Poem - The Godhead by Peter Thomas

There’s no triumvirate, nor trinity
No triune divinity
(No spirit, father, son all three)
In me, that oversee, that hold sway;
That prick delay and harness haste
And govern all my ways
From morose to delirious
Not three, but two:
Doctrine and experience.

These bedfellows with twin thrones
In my head and heart and bones
Are rulers over me
And when there’s peace
There’s sobriety
When they agree
There’s harmony
When they make love
They begat bliss
No matter how painful
The issue is.

But when they’re at odds
Like feuding gods
When they’re unstable
A Cain and Abel
Fisticuffs
Hostility
O when they both do disagree, they thrash and cut and shout
And when they bleed they both bleed doubt.

Thus one must have the final say
Yes one must oversee , hold sway
So at twenty paces on a misty dawn
They turn and fire so that decision’s born.

Experience and doctrine thus settle the matter
And mostly it’s the former, not the latter
That emerges intact
And that my friend is that.

For as I’m told someone once said
That put the thought first in my head
(So that my heart O damn near burst)
“I’ll toast the pope, but conscience first”

Peter Thomas