Took him in dislike
the first / only time we met:
the Church’s rising star
chairing the prison inquiry;
attentive, serious, seeming to care.
(I represented reform.)
Nothing of course happened.
I saw his report: contrary
to his reassurances on the day,
leaning hard to conservative.
Since, pedophile scandals
he failed to act on;
banning gay worship.
'Pompous, arrogant…' says my husband,
watching him pontificate on TV.
Too right.
[Poem #70]
10 years later, the Cardinal – having risen very high in the Church – was himself convicted as a pedophile.
This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....
Comments from original posting:
ReplyDeletePearl 14 April 2009 at 03:24
ah yes, somehow gay as love among equals or adults who choose, is seen as a threat but boundary crossing against a power dynamic of non-equals isn't. Principles are hard to fathom sometimes.
Rosemary Nissen-Wade 14 April 2009 at 09:42
I hope everyone gets the ambiguity in the last line! This man is very right of centre, and seems to me an ambitious career priest to boot - always a bit sus in a profession that one would hope was motivated by spiritual vocation.