Terence Reid
Cri de Coeur
I am a Doctor of the Church,
no less -
once atheist,
agnostic, Manichee.
My pious mother prayed
for me to change,
attract me back
to Christianity.
But for carnal reasons
I resisted,
stayed loyal to my mistress,
stood my ground,
took time to consider
my position:
eventually God won
and I came round.
Ever since, I’ve been
the scourge of Christians,
I’ve threatened sexual sinners
with the Pit -
an irony not lost
on those who knew
that I’d both had my cake
and eaten it!
Thus my fame rests on my
cross-fingered prayer,
an all-too-human cry
that’s never met -
Please make me wholly chaste
and continent.
But do not do it yet, dear Lord,
not yet!
Page(s) 55
magazine list
- Features
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- 14
- Acumen
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- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Dream Catcher
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- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
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- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
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- Neon Highway
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- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The