come in window spaces
And entered our palatial places
To cut off the spawn from without,
The young men from the streets to shout.
22 “Say,” so says YHWH, “men’s corpses fall
Like dung on open field from stall,
And as the handful left behind
After the harvesters combined,
No one stops to pick it at all.”

Fact is the major use of humankind,
After providing breath for leafed and vined,
Is in the fertilizing of the soil
When the body is ripe and leaves the toil.
Beloved, You speak as though it were an ill,
A punishment to fertilize the hill.
It’s rather more a glory to fulfil
A slot in web of nature and of life.
I only fear the bullet and the knife.
Perhaps the Parsee fear that body’s strife
Will pollute water, soil or fire is at
The root of the view that it’s horrid cat
To rot among the weeds and fill the earth
With greener fields and pastures of more worth.

23 So says YHWH “Let not wise men take
Glory in his own wisdom’s stake,
Neither let mighty man arise
To boast of his strength in his guise,
Let not the rich boast of his prize.
24 “But let him boast in this, that he
Understands and that he knows Me,
That I am YHWH and come to show
Mercy and judgement, righteous row
In the earth: for in these I know
Delight,” says YHWH in His decree.

I glory and I revel in the while
That You are YHWH, Beloved, and in Your smile
I live and breathe and write and still recite
The Psalms of David here both day and night.
Some know that You are nothing but the frost
Of blind chance working on the matter tossed
About the universe, and some are still
Filled with the darkness of the heathen hill,
Believing that a Trinity of gods
Lends to the resurrection of the sods,
While some know positive in energy
Is the divine in every soul’s degree.
But I know that You’re YHWH and in my breath
Is life in You and even joy in death.

25 “See, the days come,” says YHWH, “that I
Will punish each circumcised guy
With the uncircumcised to vie.
26 “Egypt and Judah, Edom too,
The children of Ammon in crew
And Moab, all around the world
And even desert dwellers curled,
For all these nations have remained
Uncircumcised in what they’ve gained,
And all the house of Israel
Have uncircumcised hearts as well.”

The knowledge that the circumcision’s vain
Is nothing Saint Paul invented in claim.
And even Jeremiah knew the truth
That circumcision that’s done in one’s youth
Does not give right to tree of life or yet
To any blessing on the earth that’s met.
It’s only the heart that is tuned and set
To obey You, Beloved, in what You say
On Sinai to each one who’s found the way.
The Moabite may fail from off the earth
For failure of cutting penis in girth,
But so shall all who trust in sacrifice
To atone for their sins and make them nice,
Instead of acting by commandments’ worth.

JEREMIAH 10

1 Hear the message YHWH speaks to you,
O house of Israel in crew:
2 So says YHWH, “Do not learn the way
Of the heathen, know no dismay
At the signs of the sky, for those
Heathen are frightened by their rows.”
3 The customs of the folk are vain:
One cuts a tree on the terrain
Of woodland, the work of the hand
Of carpenter with axe in brand.
4 They decorate it with the strand
Of silver and with gold; they clip
It with nails and with hammer’s whip,
So it does not move from its place.
5 They stand straight like a palm and yet
Do not speak, they must have a pet
To carry them, because they are
Not able to walk to the bar.
Don’t be afraid of them, for they
Can do no evil in the day,
Neither can they do good in pay.

The text does not speak of the Christmas tree,
Whose innocence is also lost on me,
But of ancient kind of idolatry
Beneath the guides of old astrology.
But whether Jeremiah knew or not
The trip of modern as ancient in plot,
They both detract from worship of the Right,
The One Creator over all in sight.
Beloved, I turn to You with trees not few
Blocking the lakeshore from my failing view,
And hesitate not to pray where the leaf
And branch sweep down upon me without grief.
If sin there be or not, I see divine
Beyond the grace of tree, both fir and pine.

6 Since there is no one who’s like You,
O YHWH; You are as great as true,
And Your name great in power to view.
7 Who would not be afraid of You,
O King of nations? For to You
Belongs all, since among all wise
Men of all nations in their guise,
And in all their kingdoms devise,
There in not anyone like You.
8 They’re in one crew senseless and fools,
The doctrine of the empty pools
Is just the tree itself for ghouls.

It’s true enough, Beloved, that there is none
Like You at all beneath the frozen sun.
I need not speak of majesty or power,
I need not note Your knowledge in its flower,
But only rest upon one factor here:
You are not to be seen when You appear.
All kings are visible, and princes too,
And even captains of the bankly crew
Have offices and address where the post
Comes to be opened with or without boast.
But You, Beloved, invisible remain
No matter how densely You pack Your frame,
No matter where You light or not Your fame
Upon the inroads of sane and insane.

9 Silver slats are brought from Tarshish,
And gold from Uphaz to unleash
The work of craftsman, and the hands
Of the smelter; blue are the bands
Of their purple robes: they are all
The work of expert men in stall.
10 But YHWH Ælohim of truth HUU
Ælohim Living and King too
Of all the universe and time,
At His wrath trembles earth in prime,
And nations shall not stay before
His threatening of power in store.
11 So you shall say to them, “The gods
That have not made the heavens and clods
Of earth, they shall perish away
From the earth under heavens’ sway.
12 He’s made the earth by His power, He
Established the world by decree
Of His wisdom, and has stretched out
The heavens by His knowledge stout.
13 At the voice He raises on high
A multitude of waters fly
In the skies, and He causes mist
To rise up from the earth’s ends kissed,
He makes the lightning with the rain,
And brings forth wind from treasures’ wain.
14 Man’s knowledge is like that of beast,
Put to shame is each goldsmith’s least
Graven image, for false is his
Molten image, no breath for whiz.

I fail indeed to find that human power
Of concentration and of reason’s flower
Is intrinsically different from that found
Among the beastly crowd to which I’m bound.
The hare that treats my apple trees set out
In youthful herbaceous colours in rout,
The squirrel that makes a home beneath the eaves
Of the house golden that my dream receives,
Both have more sense than many I have known
To share with me the human blood and bone.
What’s unique in the human horde is just
Ability to enslave those who trust.
The crack of pawn shreds blight before the heel.
The dung-bug is inventor of the wheel.

15 A breath of vanity are they,
The work of those once gone astray,
When examined, they fade away.
16 Jacob’s portion is not like them;
For He’s the fashioner of gem,
And Israel the rod of His claim,
And YHWH of hosts remains His name.

The vanity of man’s work is revealed
Perhaps in microscopic of the field.
Just look at El Greco’s painting revealed:
A web of grey across the ragged shield.
A vanity, a breath, a thought that’s gone:
And yet the faith eternal that shone on
The moment of creation caught a light
That must forever diminish the night.
Beloved, Creator of the Universe,
Where microscopic still reveals no worse
Than megalithic planets on parade,
Your image here creating from what’s made
Is also awesome, also meets the fire
If only of a spark, in heaven’s desire.

17 Gather from the land merchandise,
O dweller in the fortress vice.
18 For so says YHWH, “See now, I’ll sling
The dwellers of the land and sting
Them this once till they find the spring.”
19 Woe to me for my breaking, sore
Has been my wounding at the core,
But I said Only this is my
Grief, and I must bear it or try.
20 “My tabernacle’s spoiled and all
My cords are broken at the wall,
My children have gone out from me,
And they are not, none to bend knee
To pitch my tent come many more,
Or to set my curtains in store.”
21 The shepherds have become like beast,
They have not looked for YHWH at least,
Therefore they shall not prosper, and
All their flocks be scattered in band.
22 The sound of a report has come,
A trembling from the northland rum,
To make Judah’s towns desolate,
A den of dragons in their state.
23 O YHWH, I know the way of man
Is not in himself or in scan;
It’s not in the man as he walks
To direct his steps around stalks.
24 Correct me, O YHWH, but justly,
Not in Your anger by degree,
Lest Your hand crushing make me wee.
25 Pour out Your wrath on pagan folk
Who do not know You in Your stroke,
And on the families that do
Not call on Your name; in the stall
They’ve consumed Jacob, devoured all,
And broken up his dwelling’s wall.

The pouring out of wrath on pagan folk
Is a prayer not allowed in Christian yoke,
But is accepted well in war and deed.
It just requires theology in seed
To grant the concept of just war in need.
The bramble took a lesson from the pope
And found just war, wrong-ended telescope,
Was a death-line if not a hanging rope
To serve necessities of the state’s greed.
Beloved, grant me a proper-pouring prayer,
One that calls imprecations on the air,
And curses everyone I think not fair.
Let me not be so sweet and so polite
As I brandish a flaming torch at night.

JEREMIAH 11

1 The message that came to the man
Jeremiah from YHWH to scan:
2 Hear the words of this covenant,
And speak to Judah’s men in tent,
3 And say to them, “So says YHWH God
Of Israel: ‘Cursed be the sod
That does not obey the words of
This covenant both push and shove,
4 “Which I commanded your ancestors
In the day I brought them as questers
Our from the land of Egypt, from
The iron furnace, and in sum
Said “Obey My voice and do them
According to the stratagem
Of all I command you, so you
Shall be My people and my crew,
And I will be your Ælohim.
5 “So I may establish the beam
Of the oath I swore to your dads,
To give to them a land with scads
Of milk and honey, as this day.”’”
I answered and said ”YHWH, ok.”

Beloved, You tell the prophet to curse those
Aloud who refuse in their faithless rows
To obey the words of the covenant
That You spoke on Sinai in loving grant.
If I curse too, Beloved, in quoting You
Or quoting Your own prophet in his due,
I find that people say I’m impolite,
Imposing demands that are not my right.
Why worry? Jeremiah saw his plight
Before the task, and knew that priest and king
Would not like to hear such a message sting.
In my case a propos is more in me.
I’m the only one I effectively
Can curse and change to walk more faithfully.

6 Then YHWH said to me, “Now proclaim
All these words to the towns of fame
In Judah, and in every street
Of Jerusalem, saying meet:
‘Hear the words of this covenant,
And do them, that is why I’m sent.’
7 “For I have surely testified
Against your ancestors in pride,
The day I brought them from the land
Of Egypt, to this day to stand
Early protesting, saying ‘Now
Obey My message anyhow.’
8 “But they did not obey or hear,
But walked each one by his own gear
Of evil heart; that’s why I’ll bring
On them all the words of this thing
That I commended them to do;
But they did not do them in crew.”

Hear the words of this covenant and do
Is what You say to prophet, son and crew
From Egypt into Canaan and as far
As the diaspora can take by car.
Hear the words of this covenant and live
You said to Joshua, that rogue to give
A human sacrifice to meet success.
And still the human crowd just stands to guess.
Beloved, let me hear too indeed but more
Let me do according to Your words’ store,
And I shall cross my stony paths of war
With self and nature to attain the hill,
The bridal path beneath me, and the still
Woods waiting for a peep from robin’s bill.”

9 And YHWH said to me, “A plot’s laid
Among the men of Judah strayed,
And among dwellers on parade
Upon Jerusalem’s streets laid.
19 “They have turned back to evil deeds
Of their ancestors and their creeds
Who would not hear My message then;
And they went after other gods
To serve them: house of Israel’s men
And house of Judah on their sods
Have broken My covenant then
Made with their ancestors and clods.”

The failure of the masses of good men
To keep Your commandments in law again
Is not their ignorance, but fatal plot,
An evil choice decided on for naught.
The failure of the masses in good faith
Is not the result of a code or wraith,
No devil who makes innocents rebound,
But conscious choices made to stand the ground.
Beloved, I stand no ground at all, but go
In whirling dance about the counter-show,
In every step I flee from self to Self
And lay my head upon the gallows shelf.
Let me too enter in the freedom of
Your Decalogue and so whirl on in love.

11 That’s why YHWH says so, ”Now behold,
I’ll bring evil upon them cold,
Which they’ll not have strength to escape,
And though they beg of Me and scrape,
I will not listen to their tape.”
12 The towns of Judah, dwellers in
Jerusalem have gone to bin,
And they have cantillated sin
To such gods to whom their perfume
Rose and they in their time of doom
Gave no salvation in their room.
13 As many as your towns you had
Your gods, O Judah; to the sad
Sum of streets in Jerusalem
You’ve set up altars for the gem
Of shameful things, altars to burn
Incense to Baal as though to earn.

Polytheistic systems are acute
And sensitive, distinguishing the root
Of every place, the subtle difference
Of field and hill and mountain and the vents
Of stream and pool. This scientific way
Of finding measurement more fine today
Seems more sophisticated than the fray
Of claiming all men have one God alone,
One God and Sovereign on a single throne.
Art knows that each perfumed self in the town
Is unique before joy as well as frown,
And one drum cannot keep the beat for all.
There must be gods and lords in throng and thrall
To satisfy the human counting down.

14 So do not pray for this folk here,
Nor lift a cry, a prayer or tear;
For in the time I will not hear
Their cry to Me for trouble’s weir.
15 What’s for My beloved in My house,
Her doing wickedness as spouse
With many, and the holy flesh
Is passed out from your own address:
When you do evil, you rejoice.
16 YHWH called your name with His own voice,
A green fair olive tree of choice
Fruit, with the sound of great tumult
He’s kindled fire on its insult,
Its branches broken as result.
17 For YHWH of hosts who planted you
Has declared punishment on you,
For the evil of Israel’s house,
And of the house of Judah’s spouse,
Which they have done against themselves
To provoke me to wrath for elves
Of incense offered to the shelves
Of Baal and every false god’s house.

Saint Paul too loves to talk about the tree
That brings the olive fruit out faithfully.
It was not his invention, he was free
To quote the prophet spuing out harshly
The curses of those for whom prayer’s not made.
I see a multitude in the parade.
Beloved, I pray for all in dervish way,
And so forgive my fevered, anxious stay.
I mediate the blessings of Your hope
To wicked killers and the blessèd pope,
To charmaids and to cowboys twirling rope.
I pray the prayers forbidden, but I turn
To You and to Your loving heart and yearn
The blessings of peace on a world to burn.

18 And YHWH has shown me what I know,
You showed me their works out on show.
19 But I was like a lamb or ox
Brought to the slaughter house on blocks,
And I did not know they’d devised
Plans against me saying surprised,
”Let us destroy the tree and fruit,
And cut him off from land and root
Of living, so his name may be
No more remembered by decree.”
20 But YHWH of hosts, who judge rightly,
Examining inner parts’ thoughts,
Let me see Your vengeance in plots
On them, for to you I’ve revealed
My cause and opened and unsealed.
21 That’s why YHWH says of Anathoth
And its men, who intend by troth
To kill you, saying “Now do not
Prophesy in YHWH’s name by plot,
So we won’t have to kill your lot.”
22 That’s why YHWH of hosts says “Behold
I’ll punish them for being bold:
The young men shall die by the sword;
Their sons and their daughters be gored
By famine: 23 “Till there’s no one left.
For I will bring evil like theft
Upon the men of Anathoth,
The year of their doom’s in the trough.”

There is no paranoia but that’s faint,
Deficient of the real plot against saint.
It is no wonder that the prophet thought
There was no danger among the unwrought.
The great mistake of those who love Your law
Is to underestimate evil claw.
Beloved, I estimate instead the way
A white dog in the woods looked out to play:
He feared my coming and his mistress took
A short-cut through the brush to reach his nook.
The trick’s to say “good boy” but keep quite still
And not arouse in dogs a warning thrill.

JEREMIAH 12

1 Righteous are You, O YHWH, when I
Stretch out my plea towards Your sky,
Yet let me speak with You about
Your judgements. Why’s there such a shout
Of wickedness in prospering?
At rest are all traitors in spring.
2 You’ve planted them, they’ve taken root,
They grow up and they bring forth fruit;
You’re near their mouth, far from their boot.
3 But you, YHWH know me, You have seen
Me and tried my heart to a beam;
Pull them out like sheep for the scene
Of slaughter and prepare their cream.
4 How long is the land here to mourn,
And every field’s herbs wither shorn,
Because of the evil that’s borne
In them? The beasts fail and the birds,
Because they said in wicked words,
He shall not see our end in scorn.
5 If you have run with footmen and
They got with you too tired to stand,
Then how can you compete with horses?
And in the land of peaceful courses
Where you had faith, then how will you
Do in the swelling Jordan’s view?
6 For even your brothers and house
Of your father, they’ve played the grouse
With you, and called a crowd in sway
After you; don’t believe their bray,
Though they talk in a courteous way.

Beloved, I’ve run with human couriers
And found my heart is weary of their slurs,
And so I come to challenge You and send
My missive prayers in verse and hope to wend
My way in gardens of the blessed and rest
From wayward human troubles on my breast.
Then Jeremiah, in his cynic’s cloak
Comes crashing on my house of shards for oak.
If I am weary of the human toil
And Grecian thought enmeshing me with coil,
He thinks You are a greater foe to spoil.
Beloved, I trust not. I have found too much
Of Paradise here in the earthly touch,
And so I doubt the prophet’s broken crutch.

7 I have forsaken my house, I
Have left my heritage gone by;
I’ve given the dear loved of my
Soul to the power of enemy.
8 My heritage to me is like
A lion in the woods to strike;
It cries against me, so that I
Have hated it to high degree.
9 My heritage to me is like
A speckled bird the others strike;
Come here all beasts of the field, eat
And consume speckled bird for treat.
10 Many are the shepherds who spoil
My vineyard, they have trodden coil
Of my lot under foot; they’ve changed
My portion of Muhammad ranged
Into deserted and estranged.
11 They’ve made it desolate and so
It mourns to me, the whole land’s show
Is desolate, because no man
Lays it to heart nor even can.
12 The spoilers came on all high places
Through the desert and desert traces;
For YHWH’s sword shall devour around
From one end to the other ground,
No flesh shall have Islam for peace.
13 They have sown wheat but in release
Shall harvest thorns; they see increase
Of pain, but without profit’s gain;
And they’ll be ashamed of your grain
Because YHWH’s fierce wrath does not cease.

Good prophet Jeremiah seems to see
The future of established Muslimry:
The loving care to scribe the law’s detail,
The hope that with more words it cannot fail
To be the last and greatest word of all,
Revealing Your will to all men in thrall.
Truth is it may well be such in the stall,
Though Talmud is also great to recall.
Yet both fail through their beauty and their sense,
Their human thrust to tighten all the tents.
Despite care and precautions, every way
Of human hope but helps to lead astray,
Provides excuse again for violence,
And shows when men say “Peace!” how it flees hence.

14 So says YHWH against all my foes,
“The neighbours that touch lots in rows
Which I have caused My folk Israel
To inherit; Behold a spell,
I shall pluck them out of their land,
And pluck out Judah’s house to stand.
15 “And it will happen after I
Have plucked them out that I will spy
On them and have mercy on them,
And bring them out by stratagem,
Every man to his heritage,
And every man to his land’s wage.
16 “And it will happen, if they will
Diligently learn My folk’s bill,
To swear by My name, as YHWH lives,
As they taught My folk in their sieves
To swear by Baal, then they shall be
Built in the midst of My folk’s tree.
17 “And if they will not listen, then
I’ll utterly pluck up again
And destroy that nation,” says YHWH.

Does it suffice, Beloved, merely to swear
By one name or another without care?
Jehovah’s Witnesses and Sacred Names
Movement allow for such prophetic claims.
But I would find more than the magic touch
Of sound upon the wind: I am too Dutch
For subtleties of mystics in the clutch.
The metaphors of light and breath I take
As little more that physical in rake,
And names are merely arbitrary plots
To represent realities in clots.
And yet I’m bound I whirl beneath the light
And sound of spirit’s breath not come in sight,
And cantillate Your name with all my might.

JEREMIAH 13

1 So YHWH said to me, ”Go and get
A linen kilt and that kilt set
Upon your loins, don’t get it wet.”
2 So I got a kilt by the word
Of YHWH and put it on me stirred.
3 And YHWH’s word came another time
To me and said to me in rhyme,
4 “Take the kilt that you’re wearing now
And get up and go to the brow
Of the Euphrates, hide it there
In a hole of the rock and bare.”

Determined by environment and what
My own flesh tells me I must do in rut,
I rise like Jeremiah in old time
To represent Your truth in act and mime.
There’s no escape for any man below
To tell by actions free-wrought or in slow
Compliance to the will imposed and right:
All rise to live and do at morning light.
Beloved, I dress myself and wash to find
Before me a day leading me as blind,
And each thing that I do or wear or say
Reveals Your glory in some kind of way,
To shame or praise, but always loud and sere,
To fame or haze, in a gay shroud or fear.

5 So I went and hid it again
By the Euphrates as YHWH then
Commanded me to do in share.
6 It happened after many days
YHWH said to me, ”Rise in your ways
To the Euphrates and take out
The kilt that I told you about
To hide it there to stay a phase.”
7 Then I went to Euphrates and
Dug up the kilt out of the sand,
And see the kilt was spoiled and worth
Nothing after hidden in earth.
8 Then YHWH’s word came to me and said
9 So says YHWH, “In this way outspread
I’ll spoil the pride of Judah led,
Jerusalem’s great pride and dread.
10 “This wicked folk who will not hear
My message, but walk without fear
In the vain thoughts of their own heart,
And follow other gods to start
To serve them and to worship them,
Shall be like this kilt and its hem,
Good for nothing but to condemn.
11 “Just as the kilt sticks to the waist
Of a man, so I have debased
The whole house of Israel and all
The house of Judah in their stall,”
Says YHWH, “so they might be to Me
A people and a name in fee
And for a praise and a glory,
But they would not hear Me at all.”

The round of clothing that men still put on
Until the cloth wears out and then is gone
Abides among the many, though I know
Global economy may take the show
For some who have the means to cast away
New things for newer fashions in their day.
The cycle of the old and new in all
Things is a matter of the divine call.
Each day You meet the pagan heart in trust
And cast with one breath that soul in the dust,
So that she might get up and come to You
In worship of the beautiful and true.
Each day You give another chance in view
To hear and understand as well as do.

12 So you shall speak to them this word;
So says YHWH Ælohim once stirred
For Israel, “Every jar be filled
With wine,” and they will say to you,
”Don’t we know for a certain view
That every bottle in its due
Shall be filled with grape juice to spew?”
13 Then you shall say to them, so YHWH
Says, “See, I’ll fill all dwellers too
In this land, even kings that sit
Upon the throne of David fit,
And priests and prophets and those who
Dwell in Jerusalem in crew
Of drunkenness and sit in pew.
14 “I’ll dash them one against the other,
Even the father and the brother
Together with their children’s score,”
Says YHWH, “I shall not pity nor
Spare nor have mercy, only smother.”

Disdain for prophecy comes with the thought
That it is just too simple in the plot.
We know the wine comes to fill every pot.
By the same spoken, the wine comes to fill
With drunkenness the preachers at the still,
The patrons in the pew, the evil lot
Pretending to be righteous on the spot.
Beloved, dash me and mine and come to spare
Not any zeal to make me see the share
Of poverty in profit and the glare
Of emptiness in power before I’m caught.
The prophecy’s too simple when the train
Is on a track consuming all the gain,
Enjoying sparkling gleams of acid rain.

15 Hear then and listen, don’t be proud,
For YHWH has spoken once aloud.
16 Glorify YHWH your Ælohim,
Before He brings darkness on beam
And your feet stumble on the dark
Hills and while you look for a spark,
He turns it into shade of death,
Makes it gross darkness out of breath.
17 But if you’ll not hear it, my soul
Shall weep in secret places’ dole
For your pride, and my eye shall weep
Sorely and run down with tears steep,
Because YHWH’s flock’s a captive roll.

The prophet weeps to see his folk remain
The captive of sophisticated gain,
Awareness in the pagan sort of vein
That all is deeper than it seems in sane.
The heathen joy of knowing is not blind:
It is a civilized way and refined.
It’s true faith that seems uncouth in the bind,
The raging against injustices lined,
Tenacious grasping to one God alone,
Without subtle distinctions for each zone.
The shade of death is peaceful at the brink,
It’s glorifying YHWH that makes a stink.
Pride is all that we have, Beloved, take not
The last shred from the human sort of lot.

18 Say to the king and to the queen,
“Humble yourselves, sit on the green,
For your princes shall all fall down,
Even the glory of your crown.
19 “The southern towns will be shut up,
And no one open them to sup;
18 Judah shall be carried away
Captive, and all shall go astray.
20 “Lift up your eyes and see them come
From the north; where’s the flock in sum
That was entrusted to you then,
Your beautiful flock in the glen?
21 “What will you say when He will come
To punish you? For you were rum
To teach them to be chiefs to rule
Over you; shall not sorrows’ pool
Take you, like a wife in grief’s school?”

I’m not a king or queen, and so the word
That Jeremiah speaks with his heart stirred
Leaves me cold on the summit of my herd.
I wonder if the days are many here
Beneath the frozen tundra of men’s fear
When kings have read this word, come to appear
Before Your sovereign throne to lend an ear,
Or if not kings, at least then queens preferred.
Beloved, speak to the king that would seek place
Within the chambered stony walls in space
About my heart, and give my soul the room
To humble my ways now before my doom.
Let the carved throne that sits within my lair
Be filled with One who owns and hears my prayer.

22 And if you say in your heart, “Why
Do these things come on me to spy?”
For the greatness of wicked sin
Lies on your skirts’ uncovered, in
Your heels made bare in store and bin.
23 Can Ethiopian change his skin,
Or leopard his own spots to win?
Then you also know to do good
Who are accustomed to be hood.
24 “So I’ll scatter them as the straw
That passes away by the claw
Of the wind of the wilderness.
25 “This is your fate, your portion set
By measure from Me that you’ll get,”
Says YHWH, “because you did forget
Me and trusted in your false dress.
26 “So I’ll raise your skirts to your face
And show your shame under the trace.
27 “I have seen your adulteries,
Your neighings and the lewdities
Of your whoredom and evil trail
You leave on hills and fields.” So wail,
Jerusalem! Do you not want
To be made clean and miss the taunt?

No, Your prophet is wrong on both accounts.
Though leopard cannot change his spots’ amounts,
Each man and woman here is given choice
To follow in Your word and so rejoice,
Or disobey You in both pound and ounce.
It is not You, Beloved, who raises skirts
And shows erotic visions in fell spurts.
That too is done by choice, and not for shame,
But for the profit in seductive game.
Your prophet does not realize the power
Of the fertility cult in his hour,
Nor that it would last to be core and strength
Of the established faith at such a length.
All is resolved with politics in flower.

JEREMIAH 14

1 YHWH’s message come to Jeremiah
About the dearth and its pariah.
2 As Judah mourns and its gates fail;
They’re black upon the ground and flail;
Jerusalem’s cries rise in wail.
3 Their nobles sent their children to
Draw water, to the cisterns’ view,
And they found there no water’s cue.
4 Because the group is broken up,
For there was no rain in earth’s cup,
The ploughmen were ashamed so they
Covered their heads from light of day.
5 For even the hind in the field
Has brought forth to forsake its yield
Because there was no grass unheeled.
6 Wild donkeys stood in the high places,
They sniffed the wind like dragon faces,
Their eyes failed without grasses’ traces.

Speak not to me, Beloved, of the wild ass!
I enter ecstasy as soon as pass
Such words upon the wind above the sea!
Speak not, Beloved, speak not such words to me!
As soon as I hear the name of that beast,
I forget what You say, whirling increased
By all the lovely fragrances I know
In meadow and on hill for my trousseau.
Beloved, if I wax eloquent to think
Of the wild ass upon the wilder brink
Of sand and sun and cloud and moon, rejoice
That I must swoon should I once hear Your voice.
It is enough, Beloved, to see that vision.
Keep You Yourself hidden from my decision.

7 O YHWH, though our iniquities
Testify against us with ease,
Intervene for Your own name’s sake;
Our backslidings many to take,
For we’ve sinned against You awake.
8 O Hope of Israel, Saviour in
The time of trouble, why begin
To be a stranger in the land,
A pilgrim that turns on the sand
To stay just a night as unplanned?
9 Why should You be like one surprised,
Like a soldier and one disguised?
Yet You, YHWH are among us, and
We are called by Your name, You stand
Not to leave us with the unscanned.

It was an irritation for a Jew
To tell me that Jesus was also You
Because he is the saviour and so YHWH.
The syllogism lacks in logic spent:
If You’re the only Saviour to give vent,
And You are YHWH, it does not follow that
Jesus is YHWH just because someone sat
Down to write that he was a saviour too.
Beloved, I thank You for sending the man,
I love him as a master and a plan,
If he indeed existed on the shore.
But I love You and only You the more.
Let my love be transformed each moment here
Into obedience as well as fear.

10 So says YHWH to this people here,
So have they loved to wander near,
They’ve not refrained their feet at all,
So YHWH does not accept their ball;
Now He’ll remember all their sin,
And doom them to the lowest bin.
11 So says YHWH to me, ”Do not pray
Good for this people gone astray.
12 “When they fast, I’ll not hear their voice,
And when they offer up the choice
Burnt offering and oblation’s voice,
I will not accept them, but I
Will consume them by the sword’s cry,
And by the famine and plague’s eye.”

Though Jesus commands me to pray for foe,
The prophet Jeremiah on the go
Hears Your command, Beloved, not once to show
Petition for the chosen in a row.
Let all the airs above my lake reveal
What prayers are needed on the earth to heal,
And all the whisperings of squirrel and rat
That sniffle in my bosky habitat
Pray what You will, Beloved, in the days’ wheel.
I’ll let the prophets and the chosen folk
Come back again and once more on their spoke
And mind my own affairs under the stroke
Of days and nights of sweet and frost for broke.
So in the end as at first I appeal.

13 Then I said “Ah, Lord YHWH! Behold,
The prophets say to them as bold,
You shall not see the sword and you
Shall have no famine in your due,
But I will give you certain peace
In this place and rest in release.”
14 Then YHWH said to me, “Prophets lie
In prophesy in My name spy;
I did not send them, neither did
I commandment to speak or bid,
They prophesy to you by false
Vision and divination’s waltz,
A vain thing, deceit in heart hid.”
15 That’s why YHWH says about the same,
“Prophets come speaking in My name,
And I did not send them, but they
Say ‘Sword and famine have no sway
In this land;’ by sword and the dearth
Shall those prophets be snuffed from earth.
16 “The folk to whom they prophesy
Shall be cast out in alley sty
Out of Jerusalem because
Of famine and the sword in claws,
And they shall have no one to come
And bury them, their wives in sum
Nor their sons, nor their daughters’ crew,
For wickedness on them I spew.”

After translating and the contemplation
Of so many pages in careful ration
Of books claiming to be a revelation,
I near conclude that You sent nary one
Among the prophets, when the thing is done.
My head and heart tell me that all prevail
To pretend that You blow upon their sail,
When in fact all speak from the human heart,
Sometimes without guile, sometimes with the start
Of heathen worship or the biased views
Of politics to help them in their mews.
Beloved, I take all prophets with a grain
Of malt and try to keep myself here sane
Before Your Decalogue upon the plain.

17 “That’s why you’ll give them this word too;
Let my eyes run with tears in view
Both night and day, and so not cease,
For the virgin daughter’s release
Of my folk is broken out wide
With a strong stroke in head and side.
18 If I go out into the field,
Then see the slaughtered and upheeled
By the sword! And if I go in
The city, then behold the din
Of those sick with the famine’s bin!
Indeed both prophet and the priest
Go all around the land released
So they do not know it increased.
19 Have you rejected Judah all?
Does Your soul loath then Zion’s wall?
Why have You struck us down in stall
So there’s no healing there at all?
We looked for Islam’s peace, and there
Was no good at all in the share;
And for the time of healing care,
And see only trouble’s repair!
20 So we acknowledge, YHWH, that we
Are wicked, the iniquity
Of our ancestors too we know
Is sin against You and Your show.
21 Do not abhor us, for Your name,
Do not disgrace Your glory’s fame,
Remember, do not break the claim
Of Your covenant with our frame.
22 Are there among the vanities
Of the Gentiles’ gods in their sprees
Who can bring down the rain’s degrees?
Or can the skies bring forth the showers?
Are You not He, O YHWH in powers?
That’s why we shall depend on You,
For You have made all these in crew.

The folk looked for Islam as long as share
Of Muhammed was prophesied on air,
And thought that peace would come at last to bear
Without relying on Egyptian care
Or on fair Babylon as a new state.
We hoped Islam would come before too late.
The book and hope came too soon in the way
It seems, since human hearts that time held sway
And those You chose as divine guides were met
By sword and poison from the royal set.
You choose a time too early, yes, but think
How it would be upon a later brink:
There is no time when peace is truly held.
It’s only talk among the bargain spelled.

JEREMIAH 15

1 Then said YHWH to me, ”Now though Moses
And Samuel stood before My posies,
My mind would not turn toward this folk;
Throw them out of My sight, each bloke.
2 “And it shall happen, if they say
To you, ‘Where shall we go, which way?’
Then you shall tell them,” so says YHWH,
“Such as are meant for death’s own crew,
To death; and such meant for the sword,
To the sword; and those still not gored,
To the famine; and who remain
To their captivity unslain.
3 “And I will set for them four kinds,
Says YHWH, “the sword to slice behinds,
The dogs to tear, and birds above,
The beasts of the earth here to shove
Devouring and destroying rinds.
4 “And I’ll cause them to be removed
Into all kingdoms and reproved
In all the earth, because the way
Hezekiah’s son Manasseh,
King of Judah, for what he did
There in Jerusalem and hid.
5 “For who shall have pity on you,
Jerusalem? or mourn your due?
Or who shall go aside to ask
How you are going in your task?
6 “You have forsaken Me,” says YHWH,
“You have gone backward, so it’s true
I’ll stretch out My hand against You,
And destroy you; for I am tired
Of begging you to be inspired.
7 “And I will fan them with a fan
In the gates of the land to scan;
And I’ll bereave them of their spawn,
And I’ll destroy My people drawn,
They don’t repent of evil plan.
8 “Their widows are increased to Me
Above the sands upon the sea;
I’ve brought on them against the mother
Of the young men the spoiler’s brother
At noon, and I’ve made him attack
It suddenly so there’s no lack
Of terror on the city’s back.
9 “The mother of seven becomes weak,
She gives up the ghost, her sun’s peak
Is gone down while the noon yet rose;
She’s been shamed and confusion goes
With the rest of those that I bring
To the foes’ sword and to its sting,”
Says YHWH without remorse in wing.

The four gates are a smile of thinkers in
The times before Pythagoras could win.
The fire, the wind, the water, and the air
All had their place in faith and acts to share.
But the four gates of Your destruction here
Met also in the symbols of good cheer
That nature gives, are awful in their rhyme:
They tell the end of canvassing for crime.
Beloved, the sword is still beyond my grasp,
But I prefer the dog to slithering asp,
The vulture and the eagle to the clasp
Of other beasts that haggle in their time.
The fingers never fail in counting well
The fives and fours of good and evil spell.

10 Woe to me, my mother, and you
Who bore me as a man of rue
And one contending in the view
Of the whole earth! I’ve neither lent
On interest, nor have men been bent
To lend me at interest, each one
Of them come to curse me a ton.
11 YHWH says “Truly it shall be well
With your remnant; indeed I’ll spell
The enemy to beg for you
In the time of evil and due
Time of affliction on your crew.
12 “Does anyone break iron, or yet
The northern iron and with brass set?
13 “Your wealth and treasures I will give
To the spoil without price in sieve,
And for all your sins where you live.
14 “And I’ll send you there with your foes
Into a land none of you knows;
For fire is kindled in My wrath,
And it will burn you in your path.

The loved Qur’an makes sure that all men know
That war is caused by interest of the stow.
And still the grand global economy
Is based on banking interest of the free.
That’s why we’ve had world wars, though not yet three,
And why there’s always action in the field,
If only in the third world where the yield
Of death to white men is curtailed and healed.
Beloved, You send the evil and the sword
On all men when the wealthy and deplored
Take interest. Is the answer to receive
Only each day the money and reprieve
Needed each day to survive without seed?
The daily bread You give lasts without greed.

15 O YHWH, You know, remember me,
And take my case and revenge me
Of those who’re persecuting me;
Do not take me away in Your
Mercy; know for Your sake in store
I’ve suffered reproach and lots more.
16 Your words were found, those I devoured,
And Your word is to me empowered
To be a joy, and for the joy
Of my heart, the name I employ
Is Yours, YHWH, Ælohim of hosts.
17 I did not sit where mocker boasts
And did not rejoice; but alone
I sat because of Your hand’s throne;
For You’ve filled me with wrath to groan.
18 Why is my pain perpetual,
And my wound here incurable,
Refusing to be healed at all?
Will you be like a liar to me,
As waters failing cisterns free?
19 “That’s why,” says YHWH, ”If you return,
Then I will bring you here to earn,
And you shall stand before Me; and
If you take out the precious band
From the vile, You’ll be as My mouth;
Let them come back to you from south,
But don’t you go back to their band.
20 “And I will make you to this folk
A stalwart wall of brass by stroke,
And they shall fight against you and
Shall not prevail against your band;
For I am with you here to save,
And to deliver from the grave,”
Says YHWH to each one not a knave.
21 “I’ll save you out of wicked hand,
And I’ll redeem you from the band
Of terror come upon the land.”

The promise made to Jeremiah may
Have been fulfilled in some divine-like way,
But now methinks the prophethood he bore
Was heavy work and sorrow all the more.
Better not to encourage with the promise
Of Your protection, let be doubting Thomas.
I do not trust that those who trust in You
Shall succeed on the earth, the sombre view
Of holocaust of Indian and the Jew
Suffices to make clear that You do not
Prevent the Inquisition on the spot,
But let those who keep Your law lie and rot
In prison or die squirming in the hands
Of those who torture at just war’s demands.

JEREMIAH 16

1 The word of YHWH to me also
Came, saying, 2 “Now you shall not go
To take a wife, nor shall you bear
Sons or daughters in this nightmare.”
3 For so says YHWH concerning sons
And daughters who’re born here by tons,
And concerning their mothers who
Gave birth to them, their fathers who
Produced them in this land: 4 “They’ll die,
Die gruesome deaths, they shall not cry
For them nor shall they bury them,
But they’ll be like trash on the ground.
Sword and famine shall eat their hem,
Their corpses shall be meat around
For the birds of sky, for beast
That upon the earth’s face increased.”

The horror of the corpse defiling ground
Is vividly and more so to be found
In Zoroaster’s prophecy, and yet
This Jeremiah does not well forget.
The vultures are the best grave for the flesh
Of humankind is a principle fresh
From Parsee towers of silence that enmesh
The skies of Bombay with a line in line
To ancient prophets come inside to dine.
Beloved, the birds may well eat my flesh too,
I do not know the future in my pew,
Though I can guess if time last on the earth
That my body may be accounted worth
The burying among Lord’s People’s crew.

5 For so says YHWH “Do not go in
The house of mourning, nor beat shin
In lamentation to mourn them,
For I have taken diadem
Of My peace from this folk,” says YHWH,
“And lovingkindness, mercies due.

Breast-beating is a practice that goes back
At least to exilic prophets in pack,
And may be more ancient even than that,
Although forgotten by bishops in hat.
I beat my breast remembering the crew
Of divine guides that were done in for You,
For Hussein in remembrance of the wrath
Of caliph at Kerbala on the path
To thirst and death. Beloved, I beat my breast
Beneath the glowing day till in the west
The time for prayer is signalled for retreat,
And then I bow prostrating at Your feet,
The shining columns of the earth and sky,
Near and remote as You were passing by.

6 “Both the great and the small shall die
In this land. And they shall apply
For burial, and none shall cry
For them, nor cut themselves, nor make
Themselves bald for their mourning’s sake.
7 “Neither shall any tear their clothes
In mourning for them in their rows,
To comfort themselves for the dead;
Neither shall any give the cup
Of consolation or to sup
For father or mother instead.
8 “A banqueting house you’ll not enter,
To sit there, eat and drink with venter.”
9 For so says YHWH of hosts, the God
Of Israel, “See I will prod
Out of this place before your eyes,
And in your days, the voice and guise
Of mirth and gladness and the sound
Of the bridegroom and bride on ground.

Should people mourn today by tearing clothes?
I think in ancient times the act arose,
Expression of grief and sometimes in shows
Of horror and disgust. But what I think
About such wasteful habits at the sink
Is not much in praise for the thing at all.
I hope that when the time comes I must fall,
No one will spoil a good, new shirt for me.
I don’t approve of such wasting in spree.
But if some wish to enter in to eat
At their expense a celebration’s treat,
I shall not bother in my grave, but rest
And let them sort their delights as they best
Can do and then go out to walk the street.

10 “And it shall happen, when you show
This folk all these words in a row,
They’ll say to you ‘Why does YHWH now
Pronounce this evil on our brow?
Or what is our iniquity?
What’s our sin that we’ve done freely
Against YHWH Ælohim’s decree?’
11 “Then you shall say to them, ‘Because
Your ancestors forsook My laws,’
Says YHWH, ‘and followed other gods,
And have served them, though only clods,
And worshipped them forsaking Me,
And have not follow My decree,
12 “And you’ve done worse than your ancestors,
For see you follow on as questers
Each of the evil of his heart,
So they may not obey My part;
13 “Therefore I’ll cast you from this land
Into a land unknown at hand
By you or your ancestors’ band,
And there you’ll worship other gods
Both day and night without the rods
Of My favour upon your sods.’

In every catastrophic sort to rise,
The victims raise their hands up to the skies,
And let the tears fall down from weeping eyes,
And ask what did they do to deserve this?
Your prophet answers in the vein of bliss,
As though assuming that they know the rule,
And every violent act is Your tool.
What does Your prophet say to one like me,
Who does not ask what has been done in fee
To deserve punishment, but rather takes
Your hand and heart in silence in the wakes
Of good and evil? I resent the shore
Of blame put on You, though sovereign and more.
I do resent the implication’s store.

14 “That is why, see, the time arrives,”
Says YHWH, “when they’ll no more devise
Saying YHWH lives who brought the folk
Of Israel out of Egypt’s stroke.”
15 But rather they’ll say then YHWH lives
That brought Israel’s folk from the sieves
Of the northland, and from all lands
Where He had driven them in bands,
“And I will bring them up again
Into the land I gave their men.
16 “See I will summon fishermen,”
Says YHWH “and they shall fish for them,
And after that I’ll send in glen
For many hunters, and they’ll hunt
For them in every mountain’s stunt,
And every hill and from the caves
Of the rocks, both the free and slaves.

The hunting out of the folk spread abroad
Upon the seas and every foreign sod
Goes on apace, and even to the end
Of western continents where time would bend.
The Jewish sort of prayer is found among
The forest and the mountain people wrung
For Peru and the Amazon, and still
Around the world from China and the grill
Of Andalus the crowds awake and come.
The Decalogue was even made to hum
In some strange stones in the place I come from.
Beloved, let men hunt and fish as they will.
The true day of rest and the temple stand
Within the heard divine and Your command.

17 “For My eyes are on all their ways,
They are not hidden from My face
Their sins not veiled from My eyes’ trace.
18 “I’ll pay back double both their sin
And their iniquity to win,
Because they have defiled My land,
They’ve filled My lot with carcass band
Of their detestable things and
Abominations’ sacrifice.”
19 O YHWH, my strength, my fortress and
My refuge in affliction’s stand,
The Gentiles shall come in a trice
To You for the earth’s ends to say
“Surely our ancestors at bay
Inherited lies, vanity,
Things without profit though with fee.”
20 Shall a man make gods for himself,
And they will not be gods or elf?
21 “That’s why, see, I will make them know
This once, I shall come out to show
My hand and power, and they shall know
My name’s YHWH above and below.”

When Jesus spoke of fishermen of men,
He merely quoted Jeremiah then.
He fished for Judah back from being caught
In captive snares of northern nations taught.
He fished for Gentiles, who would cast away
The wicked idols they had made for pay.
The prophecy cannot be of the day
That Christianity arose to pray,
Because they did not cast aside the stroke
Of Mithra and Apollo for the yoke
Of the true God, oh no, they gave Your name
To wicked idols and did without shame.
So priest of Rome and of Jerusalem
Join in the worship of silver and gem.

JEREMIAH 17

1 Judah’s sin’s written with a pen
Of iron and with a diamond then,
It’s graven on their heart of stone,
And on your altars’ horns to hone.
As their sons mind their altars and
Their shrines by the green tree in band,
By the high hills, 3 O my mount in
The field, I’ll give your wealth in bin
And all your treasures to the spoil,
And your high places there for sin,
Throughout your borderlands in coil.
4 And you’ve let go, even yourself,
Of the lot I gave you on shelf,
And I’ve made you to serve your foes,
In a land that none of you knows,
For a fire you’ve kindled My wrath,
Unto the age it burns its path.

Psychology of sin is that the mind
Views the surroundings to see if in kind
An eye is watching what the hand will do,
And if the coast is fear, the thing is true.
Such action leaves unnoticed that the sin,
Once acted on, leaves marks upon the bin
As though engraved on stone with iron pen,
And cut through and incised, polished again
With diamond tip and blade. That is the count,
Not whether neighbours see the whole amount.
Beloved, see how I lay my stony heart
Before the crushing wheels of tumbling cart,
Before the lay of Your law from the start.
You only soften stone to flesh apart.

5 So says YHWH, “Cursed the man who trusts
In man, and has made flesh of dusts
His strength, and from YHWH turns his heart.
6 “For he’ll be like the desert part,
Not seeing good arrive, but live
In dry places of wilderness,
In salt flats that can never give
A house or home or yet address.”

No doubt, Beloved, You make exception when
I set my trust upon the best of men,
On Jesus or on fair Muhammad too,
On Ali grand, to mention but a few.
You cannot mean that trust in Christ is vain.
The preacher made the faith to seem so plain.
Ah me, poor me, whom am I to believe,
The preacher standing up and to receive
My offerings of both money and of care,
Or You alone, Beloved, of divine share?
The word of Jeremiah is just one
Word of a man, a young one too when done.
If I trust in the synagogue or mosque
Or church, I trust in dust beside my kiosk.

7 Blessed is the man who trusts in YHWH,
Whose confidence has been in YHWH.
8 For he’ll be like a planted tree
By the waters that spreads freely
Her roots there by the riverside,
And shall not know the heat in tide,
But her leaf shall be green and not
Be careful in the year of drought,
Neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
9 The heart’s deceitful above all,
Frantically wicked in its stall,
And who can know it from a doll?
10 “I YHWH do search the heart and try
The inward parts, even to spy
Each by his actions for reply,
According to his acts’ results.”
11 As the partridge sits on the cults
And hatches nothing, so the one
Who obtains wealth when it’s not done
By right, shall leave it e’er his time,
And at last be a fool to climb.

I don’t know but the prophet Jeremiah
Quoted or wrote the first psalm as a flyer.
If so, no doubt he wrote first chapter set
In Genesis too, or then I forget.
The tree that’s planted in the desert sand
But strikes a root to water under land
Is a fine picture of the way You send
Your nourishment to human hearts to bend
From all the dry and brittle round about
Towards the light and true, the sound and stout.
Who can know the heart? None who does not see
Beneath the hiding sands to rivers free,
Where You, Beloved, work close behind the scenes
To shower the life and love with harvest beans.

12 A throne of honour from the start
Set up on high is place and part
Of our sanctuary in heart.
13 O YHWH the hope of Israel,
All who forsake You do not well
In their own shame, those who depart
From me shall be writ with a dart
In the earth for forsaking YHWH,
The fount of living waters true.
14 Heal me, O YHWH, and I shall be
Healed; save me, and I faithfully
Shall be delivered: You’re my glee.
15 See how they tell me anyhow,
Where is YHWH’s word? Let it come now.
16 I have not hurried on my way
From feeding after You to stay,
Nor wished to be led by a man.
You know what has come from my lips
Was moved before Your sight like ships.
17 So do not be a fright to me,
You are my hope on troubled sea.
18 Let my pursuers be ashamed,
But never let me here be blamed,
Let them be frightened as they turn,
But let me never fear the earned;
Bring upon them the evil day,
Destroy them with a double pay.

The fount of running water, it is true,
Was an expression first said about You.
The words have been inflated since that time
And wasted in the ways of prose and rhyme.
A Saviour You may be, indeed, but still
There are so many saviours on the hill,
Such as are born in stables under stars,
Plied with the gifts of shepherds and the bars
Of magi, set to bear a weary cross
And resurrect after three days to toss
Up in the air and find there is no loss.
Beloved, You are alone my Saviour here,
Though You’ve saved from so much it would appear
There’s nothing more to ask for in Your ear.

19 So says YHWH to me, “Go and stand
In the gate of the folk in band,
By which the kings of Judah come,
And by which they go out to hum,
In all gates of Jerusalem.
20 “And say to them, ‘Hear now the word
Of YHWH, you kings of Judah stirred,
And all Judah and all who live
Here in Jerusalem and give
Entrance by these gates like a bird.’
21 “So says YHWH, ‘Take heed to yourselves,
And take no burdens from your shelves
Upon the Sabbath day in hem
By the gates of Jerusalem.
22 “Do not carry loads from your homes
On the Sabbath, nor work your loams,
But sanctify the Sabbath day,
As I said of your fathers’ way.
23 “But they did not obey, and they
Did not turn ears to what I say,
But made their neck stiff not to do
According to My teaching’s view.
24 “And it will happen, if you listen
To Me,’ says YHWH, ‘to bring no glisten
Of load or burden through the gates
Of this city when Sabbath waits,
But sanctify the Sabbath day
To do no work in it or pay,
25 “Then entering by this city’s gate
Shall come kings and princes in state
To sit on David’s throne and ride
In chariots with horses plied,
That and their chiefs, and Judah’s men,
The dwellers of Jerusalem;
And this town shall always abide.
26 “And they shall come from Judah’s towns,
And from Jerusalem’s near downs,
And from the land of Benjamin,
And from the plain and from the din
Of mountains and from the south bring
Burnt offerings and sacrificing,
And food offerings and incense too,
And sacrifices of praise due
Into the very house of YHWH.
27 “But if you’ll not come to obey
Me to hallow the Sabbath day,
And not to carry burdens then,
Into gates of Jerusalem
On Sabbath day, then I will light
A fire in its gates and the site
Within Jerusalem will burn
And not be put out in its turn.’”

The prophets always tie the Sabbath day
To justice and in keeping of the way
Of the oppressed to give them some clear light
That they are not the pawns of noble right.
But those who argue dogma would prefer
Just to focus on which day takes the fur,
A Saturday or Sunday in the blur.
It is an arbitrary thing, no doubt,
But one day in the seven leaves unstout
The poor man’s non-negotiable in rights,
The certainty of rest on Sabbath’s nights.
Beloved, You witness justice to the poor,
But few regard the rights that You made sure.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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