3 poems by Jim Bennett

scenes

1   this poem is a movie

man walking Dale Street in Liverpool
three girls pass and turn their heads like they recognise him
walk away giggling   looking back   one with hand over mouth laughing (close up)
see man walking towards camera     looking  annoyed     glancing around
man walks into a building   camera stays on doorway pans to  sign
“County Court”
pans to man selling papers, shouting “Echo”  
poster on board leaning against wall advertising the paper.
headline “Penis man in court today.”

2   this movie is a poem

camera looks out across prairie
in the distance the gray shapes of mountains
cue music Beethovens 6th symphony
grass gently moving as a breeze passes
slowly pull back revealing frame
pull back further black outline of chair with top of a persons head just showing
hair moving gently 
noise of door opening, light floods in screen goes blank   music stops  click of switch
light comes on 
person dressed as nurse turns the chair round reveals old man sat in it
nurse “Time up.  I hope you enjoyed your western experience.”  
the man in the chair says nothing    stares ahead 
nurse  “Oh God not another one.”
she turns and leaves the room  
camera moves solely in to close-up on mans unmoving face    starring eyes
his head gently rolls forward, 

3   this is neither  poem or movie

when doctors said the end was close
his family brought him home

lay him in his bed next to the window
looking out over garden and lawn

the well established conifers
lilacs and  hydrangea in full bloom

he smiled at the familiar sights
watched shadows pass and fleeting birds 

picked the place where he would have 
his ashes lay  someday

next morning doctors came
started to remove drips and medication

began to manage death   to ease him
to eternity   told everyone be ready

he looked out into his garden watched 
petals fall while buds started to open

saw a lily’s flowers golden in the sunlight 
and as the sunlight touched his face

felt a new bud start to open 
while his life fell away like petals

this one moment  he realised 
he had been preparing for all his life

now how do you capture that 
with a camera or a pen?

Proving that God existed on a train to Southport

as soon as I proved that God existed
I thought he might have popped in to say hi
well you got me   or something
instead there was nothing then
he takes it away from me 
becomes His omnipresent self and 
does that disappearing act again
it is easy to prove that God
must exist in one of two scenarios but it
depends upon 
I[infinity 
because that is where God hangs out

infinity is a funny thing after all it goes on for a long time
for ever in fact
and if it does then in a universe were anything is 
infinite then the universe is also infinite
so if the universe is infinite then the possibilities within it 
are also infinite

somewhere everything you can imagine 
is happening  those monkeys are pounding away 
producing libraries of crap
and Shakespear and every other
book you can imagine

so they will have produced this poem and I can sue them for 
plagurism an infinite number of times
and win an infinite amount of cash 
in an infinite number of courts

but getting back to God and it is a bit like this
in this infinite universe then
God exists somewhere    because everything imaginable 
can happen in infinity
if He can be imagined then He therefore exists 
a bit like Descartes ontological argument 
but just a little less silly
then he is a spirit and a force and a old man in a beard 
a saviouer on a cross and a baby
In a manger
and everywhere it is Christmas and sometimes it is every day
and sometimes not
but one of this Gods properties in being infinite and therefore 
He must be everywhere in an infinite universe.  
if you say god does not exist 
that does not make it true or likely 
it is just another possibility and in infinity it will also be true 
but it is not non existence more an absence
because that is what you imagine

however if the universe is not infinite 
but is part of an infinite number of other universes
popping into and out of existence like bubbles
and god exists in an infinite number of those universes 
or outside of them    if such a concept can exist 
and if infinity exists outside of those universes      then it does 
but then the number of universes will not be infinite
unless there are enfolding dimensions hiding all of this field 
in infinite shapes we can see only as numbers

He must therefore exist in ours
and if he is not in our Universe then our Universe is finite
and part of an infinite number of finite universes
and where there is infinity
and these infinite possibilities, 
then there too is God
and in every possibility He is an infinite God 
in an infinite place  
so it is really confusing and my head hurts
and the third bottle of wine was the one that did it

anyway then god hid himself
in a confusion of science and maths
that was a good trick
because then you are just left with belief and no facts 
no wounded hands
to do the Thomas thing 
no evidence other than a thought experiment
or whatever it is
and God is tucked away with Schrödinger’s Cat
and may be there or not    alive or dead
but anyway as long as 1+1=2
then God exists I know that for a fact
I got that much from Descartes 

the greatest poem in the world

landed just outside of Edwards 
airforce base in Nevada
where area 51 was built to contain it
but the poem escaped 
swam the length of Groome Lake
eventually hitched its way to California
where it appeared dissatisfied 
in silent movies
later in England
(no one knows how it came to be in England)
it walked to Aldermaston
shouting Ban the Bomb
and other treasured lines 
of honoured rhetoric
rewrote das capital
inspired Private Eye
hung out with the Beatles
and Donovan
(but that was a mistake
as it thought it was Dylan)
it presented rhyme time 
on Children’s TV 
then guested on Blue Peter
appeared occasionally in the newspapers 
pursed by paperattsi
before they were called paperatssi
pursued by literary agents 
pursued by the US Government 
who still wanted it back