#1938 - best pope ever gone

 

1938

6.112

22.iv.25

best pope ever gone

 

named for one who spoke bird, beast

come from the nearly death dark

into his confession

 

come from nothing

he was a man of no exceptions

bouncer in a nightclub

spoke his power to power

 

broad shoulders

to bear all the wrong of the church

through the age

 

crusades, inquisitions, our auto da fé

tin ear to the kiddyfiddle

 

you may say I’m setting the bar low for great

 

I cannot agree with his illusions

 

liberation’s better than theology

 

there are no angels, never were

 

a sow’s ear out of mystery – that’s what religion is

 

the filling of the vestments

as in the case of ghost

 

he too got lost in a dirty war

 

there are no saints, no martyrs

the living and the dead there are

 

he was one called to the precipice

he was one who climbed

to greet the cheering crowds and go

 

those two priests the junta had

… what did he do for them?

we can ask

 

a good man a good man

villains line up to say

and carry their murder on

 

he told them what he thought

he spoke from poverty’s palaces  

 

a man for all that

chosen by men

man of many failings

 

he could do dignity for us all

 

bridges not walls

 

ever at the truth edge

imagining the all as good

on not a shred of evidence

 

this was a prince of peace

 

time washed him away