Category: Poems
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Stone Tomb Angel
Your second century of mission here. Stay on, we pray.Still stay, still wait the trump of God and hand, that day,to your arising saint your newly green bouquetbecause she’ll need, from joy, some blooms to wave.I fear I’ll never know your name to praiseyour granite ==silence.== Some sadness in the wayyou sit, where vagrants hide…
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Where Do Songbirds Settle Down To Die?
Where do songbirds settle down to die? If you had spent a lifetime sliding sideways on winds,and chatting up the sun with chir-chir-chiree,would you not be embarrassed being seenaflitter, fluttered awkwardly to earth to liea stone, wings skewed, throat dry? Where do songbirds hide themselves to die?
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Lamb, Milk, Sun, Free, Be.
At twilight slash the the twilight lambwho woke that day to mother and to milkand aimless drums of bees, and sun.At night go splash the milk-fed blood as freeof viscous will as only sheep can be. At newlight seek your missing lamband fail. Then sleep, wash feet, slurp milkand honey syruped from the sugar sunby…
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Even Mary Of The Seven Names
I find the well where women come to drawat twilight for their wash. They’re flowers in the dark,I’ll call them by their flower names: Carnation,Lily, Lily, Rose. Arbutus. Dahlia,Calla – call her Mary, call them each a Mary, Mary Quite Contrary, mother Mary, even Mary of the seven names:Mary of the spikenard jar who salved…
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Pascal’s Memoriam
The year of grace 1654.November 23, the day of St. Clement.Half past ten till half past twelve. FIRE. Certitude, certitude, joy, joy, joy.If the world should bare its heraclitean faceAnd the fire in the wood, the fire in the stoneLeap an arc to your heart and backAnd feed itself through the hole in your soulWhat…
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Anthony, the Agonist of God
Anthony, the agonist of God,Had a false back wall in his cellThat opened as he slept.Demons swirled from deepest hellAnd vortexed round his bedAnd hung by scaly tailsAnd bit his faith. He fought by chanting psalms.The devils shrieked in starvedAnd oversized disguises. Finally, shriveled from disdain. He hollowed out their skullsFor cups. He hung their…
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Will You Be Planting Dahlias?
For my mother. Yes, you are in my bones,as matrix for the matrix of my marrowand my cells are busy building on your scaffoldthere, where bloods are born. On certain autumn midnights I would ridemy dreams against your sleep.You localized my life, assured yourself that I was fine,then turned upon your side. But now you…
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Ruth’s Vow
H’Shem has never trapped my tears in angel bottlesor bedewed my bed with bread at dawnor shepherd-walked me past His glassy pondsand yet where Bethlehem breeds barleyI grow grey, and sing my vows.I vow to help. To ease your yearsand wash your baby’s ears. Around your flocksI’ll sleep and someday sleep perpetuallywhere stones are stacked…
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Christ, at Each Baptism, To Lucifer, His Sponsor
Water is poured visibly and audibly into the font. I made the world so you’d have space to playtill night, but you have not returned for supper.I searched for you while worried sick to death. I took your invitation to explore your desert.The time it takes to grow a tare on stone.But now it’s time…
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Childermass
Lord, many sent gifts to your feast. Angels sent their shepherds, burlap-boned,Reciting Glorias to soothe their sheepThat hemorrhage for sins would soon be stippled dry. But Herod sent his wizards, masked as friendsTo woo a baby king. Then razors. To filet sweet limbs.(The ego of a king is like a lion claw.) You! You sent…