Poet’s Corner: Jonah

A chance to read more from last week’s featured poet. Have a look at his other poems, Jonah on the Shore and In the Shower

by James Coghill

Thursday January 26 2012, 8:47pm

(Following God’s decision to save the people of Nineveh)

O— do not save them—

Their shame is loveless-- it is

Only so you will spare them.

It grows like this gourd,

Swelling with a tasteless pulp

And dies after a day

while sack-cloth sores sink

beneath a wafer thickness

of perfect skin.

Be vengeful— they will only sin

again. I never ran twice…

But pity me: the one whose anger

has digested their bones.

I would my body were splinters,

scourged by this bloodshot wind,

That I would burst to dust

with the force of the act saved

for such a city.

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