Tongues

Brothers and Sisters,

raise your hands to the Lord.

Invite his Holy Spirit to fill your vessel

with his wonderous love.

 

Hallelujah!  Can I get an 'Amen'?

 

Ah-shah-la-la Me-kah-show-nah-teh,

Oh-nah-tah-shah Me-kah-tah-neh

Key-lo-mah-tah-tah-weh.

Speaking in Tounges, they called it.

Most merely stood in the pew

uttering concatenations,

our Old Man among them.

I studied his cadence and learned

to mimic the routine

so as not to be singled out for unbelief.

The grander the display the brighter

the accolades from church elders.

Some danced in the aisles.

Others launched into convulsive fits.

The best of them was Sister Mary Hoagarten,

a lowly widow from East Kansas City

with a silver bird's nest of hair

and bellowing, staccato delivery.

Mary committed to her performance.

She was method,

drawing from a boundless well

of resentment and betrayal

to deliver her weekly self-exorcism.

Mary writhed and howled,

trembled and flailed about,

always ending her number with a flurry

of guttural yawps that climaxed

in an abrupt silence which

centered the congratation

in solemn reflection.

Mary enjoyed a long and storied run

as the High Priestess of Spectacle,

until Lester Hollinger joined the congregation.

Brother Lester was a towering, erudite man,

always in the same charcoal undertaker's suit.

He never missed an opportunity

to promote his biblical memorization.

One Sunday morning,

Lester descended from the foyer

and assisted Mary off the carpet.

He ushered her to her seat,

shuffled to the microphone,

cleared his throat,

and delivered an 

Interpretation of Tongues:

Brothers, Sisters, our Lord and Savior

has revealed to me, his humble servant,
the message within Sister Mary's utterance.

 

Indeed, it is a passage from the Holy Book: 

I Corinthians 14:27-28.

 

'Let her keep silent in the church, 

and let her speak only to herself and to God.'

A thundering chorus of Amens went up

to the heavens.

Doomsday (1982)

Stacks of burlap in the basement seven bags high:

soybean, rice, corn seed; cases of canned peaches, 

peas, carrots and green beans,

enough to feed Gideon’s army.

Young Gideon, we learned in Sunday School,

gathered a ragtag crew of three-hundred

Israelites on God’s instruction 

to slay the mighty Mideonite army.

Mother grimaces:  “Talk to your father,” she says.

At supper we eat boiled soybeans

with Ezekiel bread and butter.

The old man opines on the health benefits of soy

and its utility as a righteous food source:

"The meat of the field, did you know,

is a supernatural antioxidant blessed with protein,

vitamins and minerals?"

We are told that dried soybean, stored properly,

will retain its nutritional value long enough

to survive an apocalypse.

I am twelve-years-old in ’82 

and the end of the world sounds like 

a video-game ending where the protagonist 

expires in a whirling puff of smoke only 

to discover himself reborn into a dazzling, 

unspoiled universe.

In father’s game, global war seizes planet earth

followed by a return of the angry, 

Old Testament god hurling fire and brimstone 

down upon an ungrateful creation.

“Do not fear,” the old man says, drawing us to him.  

“God’s chosen will be spared his wrath

and rewarded with riches in heaven.”

Gideon was also chosen,

and for his subservience he was rewarded 

as a hero of faith; seventy sons 

were bestowed upon him

from the many women he took as wives.

Yet, Gideon petitioned divine intervention

before signing on to God's plan.  

Three miracles he required as proof of his intent.

I required only one:

  Dear Heavenly Father, hear my prayer.

Your holy scripture declares that to those 

who ask it shall be given … I humbly ask 

that you demonstrate the truth of your power 

by turning these boiled soybeans into 

a Quarter Pounder with Cheese.  Amen.

~ Thomas

**First published in Hole In The Head Review

Childish Things

Church bells clank and clamor
to welcome the shuffle of the devout
ascending stone, chapel steps.

As a youth, I was among them,
dutiful and wide-eyed, 

walking in the light of the redeemed
at my father's side.  

The bells sang
of a warring celestial realm, 

unseen to the sinner's eye, 

where armies of white-winged cherubs 

collide with silver-tongued devil armies
in a storybook crusade 

for man's eternal soul.  

The price of entry,
our untried imagination 

laid bare upon an alter gilded 

with the blood sacrifice 

frightened ancestors bargained 

to appease a jealous and vengeful Divine.  

A promise of holy reward 

animated our step, 

held fast our gaze upward 

to the heavenly chorus sounding

from the bell tower.  

We received it
with unquestioning assent,
heard it spoke in parable and psalm,
understood it as impressionable children
enamored of the treasures awaiting
god-fearing boys and girls. 

Believing came easy as skinning
a knee.

**First published in Castabout Literature & Arts Review