Horror & Terror
Spoke the Prophet in Brazil
The prophet stood,
Watching the water,
Bubbling from the ground,
High in the hills.
Hills from which he saw
Beautiful horizons
On many days.
He stood
At the source of a river,
With no one to hear him.
He knew the river
Would eventually
Flow into the sea,
Regardless of what he did.
At the source not much grew.
He began the long walk down.
As he walked along the edge
Of the stream,
He watched it swell,
As he walked along the edge
It became a river.
Soon the water fed vibrant nature,
Soon he saw a few people gardening,
Soon he saw crops flourishing,
Soon he saw people farming,
Soon he saw people fishing,
Soon he saw cities growing,
Soon he met a crowd.
He wondered why he knew the source,
The source of things to come,
The source found up the mountain,
The source from which all life flowed.
He knew the prophesy
Would flow into reality,
Regardless of what he did.
So what was the question?
The river in time
Would do its thing.
The only question
Was what to do
With the precious water?
What life to feed?
He told the people,
I know you are accustomed
To your river,
But it is important to decide now
What life the water needs to irrigate,
Because when it reaches the sea
All will be salt
And you will not be able to drink it.
In many places far away,
Men are pouring salt
In the wounds: of the land,
Of men, women and children,
Who revolting at the pain and the taste,
Either are forced to cross the salted sea,
Or will rise in rebellion.
I remind you here
The water still flows from the source,
Mixing with the vibrant land,
The people singing, dancing
Celebrating, healing,
Not perfect by any means
But not salting the earth.
Still able to welcome,
Still able to grow,
Still able to share,
Still able to prosper,
Still able to be family,
Still able to taste Eden.
Still, and dancing,
Sang the prophet in Brazil.
Written in Belo Horizonte in August 2025
Thanks to Mariana Jorge for inspiration
Back to the Garden, A Prophecy | 1. The Peacock in the Garden | 2. The Garden in Brazil | 3. Are You The Gardener? | 4. Spoke the Prophet in Brazil
Back to the Garden, A Prophecy
1. The Peacock in the Garden | A Prayer of Oblation
2. The Garden in Brazil | A Daily Office
3. Are You The Gardener? | A “Holy Week”
AI Audiopodcast discussing “Are you the Gardener?”
Are you the Gardener?
The sun has just risen,
Eve is shaking me,
“Are you okay?”
I am in a cold sweat
Head to toe,
I am having heart palpitations,
I am sobbing.
“I had a vision.”
“There’s a new emperor,
He gives
A vicious order,
His soldiers kill him.
New Rome now turns
Into a fire ball,
I feel a million people die,
My heart can’t cope.”
“Oh sweetie, I love you.”
Eve holds me tight.
Later that day
My heart is
A bit calmed down.
She says, “You know
You have to go,
It is time to get up.”
“Time to be a prophet.
Go tell them
It was because of men
That we were caste out of Eden.
Tell them what horror
Is to come.
Many will not be able hear you,
Often you will not be invited back.
Go tell them that their God
The Trinity,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
And his creator,
The Emperor, are dead.
And now it is time to accept
The-always-been-there
Invitation back to Eden.”
The Prophet struggles
In polite company.
As a mention of
Unfathomable cruelty
About to be inflicted by men
Shatters the nice comfort
Of the moment
And ruins the taste of dessert.
His host throws
Up her hands,
Physically recoils from his words
And demands that
The Prophet stop talking.
He can’t
He continues
With a zen like koan,
“Can you wrap
Your arms around
A nuclear bomb after
It has gone bang?
What kind of mushroom
Is this to expand
Your consciousness
And love?”
“Where did this all begin?”
She asks, “This madness?
What God would allow this?”
The Prophet says,
“Don’t you know it is The Trinity,
Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Male dominance is reaching
The limits of its expensiveness.”
“When was The Trinity born?”
“In the year 325 no less,
When another Emperor
Summoned what is said
Is 318 men
To divine who gets to be God.
They decided Father, Son
And, a gender suspect, Holy Ghost.
They focused mainly
On the clearly men
The Father and the Son.
The Son became a type of superhero,
With a “kingdom come” command
To create presumably
A king dominated world,
A single male crowned.”
“The philosopher has said,
“God is Dead.”
On 16th of July in 1945
God, The Trinity was killed.
Trinity was the first atom bomb
To come alive and in its blast
The Trinity God died,
Aged 1,620 years.
Man thought he had become God.
As Trinity exploded
To the radiation of
“Now I am become Death,
The destroyer of worlds.”
He did not realise
That he had destroyed God too,
And we’d all have to pay the price.
There’s been no funeral for The Trinity
But the funeral pyre is ready,
It is New Rome itself.
The preparations are in progress.
It will be a fireball
You do not want to watch.
Blinding, a searing scream
Will ignite in your soul.
Is your heart open enough
To feel a million deaths at once?
And have you remembered to
Have a defibrillator to hand?
Will the nuclear attack
Look at you like Medusa
With her hair of serpents
And just turn you to stone?
What is your plan?
Get ready to kill
Your neighbours to survive?
Build a bunker now?
The men of avarice
Will pull the pin, press the button,
Give the code, just to prove
They’re a bigger fucker than the other one.
They always have done this.
And with each generation
Tricking nature
To give up her power,
The hungry new men
For money and clout
Grab her technology
As their own, without consent.
They leave ethics
And morals in the dust
Of their pyramid-building schemes,
Thinking they get to have it all
And take it into the next life.
A bullying they go
Wondering who they can dominate
Pretending to be gods.
Wondering if they are now
Lord Shiva
The destroyer himself.
They forget where the power
Originally came from,
The nature of the goddess herself.
She never gave up the power
She lent it to us on trust.
With the Christian God dead
It’s probably time to turn to
Some other gods for help.
The men should have known
That Shiva is accountable
To Kali no less, the slayer of demons,
The great transformer,
Ender of ignorance, fear, and ego.
Kali who demands
The end of the poverty,
Hunger, untreated sickness,
And oppression.”
Kali says,
“I am not amused.”
As she whirls around
Cutting off the heads of demons.
“I am not out of control.
This is the rage
That every woman feels,
And everyone who still has a heart
At what the men with their Trinity God
Father, Son and Holy Ghost have done.
They have unleashed
All our anger at once.”
With a commanding voice
She summons Lord Shiva himself.
“You are not here to calm me down.”
“Get down!” “Get down!” she shouts.
He obeys, face down and is covered
In the ash of the human corpses,
Ash that is radioactive
For 10,000 years.
“I will not let you up Shiva
or allow you to get married
Until you have made me a promise.”
She stomps all over his back.
He is unable to get up,
Unable to move,
He is pinned to the ground,
Motionless.
She stomps, “Shiva assure me
That every man in the world
Has taken on the ethic
That every person in the world
Deserves to be treated well,
Regardless of money
Gender, race, tribe, caste, class
Or God.”
She stomps, “Shiva assure me
That you will make them
See this blue and beautiful world,
Full of life-giving nature
That feeds the people,
And that they will guard the soil,
And the temperature,
And stop their poisoning rapture.”
She stomps, “Shiva assure me
That you have instructed men
To bow before Wisdom,
Wisdom herself,
To receive a tear of hers
In blessing,
A tear of suffering generated
By The Trinity, The God and The Bomb.”
“And they must dedicate their lives
To end this drop of suffering
And accept further tears to come.
It is now time to build
A rejuvenated world
That can survive the hubris
Of a male God.
It is time to head back to Eden.”
Lord Shiva says, “I will teach men.”
And she lets him up.
Kali announces
“It is time for your marriage
To Sri Meenakshi
Who lives in the largest
Active goddess temple
In the world,
In the city of Madurai,
In Tamil Nadu,
In southern India,
Lives Sri Meenakshi
Who has inspired more poets
To write more lines to her that to any
Other goddess in the world.
We so need her help today.
Tell me,
How do you two plan
To celebrate your marriage?
What sort of party
Will you have?
Who do you really
Wish to invite?”
Shiva and Sri Meenakshi reply,
“Now the Christian world has no God
And their God has been burned
On a funeral pyre
In the fireball of New Rome
And so many people are dead,
We invite the women of the Christian Gospels
To have their moment
To define their God anew.”
“We invite their descendants
To come and convene
Just like the 318 men did in 325.
And we will ask them
To read their gospels carefully
And explain what is this love story
Of men and women
That births new life.”
“We will ask these women
To define words
That capture a glimpse of God,
And write a fitting creed
That does not lead
Back to The Bomb,
That leads us
In resurrection love.”
“The women will come
From all over the world,
And from many faiths to debate
What is said in the Christian gospels,
And they will restore the significance
And embrace of women
Who co-created the gospel love
For us to light the candle of everyone.”
“They will come with Mary
Who defied the patriarchy
And arranged marriage
To have a baby
She wished to have,
And sang so
Magnificently of leaders bowed
And of the poor raised up.”
“They will remember
The Syrophoenician women.
Insulted, she stood her ground.
She stripped Jesus of his tribalism
With her annoyingly persistent love
So, he’d heal her daughter
And heal himself
To become a true messiah.”
“They will write a new creed.
They will define a new god
With the feminine in love with men.
Ultimately, they will come with
Mary Magdalene
And go to the tomb,
To meet the gardener
We all need to become.”
“No, she did not mistake him
For the gardener
He was The Gardener
He is The Gardener
He is The Gardener of Eden
Now Mary Magdalene
And The Gardener
Issue an invitation.”
“Come back to the garden
Where you will be safe,
Where nature will be respected
And poverty ended
And prosperity will be in balance.
And let us each say,
“I am death, I am the creator of worlds.
I am one with the cycle of nature.””
The Gardener says,
“I am different from those men
Those subjects of a Roman Emperor
Who created The Trinity, the God
And Trinity The Bomb.
I am a man of harmony and kindness.
Come men in love, come to be adored.
Don’t stay in paradise ignored.”
Eve and I stand this evening before
The gates of paradise found.
Somber with suffering,
Praying for healing.
Two sprawling tigers block our way,
Sentinels, blessed by Wisdom’s tears.
They allow Eve and the snake to pass,
But I am stopped.
A tiger growls “Who are you?”
And I reply, “I am the gardener.”
I am let in.
And Eve runs over to me
And kisses me passionately,
And can’t stop
And leads me by the hand
To our abode,
Finally we are back, in the garden of love.
A “Holy Week”
“Are you the Gardener?”
Was written at Sitio Leela,
Rio Grande Do Sol, Brazil
March 2025.
Back to the Garden, A Prophecy | 1. The Peacock in the Garden | 2. The Garden in Brazil | 3. Are You The Gardener? | 4. Spoke the Prophet in Brazil
The Garden in Brazil
This Morning
After a nightmare
I can’t change,
I awoke in a garden
In love with Eve
And the snake,
Savouring the apple,
Trusting my intuition.
Together at Noon
Totally pursuing
Pinnacle power,
Finding enough to make
A mass difference,
Loving the hard work,
Building not pyramids
But Jerusalem.
This Evening
Eve and I,
Stepping out to celebrate,
Issue an invitation:
Come friends and family
And strangers unknown,
Let us go dancing
On a carnival date.
Now at Night
Let us roost, make love
To create paradise
For kids to come.
Join us now
In this Eden
To sleep well,
Before it’s too late.
A Daily Office
Back to the Garden, A Prophecy | 1. The Peacock in the Garden | 2. The Garden in Brazil | 3. Are You The Gardener? | 4. Spoke the Prophet in Brazil
Awake to Ukraine
There is a dawn moment when the heavens are blue and the sun creates yellow above the horizon of the sea and you see a blue with a yellow stripe emerging beneath and at that moment we awake to the flag of Ukraine.
Please get up in the morning and reflect on the sunrise and the values that we wish to arise in us and the values that we wish to grow and we wish to make happen. But the sun will rise quickly and the bright light will blur all and the busyness of the day will flood into our lives and we will forget the point that we need to remember when we awoke.
We can live in horror at one man’s poverty creating destruction on another land, the brutal attack and destruction of the sovereign nation of the Ukraine and systematic murder of its people. And we need to hold that and remember and not forget but we also need to have a horizon that we can look out to and set sail towards. It is a horizon of our values that we want to rise to and we know that are true, are kind, are good, that build a loving and prosperous world. May we see the Ukrainian flag on the horizon at dawn and wake to work throughout the day to make life giving values alive for all.
So I give you a picture, taken from my home in March in 2021 at dawn, showing the sun rising at that moment when the Ukrainian flag can be on all our imaginations as the horizon of our hope. Let us wake, look out and remember Ukraine and the values of wonder in our hearts that we want to make real in the world and decide what sacrifices we will make this day to make wonder come alive for every person in the Ukraine and for every person in the world.
This reflection was inspired by the artist Karen Tusinski who paints stunning pictures of the horizon in Rockport Massachusetts and who has painted a Ukrainian flag on a canvas and placed it in the window of her gallery. I’m asking artists to paint pictures of the Ukrainian horizon to keep us inspired.
The Candle Trilogy published in “Untamed Gospel”
Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church College, Oxford writes, “It is good to be able to welcome and introduce the poetry of Jamie Coats in this anthology. Jamie is a layperson working for the Society of St John the Evangelist (SSJE) in the United States − an Anglican religious order of brothers. Jamie writes on contemporary monastic wisdom, and his work draws on Buddhist, Hindu and Christian traditions of meditation and silence. We reproduce his ‘Candle Trilogy’ towards the close of this volume.”
Amazon.com Kindle version of Untamed Gospel
The Candle Trilogy: Unlit Betrayal | Lit Faithfulness | Faithful Betrayal – Holy Fire
The Dove
I fly and land where needed,
Where Justice finds her heart hurting,
And we hold the gods accountable,
Opening eyes to her love,
To the love of her,
God.
A Prayer of Oblation
(c) Jamie Coats
24th July 2017
Faithful Betrayal – Holy Fire
First of the Trinity
Mary
God does not
Rape
Mary.
If God had raped Mary
Do you think we’d have her joy
So magnificently described?
God sends Gabriel.
He appears as the most
Gorgeous of men.
She hugs him saying,
“You are so beautiful.”
Places her head on his chest,
Looks up
And tentatively
They kiss on the lips.
He moves to kiss her again.
“No,” she says,
“My betrothal is arranged.
My father is making me marry.
I cannot defy him,
My blood-line, my tribe.”
Gabriel steps back.
“You get to decide.
God’s love is consensual.
Any other story
Is a lie made up
By man.”
Mary tremors at the idea.
A woman freed to choose
Love over tribe,
A woman no longer
Property of man
With the right to decide.
Knowing that this right is
The centre of God’s love
For all mankind.
She chooses love.
She defies her dad,
She faithfully betrays her blood.
“Be it unto me
According to
Thy word…”
Gabriel, Mary
As man
As woman
Fully alive
Feeling
Exploring
Adoring
Intertwining
Through each other
Combining
To be
Worship
To and from
Eternity
Now one
With God
Now spiralling
In a greater orbit
Knowing they are
Saying yes to life,
To Jesus.
She gives birth to a boy,
Who grows to be a man
Who in time understands,
But before,
His tribe raises him
As their man.
Like all of us
He learns the normal
Basis of hate:
Who’s in?
Who’s out?
How is my blood superior?
I am a boy,
I am this belief and religion,
I am of my tribe.
Second of the Trinity
The Syrophoenician Woman
He grows into a prophet,
Limited at first,
He prays to the Father,
And says he is just a man for
The lost sheep of his tribe.
One day he meets a woman,
A woman who says, “No,
That is not good enough.”
She prays as a Mother,
The Mother who is
Desperate
For her sick child.
She is foreign,
Annoying, cloying
And totally persistent.
She is not of his blood,
Gender, race, tribe
Caste, class or God.
He denies her,
He reviles her,
Finally calls her a dog.
She faithfully sees past
The hate he’s been taught
She knows his heart.
She stands her ground,
Tells him,
“Even dogs get scraps.”
Like flint
She strikes him,
Sparks his love.
She breaks the clasp that holds
His cultural coat of hate,
It falls away,
Revealing the loving heart
Given him
By his mother and God.
His mutual love flows,
He loves her daughter
As his own.
Free,
He heals
Into the Messiah.
Third of the Trinity
Mary Magdalene
He is now on the path
To be crucified
By those so superior.
Now he honours every woman,
Every foreigner,
Every other.
Now he’s got it,
Are you surprised
Why he is such a hit
With all the women
Of the Gospels
Described?
Are you surprised
That those of power,
Still dressed in hate,
Come after him
For such betrayal
With bloodshed in mind?
Betrayed by a kiss,
Led through the crowds,
They kill him on a tree.
Mary Magdalene
She watches him die.
His agony consumes her,
She struggles to stop
The terror
From petrifying her.
He dies. Is it over?
The light is fading fast
When his body is released.
She follows
As they take his body
To the tomb.
A new one carved into rock
With a circular stone
That rolls back into a slot.
They haul his body
Down into the antechamber
Onto the preparation table,
No time
To put him into
One of the burial slots.
It is Sabbath,
Darkness,
She’ll return when allowed.
On the third day
She comes early,
Still in darkness
With enough myrrh
To stop the retching
That celebrates
The victory of those
Who kill those who
Put love before blood.
The stone is sitting
In its slot
Rolled back.
No stench,
No body,
Another humiliating loss.
The rock-carved tomb,
The ultimate dead end,
Is emptiness.
Have the men of bloodshed
Desecrated his body
And hidden their evil deed?
“No!” she screams.
In the place of despair
She is faithful to love,
She feels it envelop her.
She turns, risen he is there,
Betraying death itself
Her love explodes,
It is that mutual love
It feels consensual
Beyond sexual,
Union with God.
No hatred to those who kill,
Compassion for all,
Resurrection love
From her pours forth.
Finally Holy Fire
Yes his act is sacred betrayal.
Yes his reward is death,
Yes he is going to ask you to
Stand with the poor,
Under the stars and
Light the candle of a little child.
You will light her candle
Regardless of who you are.
Free, you will not ask
Of gender
Of race
Of tribe
Of caste
Of class
Of God
You’ll faithfully betray
Your tribe if you answer
Yes to what Jesus and
The Trinity of women ask,
“Are you flint enough
To light Holy Fire?
Biblical References:: Luke 1, 23:26-24:12, Mark 7:24-30, Matthew 15:21-28, & John 20:1-18
The Candle Trilogy: Unlit Betrayal | Lit Faithfulness | Faithful Betrayal – Holy Fire
The Candle Trilogy was published in Untamed Gospel edited by Martyn Percy.
© Jamie Coats February 2017
Theme for the Year 2017
Unlit Betrayal
At the top
Is the water source
So pure
The priest takes
A bottle full
Puts a stopper in
In the valley
The church of
Bottled water
Dispenses
Drop by drop
Meager blessings
Wondering why
The children
Are missing
Is it that they know
Water falls
In a cascade
A torrent
For everyone
In the valley
And the river’s
Been pissed in
By the Mayor?
Who reneged
Cheated
The Pied Piper
The flute now
Lures the children
To be lost
Under a mountain of
Indebted
Hopelessness
Rats return
Gnawing the candle
Of their dreams
But every child
Dares to light
That candle
They do it
Behind their
Parents’ backs
Placing it in a holder
Sincerely
Wishing for flame
Hopeful
That the flickering light
Will make them sacred
They doubt it
Their snuffing fingers
Warm wax rubbing
Worried they’ll
Be revealed by
Tainting scent
The candle now unlit
Irresolute, they chance
No accidental fire
But will you
Give them
A match?
It is said that in 1284 the Pied Piper of Hamelin was retained to get rid of the rats and drowned them all. Then the Mayor reneged on the bill and the Pied Piper lured away all but three of the town’s children.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin
The Candle Trilogy: Unlit Betrayal | Lit Faithfulness | Faithful Betrayal – Holy Fire
(c) Jamie Coats February 2016
The Man in the Noon
I rode Pegasus all morn,
Could have ridden all day,
Instead at noon
We gently come in to graze.
Emma said the Lord of the Manor
Will say unto you, “Work for me
You’ll be fed from my dovecote
Eggs and young fledglings that coo.”
Emma taught me to reply,
“You’ll not want me to work for you.
I’ve been sent to release the dove,
It is what I am called to do.”
I’ve broken into the dovecote,
Picked up the fluffy fledgling,
The one nearly ready for flight,
’tis now in my jacket, peeking out.
Now I throw the young dove
Up into the air.
Up towards the sun.
Squinting, I see it fly.
I call out at the top of my lungs,
If you don’t shoot for the stars
You’ll not land on the moon.
If you don’t land on the moon,
You will not see the whole earth,
So blue and beautiful,
So full of God’s people.
Hold it all in your heart.
Then ride a moon beam back
To perch on Pegasus’ head.
He’ll snort with delight,
Now you coo and I’ll begin to pray,
This noon
I stop
I put down
All I do.
The offering of my work
Is to you, God,
And to my love,
And to all your children too.
Thanks be to God
Who gave me life.
I love the people of this earth,
I’m sorry I judge them so.
Now I call out their names to you.
God, help us, hug us
With our demons
Whom we deny.
Then in your arms
We will know
We’re already loved,
Forgiven, renewed.
Come Pegasus
Did you graze well?
Your new friend the dove
Will guide us seeking.
It is time to fly,
Fluffy fledglings to find,
We’ll go
’till the sun starts to hide.
The prayer in the middle of the poem contains the seven ways to pray in the Book of Common Prayer: 1) OBLATION; 2) THANKSGIVING; 3) PRAISE; 4) PENITENCE; 5) INTERCESSION; 6) PETITION; & 7) ADORATION.