As part of our beginning steps toward practicing Sabbath on a regular basis, yesterday Katelin and I stayed away from television, internet, and telephone -- so (blessedly) I wasn't able to get this post up in time for reasons befitting the spirit of the series.The poem below is from Elvis Perkins' most recent album, which has taken longer than I expected to warm up to, but is finally opening up its delirious beauty. The song is a glorious spin on political eschatology and the frenzied end-of-the-world scenarios that start making the rounds around election season.
My own poem afterward is a reflection I wrote in class this past week, inspired by Billy Collins' poetry of late. I deal so much in words -- creating, assessing, devouring, digesting, spewing -- it was helpful to find and explore a metaphor for what it feels like sometimes.
(I have recently submitted this poem for publication, so I have taken it off here for the time being, just in case.)
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Doomsday
By Elvis Perkins
Though I forget your name
I remember your sweet face
Till doomsday fell I
Man I went wild last night
Oh I went feeling all right
I don't let doomsday bother me
Do you let it bother you?
I know you told me once and again
Will it mean that we won't be friends?
When doomsday rears her ugly head again
And though you voted that awful man
I would never refuse your hand
On doomsday, on doomsday
Not in all my wildest dreams, it never once was seen
That doomsday would fall anywhere near a Tuesday
But flight across the skies seeing fate before my eyes
There isn't any sense to a good by-and-by
Oh I don't plan to die
Nor should you plan to die
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