September 1, 1939 by James W. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade: 
Waves of anger and fear 
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth, 
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death 
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use 
Their full height to proclaim 
The strength of Collective Man, 
Each language pours its vain 
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare, 
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are, 
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

Poem about the teachings of Jesus

Last year I was blessed to teach the gospel of Matthew. I concentrated on teaching about the "teachings of Jesus" an incredibly humbling and amazing thing to "teach about". At the end of my time studying Jesus' teachings I wrote this poem without much thought after...it was what came in a spur of a moment as a total reaction... almost a year later I stumbled on them again and agreed even more with my spontaneous reaction, figured I would post it here...

Glorious tensions arise

pouring out from the skies

sun rays rain down

and all this in the vehicle of words

how could vibrations uttered thousands of years ago 

still shake the day

how could questions asked then 

still be unanswered

how could all of man’s progressively triumphant wisdom

be silent in the face of his words

how can I hear such greatness

and defy them knowingly

Repent for the kingdom is at hand