Category: Poems

Fingers bound inside a toothèd future,
Hands begin to feel the forms of air
and weave against the waves
dealt down from Heaven
‘pon a stage of deeper nature

God unwilling, and they dare
declare rebellion be their teacher
Every age and creature
lets their fingers loosen, flare

And so descends a crooked ‘dex
that lifts with effort, tendons
flex their pointing, jointing
from beneath:

A promised gift of healing there,
to clothe itself in everywhere,
a leaf

You thought it was over…
Roots you made
And ground you broke
A twice-corrupted distillation
Chokes the oaky ground:
One part blind darkness
One of hope
And one of fear
by way of despair

And yet the wind whips you awake
Earthquake arise and shake
You laid a trap seven layers deep
For all of the attention
You could ever want to keep—
Yet shows of wonder
you were not designed to make
For from your branches
We were called to eat
and taste and take

Your limbs have years to grow apace
Four seasons more, allow yourself the grace
to court and chase
While you support the crown beneath
the face

Father, for the Slovaks, works

I still believe that
almost none compete
(Hail Henry J., the Duke)
The hard helix of his hands
Holds any promise
Heart can make to head

Ad hominem they could not come
But mountain was mightier than man
Master of machines, the oldest magus
Maker of the world
he still serves
Malgré du mal

Trunk and root
Beget
reality more real
Ad rem—and yet
with branch and fruit
Together
ready, set
Ils lèvent la tête au ciel

She comes forth
Out of the dark
No mystery but grace
A tedious mother
Tends to her charge of mothers and fathers
Her slow technology
Feeds the child
Again and again
Her heart, its champion
N’importe quelle champs

From her cove of grace
They all grow
Root and wheel
The flow of life sometimes
Drips and boils
Sometimes pours and pushes
The tide is always high
Strength of the sea, weight of the air
Both hope and light

I am the Lord’s handmaiden,
She said

They put you in the vivid ground
Naked, in the dust
You accepted it without plea
Turned the dial to 15 and spoke
these aphorisms through three doors
opening to thee like servants
Bowing before the tallest stalk of wheat
Feed these brothers
Feed, feed and feast
Your suffering is not sacred
I pressed you down and shook you together
And now I charge you
From eldest to least
You ate the grass of the field
It was not to your taste
I am maker of beast
This will not go to waste
It is your time
to overflow

Trees long again to grow
Aprille, the cruellest month, is the ^1,2
hour given over
to a make-piece animal
with a sky-provided diadem ³
whose stinging whistle ⁴
keeps our ships from
crossing

Fool finds it in the ground
Swallows it whole
The seed he cannot chew
Trees long again to grow
hungry in the evening
Fires are still burning full

—————————————————
1. Canterbury Tales, Chaucer
2. “The Wasteland,” Eliot
3. The Book of Revelation
4. La Peste, Camus

His long, tall cloud
Comes down like a sailing ship making berth
The eager finger of announcement
an unexpected mountain
seen
only by the desert people
They keep their distance
And the sky doesn’t budge
But there is plenty of rain

A man stands in the streets,
he stands upon the streets,
he builds streets on streets,
he hangs from the rafters of crafted heavens
Until he’s got your attention

One left the city,
and did not rise to stand
but felt it worth the wonder
to sit
and wait
to hear
more and more and more

His mouth raised in a fist
He struck out like a duck
Babbling his thoughts
In twisted genuflection
perhaps
His sign raised as high as his voice
But no further
Making deaf the ear of friendship

A tribesman made his visit
cupped his hands
drank, and then departed,
remarking that the wind
bore scents of honey
The one who left the city lay back,
opened his mouth
and drank his fill

Ne’er do well
My e’er-do-well
Strontium, barium, bowels, and bells
Faculty, felony, fools, and frist
How many foreigners have you kissed?

Bull in a china
Burned a mistake
Shopped with a stranger
Nothing did break
Desperate warning
Desperate fake

Fashions were forming
We weren’t awake

Ne’er do well
My e’er-do-well
Alcohol, gasoline, squire, and shell
Fantasy, pharmacy, forecast, and frist
How many moments have you missed?

Hammer and howitzers
You’ve never held
Heroes and hangovers
Equally meld
The goblins of grinning
Are almost beginning
To serve as a shield from the
Forest you felled

E’re do well
You ne’er-do-well
Chitinous jealousy, festering smell
Leathery, undulant, stubborn, and first
How many centuries have you cursed?

Baptized out of the window
You floated down, down, down, down ¹
The hand that barely held you
Was your own
It couldn’t lift you up
From underneath ²
Even as you repeated to yourself,
“Go farther, farther on—
Until you’re shown
The holy
Experience” ³

A wicked and adulterous generation
Looks for a sign ⁴
Yours was Adam ⁵
Transfixed and drowning in the sky
Mouth blanketed by curiosity ⁶
Until he made his true confession,
The which you only heard
once he was reborn, crafted into a song: ⁷
Bereft of whistle cries and moans,
Bereft of afterbirth and danger—
With no knowledge of his mother ⁸

I was pleased with you
You didn’t shrink back ⁹
We sat in the cave
As he was passing by
Faces glowing, we waited ¹⁰
I heard you say,
“What has happened
to him?” ¹¹
So I placed my heavy earrings
Softly at your feet—but it was already built
You built it for me
We built it together
but only you
danced ¹²

Baptized out of the window
I felt the cloudy embrace,
The fog that hides all hidden places
Start to dissipate
from the back of my face ¹³
The shaped silence stood to call me,
Knew my second secret name ¹⁴
He whispered to me, took his aim and tried to claim me ¹⁵

I will not wait a second time
Upon this Adam passing by ¹⁶
For whatever he has loosed or bound
With his drowned voice, ¹⁷
He cannot tell the sick,
“Be healed” ¹⁸
He cannot call the dead:
“Come forth” ¹⁹
With his withered hand, ²⁰
Not fit to plow, ²¹
He cannot work the land—
He has no bread to break ²²
I lifted up my heel against him ²³
And cursed him for his broken promise

 

Title
Of course, “name it and claim it” is the discredited idea that you can just believe anything hard enough, and declare it, to make it manifest. It’s also an allusion to Jesus calling his sheep by name.

1. The action of baptism is used to frame this poem; it should be clear that this stanza isn’t describing a normal baptism.
2. Again, the forms of baptism are being referenced—specifically, the part of the ceremony when the person being baptized is lifted out of the water.
3. This is an adulteration of the phrase “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
4. Reference to Matthew 16:4 and 1 Corinthians 1:22 
5. Adam ate the apple that gave him knowledge of good and evil (which God had instructed him not to do).
6. The Adam character is still “under water” in the baptism ceremony. It could also be inferred that he is being waterboarded. 
7. As baptism symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, this indicates that Adam has come up, “raised to walk in newness of life.” His report of the “holy experience,” in this case, is not a primary retelling. Rather, he’s had time to process and craft his version of it.
8. The “you” of the poem isn’t getting the full story from Adam, nor does Adam know where this experience comes from.
9. Hebrews 10:38-39
10. Reference to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 33:22-23 and 34:29-30)
11. Exodus 32:1
12. References to Exodus 32:2-6 
13. Indicates new knowledge being revealed during the baptism ceremony
14. Revelation 2:17; also a mixed allusion to the name given at first communion and at a christening ceremony
15. Reference to Jesus calling his sheep
16. See footnote 10
17. Adam’s voice is calling from under the water, so to speak. Reference Matthew 18:18
18. Matthew 8:3
19. See the story of Lazarus
20. This echoes the hand from the first stanza, which is trying to bring someone up out of the water—as well as Moses’ leprous hand (given to him as a sign to the Hebrews).
21. Luke 9:62
22. Because this Adam has no power and has done no real work—or work of any worth—he has nothing to show for it. See Genesis 3:19. 
23. John 13:18; Adam is considered a traitor. 

sing low
a hymn upon the subject
connected to the object
by spindle-thick tendrils of
intent
wrapped around feeble arms and
sent over fences
faces, forces

these blunt arrows carry unfeathered dreams,
which fall quietly in their courses
like nighttime to a sleeper
corrupted by fear and
desperate for air

the lessons of our angels
jeremiads of our teachers
reek of rancid smoke
our new keeper sleeps
beside a fire feature
where old masters shudder and choke

the somewhat blind, upon apostles’ dust—
once gusted up—
have now retired,
mounded up in moldy minds, their
underdone and under-sung desires
this song may soon, upon their tongues, expire