Poets’ Corner
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Ever Vigilant Church Militant
Body broken,God hath spoken—By the Word,Spirit led. Ever vigilantChurch militant—Triumphant chorus—Praise surrounds our King. Fear no battle:Christ has conquered,Joined us to His body,By the Spirit’s love. The Nile He parted,Drowned Pharoah’s army;Walls of JerichoHave tumbled to ruin. Above the treetopsGoes the Lord’s army:We enter intoHis victory won. Saints of old testify,The angelic host,Led by the…
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Surface Beauty/Analogia Entis
Alia claritas solis, alia claritas lunae, et alia claritas stellarum. stella enim a stella differt in claritate. It’s not a dropdripped deep in each,nor yet a gemset ¡there! with care.It’s in the air,everywheretinted on skins,splashed and slathered,it’s visible to every eye. It shines out light,sparkless, at dark.Goes forth sourceless,but it angelsevery angle,ubiquitous,too thick to flicker,expressed…
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Hosea
Remain with me. I do not choose you less For knowing long your wiles and waywardness. Be rooted with me, planted side by side, Though blighted fruit and thorns be multiplied. Rest with me, while the desert wastes increase, The garden fails, the vine and fig tree cease: Do not depart, although shame and distress…
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Hope
What could have been— Littlest life Measured in fruit? Holding a knife, I remember, As I slice a plum That was this week’s— And cut my thumb. Other bellies Swell around me While my blood still Comes like the sea. Nothing grows under My ribs—no teeth, No bones, no soul. Instead, beneath My heart, it’s…
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Transposing Deity
Rounded shoulders loom over my chest, so tight burdened by my cross: is it like yours? Pressed nose-close the ground all light absorbs where darkness drowns already-strainéd sight. Jaundiced doldrums swallow dispirited hope, I look up the deep hole to see only the tiniest of light halos so very far above me. The best of…
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Lessons
Asleep, awake. There is the duck, there is the drake. Along, alone. This is an egg, that is a stone. Behind, before. There is the wall, there is the door. Before, behind. There are the knocks on the hard mind. Alone, along. That is a lie, this is a song. Awake, asleep. Here are the…
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This Bird has Flown
One thing I want to know my friend is what’s so good Norwegian wood? It makes a teaky kind of cage where you are held hawk under hood Although I love to hear you sing you bide your time not as you should for something good’s been undermined in sneaky ways Norwegian wood I doubt…
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Prayer-Beads to Saint Kyneburgha
1. It is within your sacred atrium I would contemplate, know at-one-ment with sculptured, feminine forma: an Annunciation carved for the artist’s wife, Clare, who is figure-double of the Virgin Annunciate; & this Lamentation Lady suckling her Christ-child; both marvellous. And if the stone be immaculate, then here we have proof, we who are witness-…
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The Third, the Youngest Son in Fairy Tales
His soul a glacial lake of deep humility, The third will sacrifice his only mite of bread When roadside witches beg, for he’s agreeable And no encounter mars his cool tranquility Or makes him lose all faith and wish that he were dead— Not talking wolf or other unforeseeable And fabulous inhabitant of fairy tales,…
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If You Begin
If you begin a lullaby, You’ll know what words, what tune. The harder question, though, is why, Which—like a red balloon Floating along, as evening comes, On soft, pale purple air, Just out of reach of laws and sums, Unanswered—hovers there. The red balloon floats there alone, Dark seeping in from shade. No wonder we’re…