stdClass Object ( [ID] => 21321 [post_author] => 31 [post_date] => 2020-12-16 18:45:47 [post_date_gmt] => 2020-12-16 18:45:47 [post_content] => I was back pew sniggering at Walter Dishley’s sermon text – another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind. And in my pants a law unto itself was taking shape seeded by Linda Nixon’s cross-legged stocking tops. Aroused, the black suit crowed and waved the bible at ‘you back there, laughing sinner scared to know this book. God will not forget your sin. Repent or go in shame.’ And at the turned faces, I fled the bollockwash as if I had entered a temple where I had no right to be, to make a mazy run of lefts and rights to Pleasureland, swilling gallons of lousy beer, gorging on pies and chips, food-mixing the brain on the Mad Mouse ride, gawping at coloured light bulbs, turned on by flashing fruit machines and high-heeled girls in Blackpool bars as jukeboxed Peggy Lee asked Is That All There Is? And youth said yes, for now. [post_title] => Romans. VII.23 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => romans-vii-23 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2021-03-26 17:48:13 [post_modified_gmt] => 2021-03-26 17:48:13 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=21321 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => First published in Poetry News, Winter 2020. [wpcf-date-published] => 2020 [wpcf-summary-description] => A winner of the Members' Poems competition in the Winter 2020 issue of Poetry News. The competition, on the theme of 'Youth', was judged by Phoebe Power. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 1936 [forename] => John [surname] => Lancaster [title] => John Lancaster [slug] => john-lancaster [content] => John Lancaster is the author of five poetry collections including The Barman (Smith|Doorstop) and Potters: A Division Of Labour (Longmarsh Press), which won the inaugural Arnold Bennett Book Prize 2017. He was a joint second-prizewinner in the National Poetry Competition in 1979. He lives in Totnes, Devon. ) )

I was back pew sniggering at Walter Dishley’s sermon text –
another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind.
And in my pants a law unto itself was taking shape seeded
by Linda Nixon’s cross-legged stocking tops. Aroused,
the black suit crowed and waved the bible at ‘you back there,
laughing sinner scared to know this book. God will not forget
your sin. Repent or go in shame.’ And at the turned faces, I fled
the bollockwash as if I had entered a temple where I had no right

to be, to make a mazy run of lefts and rights to Pleasureland,
swilling gallons of lousy beer, gorging on pies and chips,
food-mixing the brain on the Mad Mouse ride, gawping
at coloured light bulbs, turned on by flashing fruit machines
and high-heeled girls in Blackpool bars as jukeboxed Peggy Lee
asked Is That All There Is? And youth said yes, for now.