Anakin Skywalker

My spiritual director offered prayer
on cancer’s deathbed, for me in the Church,
but I gave a kiss like Judas, to tear
myself away from that career, and search

for my place in the world. I was right
to become Palpatine or Talleyrand
of a decompressing State, I now fight
to get back into, because I wondered

at the gnosis without askesis,
on offer, and had the good sense to doubt.
Through Vatican II’s failing synthesis
of confused sexualities outed,

and dodgy spirituality, stalked
his own Milton, young Ani Skywalker.

Woodford Halse - 28 February 2026

Adolescence, what a business. It is best to be a mathematician.

Yes I was offered a stellar career, but I would have lost everything. Remember what Kierkegaard said about Talleyrand, that the French statesman’s worldly success bore an inverse relation to a genuine vocation.

The Catholic priesthood had a mismatch with modern masculinities, and with Ethics for men, and it was inauthentic as to “Spirituality”. Nor did it understand its place with women.