.

Unchristian

I hope you burn in Hell for nasty things
You said to me, but if you don’t, I hope
A host of energetic angel wings
Will lash your eyes.  The blurry King of Kings,
As toward His golden God-side throne you grope,
For words you spoke, should wash your mouth with soap.

.

.

Alone

That vestige called my heart is nearly dead,
So thoroughly disused and sorely smitten
By words not you or I once ever said,
The poetry that still remains unwritten.

But even so, I do deserve a shot
To make it up—invent, or just atone
For thoughtful deeds I never did.  It’s not
Life’s path I dread, but going it alone.

.

.

C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden.  Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India.  His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.

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39 Responses

  1. Stephen Dickey

    Kip,
    I found “Alone” to be very moving, I for one can’t imagine it not speaking to most at a certain age at least.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      Well sure, Stephen, but please recall that poems are often word games that reach their own self-generated conclusions. I don’t absolve myself of all responsibility, but I can’t take all the credit.

      Reply
  2. Warren Bonham

    Funny and impactful! The specter of unsaid and unwritten words is a very good wake up call for all of us.

    Reply
  3. David Whippman

    Two well-written poems. “Alone” is poignant. It’s so easy to be lethargic. “Thoughtful deeds I never did” sums it up perfectly.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      It is indeed, David, easy to be lethargic — at least in the short term. It’s after that that the difficulties arise.

      Reply
  4. Cynthia Erlandson

    These are two compact gems, C.B. “Alone” is especially poignant.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      “Compact” anyway, Cynthia. The “poign” is a matter of your own judgement.

      Reply
  5. Russel Winick

    Mesmerizing. I’m regularly traumatized by the poetry in me that remains unwritten. Will it ever come out? Fine work, Sir.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      I take your question seriously, Russel. If one writes down ideas as they occur, then the thought can usually be reconstructed and expanded. If one does not, then usually they come again or are replaced with something even better. I long ago stopped worrying about lost thoughts that disappeared into the night. Very little is ever truly lost.

      Reply
      • Russel Winick

        Thank you, Sir, for your thoughtful reply. You nailed my concern precisely, and I will try to keep your optimism in mind henceforth. This is just the latest of several observations which you have written (to me or others) in recent years that have helped me substantially as a novice writer of poetry. Much appreciated!

  6. Daniel Kemper

    Good morning from California!

    I thought the craft and emotion were superb in this portion:

    “To make it up—invent, or just atone
    For thoughtful deeds I never did.

    There is a pulse established up to that point, as well as a tension-release cycle that is at its most tense when the reader pronounces, “alone,” and then the impact and surprise of repenting for the un-done was just a turn of phrase more valuable than a cat’s eye marble to a little kid. [It’s a gem, but the term has already been used, so trying out something.] Anyway, a great turn of phrase.

    I grok very much with the themes of these poems as well. It’s so hard; the more we need each other, the more sensitive to each other we become. Unfortunately, that often means more sensitive to each other’s foibles as well, increasing provocability and the likelihood of fights and loneliness.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      Jesus, Daniel! You’ve invested more thought into this poem than I ever did. Last February I experienced a full week of California (Half Moon Bay) mornings, and I am glad that you have unraveled some of the complexity that went into such a little poem.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        Given that you’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain, perhaps that troll was right about just how un-Christian you are. Or maybe she and I were both wrong in assuming that you were a Christian in the first place, but either way, I can’t be silent when His name is used as a curse word.

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Joshua, this is NOT A CHRISTIAN SITE. People who post here are under no obligation to adhere to any religious strictures. Those who contribute material may be believers from any sect, atheists, agnostics, freethinkers. or secularists.

        We make sure that left-liberals don’t colonize the SCP. We also make sure that religionists don’t attempt it either.

        Will you stop trying to start a fight over every little thing?

      • Joshua C. Frank

        I tend to assume that conservatives are Christian until proven otherwise.

        Just so you know, it’s not about starting a fight, it’s about defending. Just as I defended C.B. from Maria’s vicious attacks (see below), as a Christian, I couldn’t not do the same for Jesus. At least Maria didn’t use C.B’s name as a curse word.

        Here’s the problem: I get as frustrated with our fellow “religionists,” as you call them, as you do, for the same reasons, but at the same time, I recognize that the Christian faith as it has always been held is the only thing protecting us from being assimilated into left-liberalism.

        Plato and other philosophers like him essentially said that you should be virtuous because it is good to do so. That only lasts as long as things are going well. When things are difficult in the world around us, without God, why should we give a damn about anything but our own immediate pleasure? As Dostoyevsky said so well, “Without God, anything is permissible.” Hence he also said, “The West has lost Christ and that is why it is dying; there is no other reason.”

      • Daniel Kemper

        Thanks C.B., yeah, sometimes a small observation takes a large amount of text to point out — in prose anyway. And the muse is a wonder, isn’t she? Sometimes she’ll drop in a tidy, creative thing in our hands in a flash for free. And sometimes she makes us endure until we can’t see the end of enduring.

  7. Brian A. Yapko

    “Unchristian” must have one of the most memorable and shocking opening line of any poem I can recall on this site! I am now terribly curious about what words were spoken, C.B., that would inspire this speaker’s curse in poetic form.

    “Alone” is a wonderful poem which speaks to me deeply. If only we had worlds enough and time. This one broke my heart a little.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      This comment summed up everything I was going to say about the poem. Well done, C.B.!

      Reply
    • Mia

      Curious, I would have thought it was obvious -Mr Anderson writes
      about himself.
      Maria is correct up to a point, and good for her for commenting, but in my humble opinion, the comment fails to see the pain behind both of these poems. Possibly because they are not particularly good poems. But there is , in my opinion, pain there, hidden by bravado. Where there is pain though, there is hope as it means the heart is not totally dried up.

      ps Joshua I agree, no one has the right to be rude and use revered names in vain. I don’t particularly care how non religious this site is or isn’t , rudeness is rudeness and therefore revolting.

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        Thank you, Mia.

        The only thing is, I wouldn’t try to psychoanalyze a poet from his poems. As Joseph Salemi has shown us in his essays and by example, a view voiced in a poem is like that of a character in a story: the speaker’s view is not necessarily the view of the author, but is used as a vehicle to express something that is. The example I used is “A Leftist Rebukes Hamas,” where the speaker is an antihero, but lesser examples exist in my own work as well. In some of them, the speaker refers to his children or his siblings, but I have neither.

        If anything, when we think the speaker is the poet himself, that’s a sign that the narrative voice is well-written. Someone recently said I wrote the speaker of “Two Empty Chairs” so well, he thought it was autobiographical… and someone else thought the speaker of “The No-Life Algorithm,” who is in the exact opposite situation, was me.

    • Brian A. Yapko

      I do not share other people’s concerns about your “Unchristian” poem, C.B. It is clear to me that you are writing a character study in very broad strokes of a speaker who is highly dramatic, highly offended and who spits these dark words out in poetic form. But your character study — your very title — makes clear that it is this self-righteous speaker who is himself “unChristian.” And Evan’s choice of painting — the Torment of St. Anthony — makes it clear that this is not a simple “outburst” poem. It is very much in the line of Matthew 7: “How can you say to your brother, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Your speaker is a hypocrite and the title makes that abundantly clear.

      I wrote a poem two years ago on Milton which was in the voice of a small-minded amanuensis who was pettily critical of the great poet. People misunderstood that and thought I hated Milton. Wait, what? Anything but. Sometimes poetry can and should be presented in the voice of odious characters. I did it only last week with Captain Ahab and previously with Elagabalus. Milton had to give voice to Satan. Browning did it repeatedly in his dramatic monologues, including a corrupt renaissance Bishop and the Tempest’s monstrous Caliban. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I read your poem as being very much in that vein. In fact, it reminds me of Browning’s “Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister” which opens with a monk literally growling “Grrrrr” with revulsion at a fellow monk. No one thinks Browning hates monks.

      Reply
    • C.B Anderson

      Indeed Brian, what words were spoken? I can only guess: You’re a no-good low-down son-of-a-bitch, or something like that. The key note is the narrator’s lack of charity, which, in certain situations, I endorse. There’s nothing nothing wrong with your heart.

      Reply
  8. Maria

    “Unchristian” is aptly named, as it may be the most unchristian sentiment expressed in poetry that I have ever read. Invoking the wrath of God on a brother for nasty words? There is nothing Christian about that. The master Jesus, spoke of love and forgiveness. “Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do onto me.” “Love your brother as yourself.” There is certainly no love or forgiveness in this poem, no Christian sentiment at all.

    I would ask of you Mr. Anderson, to go back to the beginning of this site’s birth, and re-read every comment you have ever posted here to every poet. Were they all full of love and kindness? Did they encourage and uplift people or rip them to shreds? The vitriol expressed by you in some of the comments you have made in the past has completely blown my mind on many occasions. You may think writing good poetry matters, but truly, it does not. When you look back on your life after you die, you will not care how fabulous a poet you were, but you will care how you treated people, and you will get a download of every loveless comment you ever made to anyone. I hope those people on the receiving end of your comments are more forgiving of you than you are of others. It’s not too late to change your spots Mr. Anderson. It’s never too late to choose to love.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      You do realize that not every poem has the poet as its speaker, right? Three months ago, I wrote a poem in the voice of a left-wing anti-Semite, even though I’m neither, to make a case against leftism and anti-Semitism. That’s what C.B. is doing here.

      Reply
      • C.B. Anderson

        A telling point, Joshua == it is always important to distinguish the author from the narrator, unless, of course, we are talking about advertently confessional poetry (not recommended).

    • Joseph S. Salemi

      This is why I grow increasingly impatient with religionists.

      If you think that writing good poetry doesn’t matter, why are you coming here at all?

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        I, too, grow increasingly impatient with them as well. They seem to think that following Jesus requires passively offering one’s family to any evil and refusing to defend them from even such horrors as rape and murder. It’s extremely selfish to be that obsessed with one’s own salvation and not care about the welfare of others.

    • C.B. Anderson

      Yeah, Maria, that’s why the poem has the title it does. And justice comes before mercy. I love your outrage.

      Reply
  9. Mia

    Dear Joshua,
    just replying to some of your comments above.

    I can usually tell when the poet deliberately expresses a different viewpoint in a poem in order to make a point.
    in this case however the boundaries are a little blurred..
    for who else would think of washing their mouth out with soap?
    And Joshua, you should have realised that Mr A. is not a christian. If he was he would not write about groping towards a ‘blurry’ king of kings. not even in a poem as someone else.
    It is not written that you should not take His name in vain except in poetry is it?
    Liking this poem is akin to accepting wokeness but that is just my opinion.
    it is Flippant, self indulgent , irreverent, mocking even and all those things scream woke to me.
    I like the second poem though. It makes me feel sorry for the narrator, whoever that is.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Dear Mia —

      No one wants to get into a fight over all this. The basic point is that the SCP is not a specifically sectarian website — it is frequented by Christians, Jews, Hindus, Moslems, atheists, agnostics, and every other variety of believer or unbeliever. Here people can write whatever they want in a poem, and they can’t be dictated to by readers who have a specific sectarian objection.

      Whether you like it or not, using the name of Jesus or God in a non-religious way has been the common practice in Christian nations for centuries, so much so that the practice has been picked up even by non-Christians living in our midst. In Italy Catholics have been saying “Corpo di Cristo!” and “Dio cane!” and “Sangue della Madonna!” for centuries.

      Also, a poem is a fictive artifact. It is a work of art made up by the poet, and it can deal with any subject in whatever kind of way the poet likes. I’m sure you wouldn’t condemn a film about violent crime, just because we all think violent crime is bad. Or a novel about adultery, just because we think adultery is a sin. So if C.B. Anderson wants to write a poem about an “unchristian” person’s speech and attitudes, he has complete license to do it. And if C.B. Anderson is not a Christian, that is totally his own business, and has no bearing on his art or how we judge it.

      Reply
      • Mia

        First and foremost thank you for your kind comment
        It is midnight in this part of the world and it would be wiser to leave things until the morning. So that is what I should do.
        So I have deleted most of my response for the time being.
        No we should not have misunderstandings and I will wait
        until perhaps I can express what I need to say more clearly.
        I will say this though because it upsets me to think , that you should think I am judging anyones art by whether I think they are a christian or not
        nothing could be further from the truth. I have commented positively on a few poems written by jewish poets for example.
        That is on record.
        Perhaps you did not mean it as I read it and vice a versa My comments may have been misunderstood. It is easy to leave so much out when posting and take it for granted that everyone will know what we are trying to say
        . That is why I am going to stop now .
        Hopefully I will manage a more productive discussion tomorrow.

    • C.B. Anderson

      So I am not a Christian, Mia? Maybe we just go to different churches. As for the “blurry King of Kings,” do you really think one’s vision will be clear after one’s eyes are lashed by stiff feathers? Perhaps you should attend to your own lack of imagination. And when that day comes when I give an account of myself before the Throne, I am sure that you will be a great witness for the prosecution.

      God bless you,
      unless you
      hold a grudge,
      too quick to judge.

      I’ll take my chances when that day comes, and I sincerely hope that by that time you will have removed the plank from your own eye.

      Reply
      • Mia

        No I don’t think I am a christian. It is much too tall an order for me. I don’t measure up and I know it. So the plank was removed a long time ago.
        As for holding grudges. You may be correct. I still remember when you commented , that I shouldn’t give up my day job, after one of my efforts. I found that very upsetting.

        Even so , I am heartily sorry that I have upset you. I have never enjoyed knowingly hurting others. But grudges , I call them wounds. Sometimes our words can be very wounding.
        But I am still sorry you are upset.

        As for being a great witness for the prosecution up there, you see I believe , heaven and hell are down here and of our own making.

        it hurts to be told that someone doesn’t like your poem doesn’t it
        that is why I have made it a rule to never say so, until now.
        I broke my own rule. why do I feel that this has hurt me as much as it has hurt you. Do you ever feel that way?

        I am sorry I have upset you and thank you for the blessing.

  10. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    C.B., for me, “Unchristian” is stark and powerful in its brevity with a wry humor sniggering wickedly between the well-wrought lines. For me, “Alone” is infused with a raw and rather beautiful honesty that speaks in a language I understand… and from a still very British American in Texas who is constantly baffled, that’s a compliment.

    I’ve read the comments section with interest and recognize the power of poetry and the angst and ire a poem can bring. My poems may echo my humor, my anger, my joys, and my woes… some are me and some are not. Most are exaggerated expressions – an artistic creation… they’re born from imagination and the freedom to soar and play with words and wicked and wacky ideas, ideas that touch upon many subjects in ways reality doesn’t accommodate. In real life I don’t want Dracula or the Devil to step over my threshold. In literature – hell yeah! Bring ’em on.

    Mia, perhaps C.B., was dancing with the devil in “Unchristian” because his Muse enticed him, and where poetry is concerned Muses usually get their own way. As for rude comments, that’s an entirely different matter. I’ve crossed lines I regret in comments sections. I am sorry for that. But, I will never apologize for a poem that some are offended by. Am I wrong? I don’t know. One thing I have learned is that the older I get, the less I know.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      I once prayed to ask whether blasphemy was really out of line. The answer I received was something like this: Don’t worry, mortal — you can’t touch me, but you might want to consider what it does to your mental/spiritual hygiene.

      Reply
  11. Mia

    Today on reading the comments,
    It’s no surprise that I am full of torment;
    Why and what did I think I needed to defend
    And blundered in where angels fear to tread?
    A poem I should have found hilarious,
    Written by a poet with an acerbic wit most
    Famous, should have made me say
    How ironic, vitriolic and how apt!
    Why then did it leave me so aghast,
    Why, what should’ve made me laugh
    Uproariously, set me on a path to spar,
    Give me jitters in the dark,
    As though I’d been bitten by a shark,
    And cursed to boot, (I know don’t ask).

    But if you are bored with this sorry
    Saga, than pray do not read on,
    For today, in the cold light of dawn,
    I see even angels with stiff wings
    Fear to tread the path fools tread with ease.
    And to have such a singular explanation
    As to why this poem leads one to temptation
    To tear it down is beyond redemption.
    No, I should stop here for I am being led
    Towards avenues I would rather not tread.
    That’s it, I’m done, I am going to take an Uber
    And go in search of a sense of humour.

    Reply
    • C.B. Anderson

      I am not upset in the least — I know how to roll with the punches. Nowadays I rarely if ever make negative comments about poems. If I don’t like one, I keep it to myself, and I rarely add to the clamor if a poem has already received rich praise.

      Reply
  12. Adam Sedia

    “Alone” was very striking, with its plaintive, wistful tone, still tinged with optimism (“Hope springs eternal…”) I’ve noticed this voice in a number of your poems and you are very skillful at adopting it.

    “Unchristian” was a fun read – a curse even in case its victim is blessed. I pick up an ironic reference to the Beatitude “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.”

    Reply

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