Just Like Jehovah

[ray]

Just Like Jehovah

 

I wrote the Divinity paper
in twelve different coloured pens,
in order to win a wager
or what we’d now call fifty pence.
Mr Cottrill turned wrathful crimson                                                     
and accused me of heresy,
of belittling his religion
and demanded most jealously
if I’d do that in Mathematics,
in History or in French?
Just like Jehovah smote the baddies
in what we’d now call self-defence.


Original

I wrote the Divinity paper
in twelve different coloured pens,
in order to win a wager
for what we’d now call fifty pence.
Mr Cottrill turned wrathful crimson
and accused me of heresy,
of belittling his religion
and demanded most jealously
if I’d do that in Mathematics,
in History or in French?
Just like Jehovah had been damaged,
like life ain’t 6 to 5 against.

[just mercedes]

I wrote the Divinity paper
in twelve different coloured pens,
in order to win a wager
for what we’d now call fifty pence. meter changes in this line
Mr Cottrill turned wrathful crimson
and accused me of heresy,
of belittling his religion
and demanded most jealously
if I’d do that in Mathematics,
in History or in French?
Just like Jehovah had been damaged, meter changes here too.
like life ain’t 6 to 5 against. uneven meter

Hi Ray - I feel you want to stick to rhyme and meter, but your poem doesn't quite achieve it. pens/pence isn't a true rhyme, but for me it's closer than French/against or Mathematics/damaged.

I like the odds at the end that refer back to the wager in the beginning, and 'wrathful crimson' is good imagery.
I wonder if you could find a replacement for one of the 'like' in the last two lines.

[ray]

Thanks, Mercedes. I'm not a stickler for metre and I prefer loose rhymes, near rhymes, whatever they're called this week. But anyhow, I didn't like the title or the last 2 lines so I've changed them and, I suppose, the general thrust of the poem too.

[newsclippings]

I wanted you to rhyme heresy with New Jersey because it seemed really fitting.

[Erthona]

Roy,

wrathful-->wrathfully?

I don't remember God smiting many baddies in the OT, as he usually used proxies. So...

"Just like Jehovah smote the baddies
in what we’d now call self-defence."

doesn't make much sense to me, nor do I get it's connection to the rest of the poem, or the satiric quip about "self-defense" (spelled correctly)

Dale

[ray]

I wanted you to rhyme heresy with New Jersey because it seemed really fitting.

Well, obviously, New Jersey rhymes with noisy.

[ray]

Roy,

wrathful-->wrathfully?

I don't remember God smiting many baddies in the OT, as he usually used proxies.  So...

"Just like Jehovah smote the baddies
in what we’d now call self-defence."

doesn't make much sense to me, nor do I get it's connection to the rest of the poem, or the satiric quip about "self-defense" (spelled correctly)  

Dale

Thanks, Dale.
It's Ray, actually, not Roy. 
Wrathful is a word and it happens to rhyme with Cottrill. 
 
I googled Jehovah smote and came up with Ethiopians, "a land of cattle", Benjamin, the King of Israel into a leper, the people with a very great plague, the first born of Egypt and, of course, the Philistines. He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty.

The last two lines are referring to religious intolerance, I suppose; that is, the sense of entitlement that persuades some people of a religious persuasion that their gods cannot be mocked. Hence, jihads, crusades, fatwas.

In the UK we spell it self-defence, not self-defense. So each spelling is both right and wrong. Rather like religious beliefs.