Nathaniel Lucas: ‘Ekphrasis’ and ‘Oxytocin’
Ekphrasis on a Possible Joke (Church-going)
The congregation’s mostly sixty-ish
solitary women, Indians
and a few retarded street blow-ins
who say the words out of time
and smell of the early church.
Wifely deacons jerk the censer,
the sextet choir chants the hymns
Bach, who wrote his works
like the Bible, as training pieces,
appears from the organ, the only
ontological proof around here.
And the biddies whisper
who’s the young man? Why’s he here?
And sermons on the death of Diana
“we all remember where we were …”
I don’t, no matter.
Here’s the choice: the church
or pleasant nothing, a wheat grain’s life,
a wheat grain perhaps with wings, rudder
but there comes the time when I kneel,
bow my head, close my eyes
rest my elbows on the pew in front
and try to pray but get to thinking
of the medieval mural above the altar:
a pair of shins and sandalled feet,
missing a nail, protruding
nasally from fresco clouds
above a throng of former disbelievers.
No Sunday paper…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins