Drowning in Honey, Stingless
The curfew tolls the knell and light remains
For a man, about the Lord’s own work,
(Of course) begged for light, sun stand thou still,
please.
The garish beams of God’s bright-answer stayed
The calm moon and added to the already overheated carrion days of summer.
The bodies heaped and rotted,
And the Children, in perpetual unbelief,
(for the red rock in the dust wilderness would have
offered up its own water), mumbled about
Sunburn and sweat and how the baby wouldn’t go down.
Sweet mercy cloys and sticks like manna
On the tongue and heavy sweetness in the too-full stomach.
We eat the book and eat the Word (for he starved
in the desert)
And must surfeit ourselves at his command
(to make up for his own breadless days)
So we are desiccated in the endless-saving
desert sun,
And can only beg that the heart-battering, heart-ravishing
bread becomes rock.
But our coffee spoons overflow
For grace to grace is a fearsome thing.
The curfew tolls the knell and light remains
For a man, about the Lord’s own work,
(Of course) begged for light, sun stand thou still,
please.
The garish beams of God’s bright-answer stayed
The calm moon and added to the already overheated carrion days of summer.
The bodies heaped and rotted,
And the Children, in perpetual unbelief,
(for the red rock in the dust wilderness would have
offered up its own water), mumbled about
Sunburn and sweat and how the baby wouldn’t go down.
Sweet mercy cloys and sticks like manna
On the tongue and heavy sweetness in the too-full stomach.
We eat the book and eat the Word (for he starved
in the desert)
And must surfeit ourselves at his command
(to make up for his own breadless days)
So we are desiccated in the endless-saving
desert sun,
And can only beg that the heart-battering, heart-ravishing
bread becomes rock.
But our coffee spoons overflow
For grace to grace is a fearsome thing.
The Twelfth Year
She had taken part of him into her.
Swanlike, God pressed her open and with a life-sigh,
she was heart-body whole.
Calamitously, he announced his conquest to the world:
I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.
2 comments:
Re: The Twelfth Year.
First, I thought it was about Leda and the Swan.
Then, I noticed it was about Jesus.
That made me feel sick. I think this is rotten, rotten.
Seen on a bumper sticker at UD: "A bad poem harms the world."
In defense of posting Heywood--that isn't exactly a new theme in reference to God: "Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me."
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