A Reasonable God

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Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Devils by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Formal poetry, Friedrich Nietzsche, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet

A Reasonable God

“So soon belief will end and leave a void;

A godless empty place”, the thinker said.

“When all the faiths that filled it are destroyed,

And all that they stood for is cold and dead.”

And so the writer, with a sense of dread,

Foretold how men would kill their deities.

Would have no need of them — their daily bread

Would still be theirs; there’d be no need to please

Imagined gods; to fall down on their knees

And pray to empty space; was science’s turn

To rule the minds of men. The poles would freeze;

The tides would rise and fall, the sun would burn;

No gods or their fair angels would be missed.

The new God, Science, would rule with an iron fist.

— D.N. O’Brien

“God is Dead”

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Friedrich Nietzsche, God is Dead, poem, poetry

“𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝”

Nietzsche, he believed in God, in writings he distilled Him.

But thought Him now beneath the sod, since modern man had killed Him.

— D.N. O’Brien

State of Decay

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Australian poet, Decline of the West, democracy, Friedrich Nietzsche, Oswald Spengler, poem, poetry, Triolet

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘆

I fear that Nietzsche may have got it right:
Democracies will decompose to dust.
I read his thoughts, I slept, then woke in fright!
I fear that Nietzsche may have got it right —
His prophecy that that which shone so bright,
Will tarnish over time and turn to rust.
I fear that Nietzsche may have got it right:
Democracies will decompose to dust.

— D.N. O’Brien

Filling the Vacuum

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Aristotle, Atheism, Australian poet, Baal, Formal poetry, Friedrich Nietzsche, God is Dead, Odin, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zeus

Filling the Vacuum

“God is dead.” So Nietzsche’s often quoted.
The atheists will say that’s what he said.
And he did, but it should too be noted
That Nietzsche said it with a sense of dread —
That we had killed Him — it was on our head
He laid the blame. And what, he asked, what thing
Replaces murdered gods, gods cold and dead?
The bells in church towers will no longer ring,
And all those hymns? Why will the choirs still sing
Of Him, when He no longer is of use?
A fallen deity, a banished king,
Devoid of power, like Baal, Odin, or Zeus.
And Nature does an empty space abhor —
Rush in, the gods of mammon and of war.

— D.N. O’Brien

Nietzscheisms 2

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Australian poet, Formal poetry, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity, poem, poetry, Pontius Pilate, Rhyming couplets, The Antichrist by Nietzsche

Nietzscheisms 2

By syphilis his brain would soon be diced.
With girded loins he wrote “The Antichrist”.

“What think you of us Christians?” they asked Nietzsche.
He said: “One I admired – he was your teacher.”

He said the gospels died upon the cross.
He thought the man who died – the greater loss.

You don’t agree, he thought the clergy crooks?
Then it is clear – you haven’t read his books.

He doubted Paul had had a revelation –
Just that he had a wild imagination.

Now Pilate he admired, he would confess –
To Pilate, what was one Jew more or less?

Rebound!

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Australian poet, big bang, Big Bang Theory, Eternal Recurrence, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzschean philosophy, poem, poetry, Rebounding Universe, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet

Big Bang to Crunch – a singularity
It is once more. How many billion years
Have passed? Now but a point, but can it be
A point? – time stops, and space it disappears,
As physics’ laws break down and matter smears
Deep in this place that holds the galaxies
Compressed. Gone for an instant, reappears
The light – as bang! – the tortured matter flees
Its cell – exploding like a swarm of bees
Released from the confinement of their hive.
And what or who, in that split second frees
The future stars and suns, men still will strive
To know, here on this obscure planet Earth –
What force drives life, and death, and then….rebirth?

Slavish

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Australian poet, cause and effect, epigram, Friedrich Nietzsche, Master Slave Morality, poem, poetry

I am a slave and so I have a slave morality.
You have a slave morality and so you are a slave.

The Slaves

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Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Beyond Good and Evil, Communism, Envy, Friedrich Nietzsche, Master Slave Morality, poem, poetry, Radical socialism, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, Will to Power

A wise man wrote that men are mostly slaves
Who envy all who have, while they have not.
Until the ones who have, rest in their graves,
The uber-slaves within the herds will plot.
The slaves don’t wish to rise – it is their lot
To be ignoble, but they must bring low
The master, and his works – his honour blot.
They’d strike this stronger man a mortal blow;
A thrust to pierce his body from below.
The higher man on their bowed heads would bleed,
And so his wealth unto the slaves would flow;
For what he calls his wealth, the slaves call greed.
Afflicted by their slave morality,
They seek no pathway to nobility.

Nietzscheisms 1

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Australian poet, Beyond Good & Evil, couplets, Friedrich Nietzsche, Master morality, poem, poetry, Slave morality

The Greeks and the Romans had fun,
Till of gods they were left with but one.

The Romans found out who was boss –
Christianity one shouldn’t cross.

In the journey from birth to the grave,
If you only have faith you’re a slave.

You’re a master or you are a slave.
If the latter, you’d better behave.

You must base all belief on the word,
If you wish to be one of the herd.

Slave morality will keep you low,
But it’s easy to go with the flow.

Oh, master morality’s hard!
You’re exceptional – be on your guard.

Beyond good and evil? – who can
Be that? I don’t know – superman?

The Common Good

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Australian poet, Beyond Good and Evil, Common, Common as muck, Friedrich Nietzsche, limerick, Limerick poem, Limerick poetry, poem, poetry, the Common Good, the Common People

Is it good? – Sir, my answer is: “No.”
And those who would say: “That’s not so!”
I would treat with suspicion,
For by definition
The Common Good’s value is low.