Commercial Break

On January 14, 2006 / By maggi dawn / Reply

nice poem by David Henry, link from blind-winger jones

Commercial Break

Jesus,
they’ve gone and hi-jacked your birthday -
rolled it out – credit-card thin
from the trailing edges of  September
all the way to early spring -

milking it to the very last drop
until it is a pale excuse
to sell us pretty much anything -

easy payments spreading the cost
so it’s barely noticeable over the years -
scarce as deep as a flurry of snow.

It’s all wrapped up in ribbons and tinsel,
lights and music blurring together -

surfeits of food and drink and distractions
jading the palate to subtle flavours
of what this might be all about.

You are the one that started the show,
so what’s the sense of holding a party
without inviting the principal guest?

You don’t seem to mind – or you turn a blind eye -
to what we do with this winter-festival -

we’re all of us in debt by January -
I guess you’re bound to know
the rest….

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9 Responses to “Commercial Break”

Comments

  1. Tony B
    On January 16, 2006 at 9:43 am

    Do you mind if I ask something totally unrelated to this? For a variety of reasons, I would like to know more about Christian Theology. I want to get a book, and have more or less settled on ‘Christian Theology: An Introduction’ by Alister McGrath. Would you reccommend it, or is there a better introduction? I can’t get it from my library so I need to buy it, so I want to make the best possible use of my money.
    Incidentally I have almost finished reading “Dawkins’ God” by the same author; a wonderful book that does a much better job of demolishing Dawkins than Madeleine Bunting did, since he manages to avoid tarring all atheists with the same brush; he also made me re-think some of the arguments for atheism that I had taken for granted, and I have found them wanting. So after a brief hiatus my exploration of Christianity is on again..inspired in no small part by Richard Dawkins, ironically..

  2. Call Me Ishmael
    On January 16, 2006 at 12:39 pm

    Maggi: David Henry’s poem reminds me of the lyrics to the (now) old Ray Stevens’ song “Would Jesus Wear a Rolex (On His Television Show)?” http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/w/wouldjesusweararolexonhistelevisionshow.shtml.
    Tony: Every book I’ve ever bought by Alister McGrath (including the one you mention) has always turned out to be a wise investment.

  3. Richard Frank
    On January 16, 2006 at 2:04 pm

    Great poem Maggi – I’d love to follow the link to its source, but can’t get the link to work (404 page not found) – have you managed to direct so much traffic there you’ve tipped his site over the brink?? ;o)

  4. Andy W
    On January 17, 2006 at 11:04 am

    Tony B can you give me more details on your book “Dawkin’s God” as searched Amazon without success. Cheers.

  6. Tony B
    On January 17, 2006 at 4:58 pm

    Oh eck, that didn’t work did it? Hang on..

  8. Martyn
    On January 17, 2006 at 5:10 pm

    I featured the poem on my site before Christmas but unfortunately, my blog got eaten by strange happenings on the Blogger system so I had to relaunch. As a consequence I’ve lost a lot of my archives.
    You can find the poem on David’s own blog at http://www.northzine.net/

  9. Andy W
    On January 18, 2006 at 11:38 am

    Thanks Tony B for link – ordered the book