A vision

the angels, they were everywhere
faces molten as mercury
thin as water, thick as air
flecking the dark like porphyry

through them I saw the girded world
bound by good fences, shuttered tight
which could not clot an ounce of God
or dim a lumen of his light

then all our artefacts and craft
the trappings rigged around his name
these fell away and God was left
naked and trembling, like a flame

Like Psyche

I watched her crouched and howling with the sun
sitting on her shoulder, and the moon
tucked behind her ear. I saw days run
up and down her spine, and the year turn
a daisy chain of hours in her hair.

She swallowed stones and spat out meteors
that blazed thru minds grown dark and unaware
of their capacity for storms and stars.
Then she became horizon. Dusk and dawn
sprung from her back like wings. I heard her cry
like Psyche when that finger of flame fell on
Love’s lips like loss. I saw her try to fly,

shattering in the glory that unfurled,
and how those rags of light patched up the world.

Frère Egbert

Frère Egbert, suddenly unsure
the world was sinful, doubled down on scripture--
He beat his breast, he harrowed his back with cords
wore haircloth, gardened in the snow, he wept
he crept upon his knees from Nice to Lourdes
fasted till nearly dead, and wished he were so--
yet every time he looked outside the window
he saw birds

Nightmare

That night a malevolent mind subdued my mind
and held me in a vise of vile despair
as mute as stone, as tangible as air
insensible and cold and ill-defined
it clumsily and crudely pantomimed
inflections of your gesture, flesh, and hair
facing me with a face that wasn’t there
all grew so dark, I thought that I was blind
then felt by darkness as by hands caressed
who is this corpse that lodges in my bed?
Lazarus rising, dying, or undead?
What ghoul that will not let me let it go?
Shifting in silent agony and slow
I woke, and found it still upon my chest.

Angel in the ice

It was winter when I found the angel
frozen in the lake. Its eyes were bright
like berries served on silver cheeks, its wings
were wrinkled banners furled against its back
its mouth was open, and I felt a strange
hunger howling in my gut, and fear
at how its figure, contorted among red rags
looked like an emperor’s chop spelling my name
and the snow piled on my shoulders and my hat.
It was a flock of geese that broke the spell
leistering the sky with cries. I ran
home to the cabin’s hearth, where father asked
why I’d taken so long and if I’d brought
the fish for supper, and why my eyes were wet.

In the cloister library vault

Behold the word made flesh, the flesh made thin
the thin made hungry. Furled like fleurs-de-lys
famished silverfish back-stitch and trim
through manuscripts on shining filigree
legs, as if the letters and the petals
holding their breath in illuminated pages
were lifted free and life lit in their metals.
Here is a body bearing out sin’s wages:
inside this book a thousand silver spears
a thousand silver nails in parchment palms;
When we turn the cover back some years
later, to preserve the dead with balms
regretting our neglect, prepared to grieve,
we’ll find the body missing, and believe. 

American Joan & Arjuna

for Linda & Billy

Throttling through the flower bed hunched over
and pink as lox, Uncle Billy beheaded
Aunt Linda’s lilies with his riding mower
and glanced back at the woman he had wedded.
Stole of smoke encircling her shoulders
she threw aside her empty Pall Mall pack
startling the snoozing setters at her slippers
when as she leapt, the rocking chair banged back.
O, this meant war. As through the blooms he veered
she shed her bathrobe for a suit of armor

gilded with fleurs-de-lys. A god appeared
riding beside him, trying to alarm her
with a conch shell’s bellow. Such was life
between the sunburned farmer and his wife.