STEVEN W. BAKER

STEVEN W. BAKER

ANGELS AND DEVILS

"The angels they burn inside for us

The devils they burn inside for us

Are we ever gonna learn to fly?" --Dishwalla

People say the angels are everywhere

Others that devils seek our very destruction

And there they are, in story, poem, and song

Working on their secret causes and agendas.

Not symbols, mind you, for they have grown

Into some form of alternate reality that

Seems like the beginnings of a new religion

Where god is just too busy to play with us.

I guess if we can't have one, it must be the other

For we have a millennia-old need for playmates

Invisible powers that control our fates

Leaving our lives out of our own hands.

By now, we have conjured so many deities

That the wizard's curtain surely is in tatters

Yet we seem more enthralled by each new edition

By any new addition to the fictional pantheon.

Each generation becomes more boring than

The last -- from powerful snake, to lightning bolts

To earth destroying, tantrum throwing babies

To men worshiped, to invisible angels and devils.

Nothing can be said against this string of deities

Else someone's religion or beliefs are insulted

It's a bullet-proof defense system against

Any light illuminating the darkness of the soul

Simply because it is believed, something exists.

I wonder if mankind will be around long enough

To see what he himself creates and recreates

Over and over, and how imaginary playmates

Keep us from living our true lonely purpose?

Please allow me to say it as plainly as I can --

Angels and devils are not real except as symbols

Of man's arrogance, loneliness, fear, and stupidity

Are we ever going to learn to fly on our own?

THE CATHEDRAL

On a Monday morning, the cathedral is quiet and dark

Certainly not an intimate space by any stretch

The giant columns support the roof way up there somewhere

A priest wanders by and blesses a decrepit old lady

I think he wonders what I'm doing here writing away.

A cleaning woman sweeps the floor with worn care

A workman's hammer can be heard in the distance

The echoes fall on my ears as if lost and apologetic

The faint smell of incense or something smoky lingers

And I can't figure out how the windows let in so little light.

Subdued candles burn along the side walls in memoriam

This titanic space is surely meant to intimidate me

But it has little of that effect on this lost soul of mine

I can remember when I was a kid, in Mom's little church

Thinking about the pretty girls instead of holy Jesus.

Not to be sacrilegious, I hope, but I just never "believed"

Though my mother did, maybe my Dad, certainly my grandmother

Yet even I couldn't resist crossing myself as I entered here

There are certain old traditions that deserve some respect

And this church represents some of the oldest still existing.

Up front, off the left transept, sits the little side chapel

Where, my wife tells me, God lives, though He's not in today

This smaller space is more like the churches I knew as a child

In the cathedral itself, crosses are everywhere, of course

And statues of Jesus, Mary, some King, and three big chairs.

But it is the strong arches that attract my attention the most

Arches that rise to dark heights, supporting the entire edifice

Practical things without religious meaning, but symbols to me

Of the strong shoulders of those who built this cathedral

Those who paid for it with sweat and hard-earned money.

Poor people who somehow built something very rich

Something so huge they could be proud of it always

A building that represented their hopes and dreams

Both for this life of suffering and for some future life

A place where they could pretend their dead still lived,

With hope beyond hope that they might someday join them

So, for me, the grand arching ceiling and doorways

The flying arched buttresses outside showing their strength

Are the symbols that leave the longest-lasting impression

The work, hopes, and dreams of people fighting for life.

I cross myself again as I get up to exit back into the light

Thinking for a moment of those I have lost and dream of

Those who, after all these years, I still cannot bring myself

To pretend I know where they are or how to reach them

At the door I slip a coin to the ancient woman begging.

CALVARY TEMPLE

It was a beautiful Easter Sunday

So we walked across the street

To attend church at

A place called Calvary Temple.

Only they don’t call it a church

They refer to it as a “worship center”

And although they are Christian

The symbols are missing.

Over 1300 people filled the “sanctuary”

I never saw so much obesity in one place

There would have been room

For twice as many fit worshipers.

The stark space was brand new

In fact, the service started

With a request for 72 new doors

A request which, finally, “God” filled.

The curtains opened upon a gigantic stage

Revealing the choir in their starched robes

And a large seated orchestra

Someone led too many songs as we stood.

I’d never heard any of them

Though high-tech screens foretold the words

No somber ancient chords, just dancing melodies

And jumping clapping people all around us.

Then finally we could sit for

More requests—for groceries, for money

More clapping and hand raising

A phony violinist who lied to the gathering.

Finally, the minister

A self-proclaimed “bishop”

Came forward from his easy chair

And proposed to give the sermon.

Rather than uplifting, words sacrilegious

With several references to getting hungry

And having to go to the bathroom soon

A boring restatement of a Biblical verse.

It made me think of watching

God’s most beautiful sunset

Then listening to a CNN reporter

Summarize the event.

“Number one, the sun was bright

Then, two, it went lower in the sky

Three, notice that it got more red.”

Through “Seven, then it was dark.”

More clapping and hand raising

“Look at me, neighbors! I’m raising my hands!”

“Look at me, minister! I’m clapping!”

“Look at me, God! I built this grand building!”

The “bishop” had been driven there

In his big new shiny silver Cadillac

His wife drove her new silver Mercedes

From their big plush new home.

And during the service, all around the edifice

Like a low, ground-hugging fog

The mind of God touched all but the temple

Each blade of grass, every twig and feather.

The “worship center” rose out of the Presence

This former hunting grounds which had been

Plowed up into thriving corn fields

Turned now into paved parking lot and Babel.

I’m sorry, Jesus, that whoever you were

You were not well remembered here

This day of your symbolic return

Forgive the ego, the weakness of self, self, self.

STEVEN W. BAKER

STEVEN W. BAKER has essentially lived two lives as a poet — as a college student and shortly after, when he published a lot of work in underground newspapers and obscure journals, most of which are probably now defunct. His second life as a poet began a quarter century later, after he started traveling and living around the world. He has now gathered a large body of unpublished work from this period that was written for himself and his close friends, which he is now publishing. His poems have appeared, among many others publications, inEat Sleep Write, Silver Birch Press, The Rain, Party, & Disaster Society, Ty(po-e:tic)us, Pilcrow & Dagger, Spirit Caller Magazine, and Flink.to, where his poem, “Picture of Marigot Bay” won the 2014 Poetry Contest. He is currently working on a science-fiction novel set 2000 years in the future and a book of collected poems entitled Sun and Moon.