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Strength in weakness

Paul’s thorn in the flesh
When I am weak,
Then I am strong
Strength in weakness

A typical Pauline sophism?
A typical Pauline syllogism?
A typical Pauline casuistry?
A typical Pauline homily.

Paul’s thorn in the flesh
When I am weak,
Then I am strong
Strength in weakness

Paul was disabled, you see
Was he blind? You ask
Was he lame? You ask
Was it a speech impediment?

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poem by James Hart
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To Mr. Tilman After He Had Taken Orders

THOU, whose diviner soul hath caused thee now
To put thy hand unto the holy plough,
Making lay-scornings of the ministry
Not an impediment, but victory ;
What bring'st thou home with thee ? how is thy mind
Affected since the vintage ? Dost thou find
New thoughts and stirrings in thee ? and, as steel
Touch'd with a loadstone, dost new motions feel ?
Or, as a ship after much pain and care
For iron and cloth brings home rich Indian ware,
Hast thou thus traffick'd, but with far more gain
Of noble goods, and with less time and pain ?
Thou art the same materials, as before,
Only the stamp is changèd, but no more.
And as new crowned kings alter the face,
But not the money's substance, so hath grace
Changed only God's old image by creation,
To Christ's new stamp, at this thy coronation ;
Or, as we paint angels with wings, because
They bear God's message and proclaim His laws,

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poem by John Donne
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Old Men Complaining

First Old Man
He threw his crutched stick down: there came
Into his face the anger flame,
And he spoke viciously of one
Who thwarted him—his son’s son.
He turned his head away.—“I hate
Absurdity of language, prate
From growing fellows. We’d not stay
About the house the whole of a day
When we were young,
Keeping no job and giving tongue!
“Not us in troth! We would not come
For bit or sup, but stay from home
If we gave answers, or we’d creep
Back to the house, and in we’d peep
Just like a corncrake.
“My grandson and his comrades take
A piece of coal from you, from me
A log, or sod of turf, maybe;
And in some empty place they’ll light

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poem by Padraic Colum
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Blue Ridge

Up there on the mountain road, the fireworks
blistered and subsided, for once at eye level:
spatter of light like water flicked from the fingers;
the brief emergent pattern; and after the afterimage bled
from the night sky, a delayed and muffled thud
that must have seemed enormous down below,
the sound concomitant with the arranged
threat of fire above the bleachers.
I stood as tall and straight as possible,
trying to compensate, trying not to lean in my friend's
direction. Beside me, correcting height, he slouched
his shoulders, knees locked, one leg stuck out
to form a defensive angle with the other.
Thus we were most approximate
and most removed.
In the long pauses
between explosions, he'd signal conversation
by nodding vaguely toward the ragged pines.
I said my children would have loved the show.
He said we were watching youth at a great distance,

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poem by Ellen Bryant Voigt
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A Political Fruit: A Political Solution!

A yokel’s assessment
loft pigeon holing
key kiwi politics
for term year 2001.

Under Labouring Leadership
exhibited by Prime Minister.
Housewife mentality not
her honourable Helen Clark.

“I’m glad I’m a kiwi
in the land of the free(?)
I wish I was a dog
and Jenny Shipley was a tree! ”

That former National Leader
of the N.Z. Socialist Welfare State.
Effectively exterminated some of

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poem by Terence George Craddock
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Heavenly Poetry

It was my incessant inspiration; to diffuse into an
unfathomable valley of goodness; perpetually coalesce
with my bountiful rudiments; irrespective of the
contemporarily bombastic slang and slime,

It was my tireless inspiration; to float in the aisles
of untamed sensuousness; assimilate all fathomless
beauty of this resplendent Universe; in every
ingredient of my agonizingly famished blood,

It was my unrelenting inspiration; to embrace the
winds of timeless fantasy; let the spirit of
euphorically rhapsodic existence; take wholesome
control upon my countenance from all sides,

It was my limitless inspiration; to blazingly surge
forward in the chapter of vibrantly enthralling life;
gloriously emerge as a triumphant winner in every
direction that I even remotely conceived to tread,

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poem by Nikhil Parekh
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The White Doe Of Rylstone, Or, The Fate Of The Nortons - Canto Sixth

WHY comes not Francis?--From the doleful City
He fled,--and, in his flight, could hear
The death-sounds of the Minster-bell:
That sullen stroke pronounced farewell
To Marmaduke, cut off from pity!
To Ambrose that! and then a knell
For him, the sweet half-opened Flower!
For all--all dying in one hour!
--Why comes not Francis? Thoughts of love
Should bear him to his Sister dear
With the fleet motion of a dove;
Yea, like a heavenly messenger
Of speediest wing, should he appear.
Why comes he not?--for westward fast
Along the plain of York he past;
Reckless of what impels or leads,
Unchecked he hurries on;--nor heeds
The sorrow, through the Villages,
Spread by triumphant cruelties
Of vengeful military force,

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poem by William Wordsworth
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Every impediment is a benefit.

Sicilian proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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You Keep Looking

You keep looking for meaning in a world
you say hasn't given you one
worth living for
and you're down and disappointed
and all that red passion
that used to burn like books and leaves
has turned as mystically brown
as the background of a Rembrandt painting
or gone up in smoke
at the Bonfire of the Vanities.
Now you're a copycat Savanarola
in a faculty lounge
trying to turn God back like the Renaissance
for behaving like the Medici.
You used to be a little on the teachy side
but now you're boring and preachy
having settled the whole issue
of what you're doing on earth like a fist.
You once went looking for the point of life like a grail.
Now you plunge it through everyone's heart like a spear.

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poem by Patrick White
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The Borough. Letter VIII: Trades

OF manufactures, trade, inventions rare,
Steam-towers and looms, you'd know our Borough's

share -
'Tis small: we boast not these rich subjects here,
Who hazard thrice ten thousand pounds a-year;
We've no huge buildings, where incessant noise
Is made by springs and spindles, girls and boys;
Where, 'mid such thundering sounds, the maiden's

song
Is 'Harmony in Uproar' all day long.
Still common minds with us in common trade,
Have gain'd more wealth than ever student made;
And yet a merchant, when he gives his son
His college-learning, thinks his duty done;
A way to wealth he leaves his boy to find,
Just when he's made for the discovery blind.
Jones and his wife perceived their elder boy
Took to his learning, and it gave them joy;

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poem by George Crabbe
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