‘Obi-Wan Bin Laden RIP’ and Other Poetry by James Sale

Obi-Wan Bin Laden RIP

Let’s remember what God wants:
Killing people’s never right,
So Obi-Wan Bin Laden then
Cannot be a Jedi knight.

To make folks free you face them straight –
Backstabbing lacks God’s protocol;
So Obi-Wan Bin Laden looks
Like something that has lost its soul.

He’s hard to find on Dégobah,
Afghanistan or Alderon,
Where Obi-Wan Bin Laden hides –
But surely he’ll slip in the sun.

Then see his shade evaporate,
His loud excuses miss their course:
As Obi-Wan Bin Laden tries
Escaping but without the Force.

Three Last Stars

And we came out to see once more the stars …Inferno
To her reborn, a tree renewed, in bloom… Purgatorio
I felt my will and my desire impelled … Paradiso

We climbed from darkness far away,
Opening ahead the circle round
Through which we went from night to day;
Yet strangely still they shone, profound,
The stars forever and beyond,
Signposting our immortal way.

My tree renewed, to see them there,
Above me, puncturing the dark,
So distant, like they couldn’t care,
Or were mere scratchings on black bark –
Each point, though, perfect in its work:
Upwards – certain, beyond despair.

Such, then, they were, beacons of hope
No blackness ever could erase
Them, mar, damage or change their shape;
Indeed, only one response, praise
Seemed fitting. As I pursued my ways
Ahead, behind the world’s dark drape.

James Sale FRSA has been a writer for 50 years, and has had over 30 books published, including 7 collections of poetry, as well as books from Macmillan (The Poetry Show vols 1-3) and other major publishers on how to teach poetry writing. Most recently his poems have appeared in the UK in: Dawntreader, Towards Wholeness, Quaker News and Views, The Bournemouth Central Library Exhibition; in the USA in The Anglo Theological Review. Shortly, his latest collection, The Lyre Speaks True, will be available and includes his prize winning poems from The Society of Classical Poets’ 2014 anthology.

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