Hard Row



This winter the bones of gods,

impregnated with chalcedony,

penetrated by the gold of fools,

frost heave the jagged field,

Ragnarocking a tussocked down

under a spackled sky, fast moving, hieroglyphed,

good-word spreading to a mortal world.


This spring we bush hog the lower 40,

this year steel teeth stumble

on imperishable tibias,

spatang off in divinely inspired trajectories,

cloud chamber trailing infinity.


My God I worshiped

at Your empty tomb so long,

Your fragments, assembled,

a mighty God would make,

severed cervically, acephalic,

despite celestial sieving,

Your inspiration directionless,

but therefore ultramundane,

inerrant,

unquestionable,

unanswerable,

transcendant,

rising up with the sap,

blooming in summer's eyes,

swelling like young fruit.


Once, long long ago,

we were warned to not take sup

Chez You, to never look back,

afraid over Who might be following,

or What, warned to not give ear,

for Your sake, to any crawling thing.

You can't unlearn this knowledge,
can't go Home, ever.

Ignorance was bliss but now,

now grace's a fleeting dream,

life a cup of sorrows,

till the harvestman counts your coup.