The Holy Year

Less love? Less love! Less love
cannot be the answer, mon Jean
de la Croix (not to say mein
kleiner Johann Kreuzens), never
less but more and more: love
transfigured, love restored,
regenerating caritas, some
vivified amor. Less love! you say!

Where grace is not can be no nature:
he is in all places,
he is at all times,
now in wrath
and now in mercy,
never in dilution
or diminution,
and always in grace, for

where grace is not can be no nature.
Cruciform earth, shaped in love,
that sea-green sphere of fire,
poised in air without
foundation. Wo und wer
ist sicher Grund? Der HERR.
Where grace is not can be no nature.

In Vita Veritas

I. I believe in the power of
talking bullshit, in the
surge of small words in a
small circle, in a puff of
smoke and the smell of beer.
I want to be reminded of
the petty and the stupid, so
long as we can laugh. Give
me the sacrament of armchairs,
the liturgy of liquor and friends.

II. The flame of Horeb is all-
consuming, begun without
kindling- it cannot die.
Remind me (God! I will
forget) that pity is for
others, anger for myself.

III. Pity good men because they
suffer. Pity bad men because
they are yours, your
bones, your blood, your
brothers. Pity: I have little
else, and nothing so sweet to give.

Bones Like Wax

On the sidewalk and I cannot
breathe in this melody. It tears
me to bits. Feet like drums.
Lungs like razors. The
palm is a liar's tree- why,
then, do I hate it so?

Expand, they tell you, enlarge!
Dream of empire, swing from the
heels! Craven hearts, lacking the
courage of collapse, disdaining
the bravery of cowards. To be well
is hard enough. Banality is beyond us.

Was I true? I was never true.
I am only pretending to be a
person. The savage claws and
bites himself- I have only
words. I have no words at
all. Bloody eyes and bleary
hands, I wake to greet the sun.

And Sarah Shall Have a Son

You came twisting into sight
like a world in miniature—
dark and warm and smelling
of some distant sea. Howl,
howl, distempered heart! Howl
to God and hail to God
in violent Christophany.

Teach your servant to repent—
he knows not how—teach
him to be contrite. Teach
him how to live, broken-hearted,
rejoicing, in lenten jubilee.
Behind all acts, the actor, thou—
teach your servant to repent.
He knows not why, nor how.

You drifted out, away from
sight—giddy grieving garishly—
a room writ large, a wayward
cosmonaut. You are the ghost
that haunts the dawn. You are
the stillness of the clock
in the violence of Christophany.

The Love Song of C. Robert Darwin

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art fitter, and more fertile.
Thy dark and wide-set eyes are characteristically
female traits, and therefore attract me to thee
as a potential mother. Thy shining red gold
hair is a phenotype arising from a recessive
gene, and consequently appeals to my innate
drive to diversify my family's stock
on a subconscious but profound level,
but your typically northern European
features are familiar, and therefore do not
trigger within me an aggressive response, as
to an outsider. Thy secondary and tertiary
sexual characteristics illogically but inexorably
persuade me that you are physically capable
of ensuring the survival of our hypothetical
offspring, while thy waist-to-hip ratio is
near ideal for child bearing. Oh dearest,
do be mine! At least until you are
no longer of reproductive age.

"O Lieb', O Liebe!
So golden schön
Wie Morgenwolken
Auf jehnen Höhn!"

Sigismund

Ah, my fine clear-eyed cavalier-
why, is your black heart still beating?
Why have you not spilled your acrid blood,
sticky and acidic and welling up in
the chest? Come, succumb, bleed
into that devoutly wished dissolution,
the stinging sleep, the soporific burning
of hair and bone. Here, where Eros
meets his counterpart, I will wait,
for yourself and for your posterity.

 "And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die."

Dostoevsky Ascendant

Earth does not burn, nor
fire groan. Wheels spin into
wheels and the wheel remains.
The idols never slit the throats
of beasts but sit in solemn
frozen jubilation. You drag me
through these midnight hours
by the hair, by the throat,
by tongue and tooth. You
make me hurt, you make
me feel––cruel compassion,
you make me bleed!––and all
for naught unless you see aright.

λεγει αυτω Μαρθα οιδα οτι αναστησεται εν τη 
αναστασει εν τη εσχατη ημερα