He Descended into Hell
My heart goes down to Hell with him,
Though I must shut my eyes
To what he sees. I fear the dark,
But trail with quiet tread
Lest he looks back,
And weakening, lets me cling to him.
Phillip Medhurst
Wisdom from a Gnostic Sage
Month: Feb, 2016
Feb 16, 2016
Mater Dolorosa
The pains of childbirth, then of dispossession,
A leaping heart, then steady retrogression
Was all angelic flutters came to bring.
Fair salutations bore a farewell sting.
And Death’s dark angel did not pass my door,
But slammed the board, demanding more and more.
My God, you owe this to me: let me see
Wherefore my child has now forsaken me.
I want to see him rise to tear the veil,
And borne by angels his kind Father hail,
As his bejewelled banner he unfurls,
His blood its rubies and my tears its pearls.
Feb 16, 2016
The Rood
A tree is butchered into beams,
Torn flesh emblematised,
As Jesse’s rod is re-conceived –
Delivered cruciform.
Adorned with jewels, hung with gold,
The ark becomes a rood.
A flotsam of humanity
Drowns in a sea of blood.
Feb 11, 2016
Epiphany
In inky shadows sages scratched,
Got drunk on mythic wines.
Philosophies were sometimes hatched
From patterns in the signs.
Yet three, drawn on by astral light,
With minds as clear as day,
Traversed the sands to catch a sight
Of Truth in swaddled clay.
Feb 11, 2016
The Virginal Conception
Mary, maid and mother – both –
Conceives divinity.
(Fire, we’re told, does not consume
Her pure virginity).
You who tread on holy ground
Put on simplicity.
If He is to be born, God needs
All your complicity.
Feb 11, 2016
Annunciation
As swift as eye-of-reason’s blink
Consent, in waiting, parted lips.
As quick as pulse could leap to beat
Of wing, her cry let fly to air
Where word met Word. Thunder unrolled –
Salvation’s sentence in pursuit
Of spirit’s lightning dart to soul
Pre-hushed. Her heart, inviolate still,
Now known, knew all. So All the valley
Filled, and pure Love’s river swelled,
Then brimmed to shed its tide on time.
Feb 9, 2016
The Sacrifice
A sacrifice like Abel’s is required:
No shrieking root torn up,
Or apple plucked and dashed,
But some born thing, with sentience,
Whose face, bewildered by the knife
Will stare as life flows out.
That way our God is satisfied,
Reclaiming what he once bestowed,
Maybe, heartless, envying
This creature-kind who lived
And loved the crimson blood too much –
As though it were its own.
Feb 9, 2016
The Scapegoat
Each head, bowed down with several cares
Is raised to watch the sacrifice
Proceed to where Jehovah waits
To host a feast that famishes.
This flock anticipates a goat
That stumbles on the precipice.
We cannot spare our sympathy.
With it bad karma vanishes.
Feb 5, 2016
Mardi Gras
Phillip Medhurst 