Ian (John) McCleary (Son of the Cleric) Poems

I look at the work of college art students everyday hanging by my janitors closet. If no one were there I would say it was lifeless and dead like everything learned academically, copied out of
books.
I am beginning to sound like my art professors from college, washed up and without ideas, so I must attack the easiest prey.
This is the problem with art in college and maybe even outside of it.
...

In my mid to late twenties I lived the life of the poet Rimbaud, I lived a life of meaningless passion and aimlessness. Some of this later rebellion in my life was a self - conscious imitation of the young French poet. Around twenty years old, I had watched the movie Total Eclipse on the life of the poets Rimbaud and Verlaine with Leonardo De Caprio as Arthur Rimbaud and David Thewlis as the older poet Paul Verlaine, a mentor to the young Rimbaud. I learned a lot from watching that movie, it would eventually help me to sever ties with a college friend who I was hanging out with at the time I found that movie.
Those years after were some of the hardest in my life before I met my wife of today. I was looking for the next thrill. My job working at the supermarket, was boring to me, I wanted stimulation, something that would bring my life more meaning than it had for me at work. I got caught up in self destroying behaviors. Even when I met my wife and even into our marriage I have fought to keep this rebellion from ever coming out again in me.
Even years ago that message of sobriety came to me after a long night of bar hopping.
The year I took a trip to London, I will always remember this thing I said, which about sums up my twenties and the false promises that fleeting pleasures offer 'What is a butterfly if you take apart it's wings? '.
...

Pope John Paul Il who was Pope when my parents got married in the church, and who was Pope when I and my siblings were born, wrote something called The Theology of the Body, I have read it many times and while I think it is still a good piece of writing and many of the ideas in it are beautifully put, I have come to believe that not everything in it makes sense because of the way the human body was designed. In it, the only way the Pope says that love can be given as a gift of self is through the meeting of sperm and egg, so for having children. Sex for enjoyment, or with the use of contraceptives even by married couples is not considered that giving of self in the marriage union.
So the Catholic church would quickly approve then the rubbing of the Earth's techtonic plates against each other over one of their married members of the faith enjoying the gift of intimacy.
No wonder they said the Church lost 14 million of it's congregants, maybe more. It is not entirely on the people to blame nor is it the devil. It is it's own alien view of human nature.
Now I am not really for the cheapening of love that can be found everywhere today. Love that puts feeling at the center of everything, but this other side to the puzzle is just as deadly to love.
...

What a poor representation of water, of canal water. It doesn't move with the stroke of my paddle. It stands still and frozen, what is it to do there? What is it to communicate?
The artist who painted this, do they know that this is not a painting?
Oh there's no use telling them, my face is one beige dab of oil paint, without eyes, a mouth to express my disgust for his rendering of me.
He is not yet aware of his creative powers.
...

It's very unusual weather for the beginning of January, tell the oracle of Puxatawney, that it seems to be spring already in the east.
I am out in sandals and a light sweater, I was sweating in my winter coat the other day I went hiking.
Who can deny the strangeness of this winter, it's topsy turviness. Even the once most embittered critic is scratching their head on this lions tameness
...

Genie, grant my every wish! Says the voice of Lucre.
And the piece of technology, as like rubbing the lamp, makes all wishes come seemingly true... well...at least for the time allowed him, without a trip to some place of wicked debauchery.
But the aftershock is cruel,
though he was relieved of all his demons in the moment, there is still one left he has forgotten,
...

My father is the best example of a stoic. His very life reflects it. He is a good father and husband to his wife, he sees that as being a good enough goal in life worthy of everyones respect.
And yet he does not deny the reality of pain. He does not hide behind a gun or harbor feelings of aggression, nor does he have a deep hatred for people.. that I know of. That is a false
portrait of manhood anyway.
He does not hide his feelings like me in ideas and philosophy. He does not have any aspirations to become known for his mind and for his words of insight.
...

The chicken egg causality dilemma cannot be used for whether God created man or man created God. It would be a useless endeavor to ask whether one is the cause of the other, since they cannot be proven with any form of material evidence.
Mystical experiences on the other hand, the reports of visions people have do exist in my view. But they are subjective experiences in my understanding of them, and are really only useful for that person.
For someone to suggest that their revelation of some higher reality, is a one size fit all plan discredits all the other personal divine encounters that have happened in this world, and for those who have not experienced that peculiar revelation for themselves.
Atheists trying to disprove the existence of God is foolishness, they would do better by embracing the ideas of secular humanism, which emphasize the individuals free will to choose good without being a part of any religious system.
...

There is a pattern, a pattern which no intelligent person can ignore
populist right wing authoritarian violence is happening globally. This violence as a means to an end, no intelligent person can
defend the madness of this idea.
No moral person can give validation
...

Some have suggested that Jesus Christ suffered from mental illness. I will not speculate into that. But I can say, that there are people who believe in Jesus and who do show signs of having a mental illness. Their self- grandiosity makes them think they are doing the work of God, even when their actions are in the contrary.
There are people as well, who still have a hard time judging holy men.
They think they see the prophet Elijah, because he claims he will rid all evil from their nation. That he will tear idols down from the palaces. That he will send fire out of the sky and destroy their enemies.
So this madness speculated of Jesus is the madness of man, man's imagination playing games with him.
...