When the most intense revivals swept
\nthe mountains just a century ago,
\nparticipants described the shouts and barks
\nin unknown tongues, the jerks of those who tried
\nto climb the walls, the holy dance and laugh.
\nBut strangest are reports of what was called
\nthe holy cuss. Sometimes a man who spoke
\nin tongues and leapt for joy would break into
\nan avalanche of cursing that would stun
\nwith brilliance and duration. Those that heard
\nwould say the holy spirit spoke as from
\na whirlwind. Words burned on the air like chains
\nof dynamite. The listeners felt transfigured,
\nand felt true contact and true presence then,
\nas if the shock of unfamiliar
\nand blasphemous profanity broke through
\nbeyond the reach of prayer and song and hallo
\nto answer heaven’s anger with its echo.<\/p>\n
First printed in Southern Poetry Review, Vol. 43, No. 1 2004
\n\u00a9 2004 by Robert Morgan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the most intense revivals swept the mountains just a century ago, participants described the shouts and barks in unknown tongues, the jerks of those who tried to climb the walls, the holy dance and laugh. But strangest are reports of what was called the holy cuss. Sometimes a man who spoke in tongues and … Continue reading “Holy Cussing by Robert Morgan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/motherbird.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}