Assertions and Such Tempered by the Book of Twin Feathers

I

And a tale is told
Out of the distant mountain
When a stone was cut somehow
Not by hands
And the stone
Hurling
Struck the feet
Of iron and clay
And a kingdom
Crushed the lesser
Kingdoms as the stone
Grew to a mountain

Do I not burn with heat as if a sun?
What devil could endure upon a sun to curse
The God succoring spirits for millenniums?

III

The party game was called the Chinese Numbers—
Five sticks laid out in pattern—judge one through ten—
The simple folk catching on fast—a clue!—
Sagacious ones focused on sticks—not noting fingers.
The church game was called the Fires of Hell—
Wicked ones sent there forever—
The simple folk paying the bribe—
Sagacious ones writhing in horror.
Sagacity slow to the simple game
But finally breaking the fix,
Which calls into question the doctrine and faith
Of the venerable fingers and sticks.

IV

O Grave, you laid possible, unneeded, inert, unborn
In the blackness of darkness bleak, your quiddity latent
In the glint of hazard of prudence, in hope so sworn
To Man and his Woman with clause how you would lay dormant.

O Lake of Sulphur—just in case—
Equipped to serve the call of doom—
The crematorium cold in the mind of God—
Fire contingent on hap of gloom.

O Tragedy, birthing twin Figures in Black:
Mr. Grave a mortal passing through the field
Whose charges to Love would in time yield;
Mr. Lake lit a-Fire!—reversal in lack.

O Tree of Life become Tree of Sorrow
As reply was needed to the Tragedy—
With reduced Favor they would face the morrow
To show themselves God-like or struggle with Necessity.

O Mortal Man, serving the days that count your term
As the wheels crushing relentlessly roll
To sift the wages and to sift the will
Of the family of man at the bell’s toll—

O Question of Commanding Worth—
Does Yahweh have the right to rule?
Is he wise? Has he given birth
To one of arrant virtue—offering the cold a coat of wool?

O One of Arrant Virtue, what is your name?
Lucifer? The shining light? Or was this said in jest?
Do you wrestle for your rule or do you revel in our shame?
Does a coat of wool surpass an Eden’s nest?

O One of Love-choice foremost, Son of the Most High God,
Entrusted and assigned to perpend and then to cleave
The goats from sheep and to lay in Grave the ones yet odd
Who with life renewed might their sodden doings grieve—

O Grave, how well you suffice.
You are not appointed for Paradise.

V

Moses, man of God, trembling yet obedient,
You heard the word to request a three-day journey.
Sly connotation of a trip out and back?
It did not fool Pharaoh.

Jesus, growing up, hearing and reading Torah,
What did you make of the three-day journey
That proceeded from the mouth of God?
Was it strange in your first hearing?
Marked by a ceremony—
Fulfillment finding
Bitter waters sweetened by a tree—
Fulfillment also finding
A pined-for place of peace—
What reason to think
It was written for you?

VI

If our God spread a smile at our good
would the meadow bloom then only?
If our God cast a frown at our bad
would the storm-blast blow in turn?
And ever would our Yahweh note the scales of our lives
tipped by brunt of good and bad in mortal balance?
Pass/fail everlasting judged by hairbreadth back and forth
Would sink the floating icebergs to caper up again
leaving vessels stranded
on the silly ice.

VII⋅x

(The feather first ringing the ding-dong man)
O feather:
A-drop
A-maze
Dissolving
Denial
Of the miraculous
Compelling
Consternation
Unseen
Until
Anxiety
Anchors
Impossible
Ink

VII=iii½×ii

(The second feather—in answer to
Professor Zeigler’s ‘Second Samuel Seven’
Brought to my attention by doughty doorknockers)
The king of Babylon dreamt, then called and found help—
He was to be a Tree cut down for “seven times”—
A footnote in history—yet how great the Word
Of the Ancient One promising Seed forever on the Throne
Of his chosen King, and how great the Scandal
When the Seed is dethroned by the one called Tree.
Hearken! The “seven times” passing over has spoken
To hearts that by spirit and spunk find the key.
Twice three and a half which equal days of the woman
Fleeing dragon to wilderness where she is to be fed
Make seven times—so unlocked is the number
Which marks the return of the Seed to the promised Throne.

VII ξξ
↓
(Feathers dropped)
(Does any catch a feather?)
Seven times having passed it’s suggested
The façade built round Bible be questioned.
How is God said to have died but not so?
How are souls immortal returning to dust?
How is God cruel beyond all compare
While boundlessly kind in love?
Which Prince of Peace wields the sword?
Wherefore God’s people asunder?

VIII

(Philosophical particularity)
Wheels or lids of jars turn as circles
Spotting x-squared plus y-squared equals r-squared.
Basketballs or oranges spin as spheres
Adding a z-squared to the terms.
With the further addition of a w-squared
(Usually written up front)
A four-dimensional hypersphere is built
Which cannot even be intuited, let alone touched.
An other-dimensional God proven by pure reason
Is hyper-true and universal—beyond pepper to a snout.
The God who teases by dropping a feather or two
Owns a shaker—achoo!—subject to experimental doubt.

IX

Tendering her sons on the altar of war
In exchange for her hair in the breeze
So sure to be ravaged by the beast she rides;
So artful, loose, and loathsome behind regale;
So named the Harlot; in halcyon days she bides;
She smells like dust yet sings like nightingale;
The justice of God she skews to a howl of hate
By glossing twisted tutelage to eager ears;
She coaxes trust yet is seen as opiate
By the one mistrusting her game of mirrors.
O juggernaut, O mighty Kong, do tell,
Are treaties signed and soldiers trained and provendered?
Do you wait on eloquence tall as asphodel—
Excuse to make to calm the sea bestirred?
O Beast attending Harlot! O Harlot squatting Beast!
You have a foe named Abaddon you have never kissed.

X

If I grappled gratification
Or vaunted the value of my vantage
If I made myself a world leader
Or an undercover agent
A luminary, a queer, a bounty hunter
A mountain topper or a homeboy
A wisdom wider than the world
One humbler than an apple pie . . .

Is this your best, O people? . . . Show me, O changelings
Charming your champion, how you will improve your lot . . .
Must you weather to gray? . . . Must you trade in wariness? . . .
Think you this is it? . . . Show me, scrappers and tinklers,
For I give you scope and time . . . Show me by your wit . . .
Show me by your strength . . . I endure your dearth . . .
I grieve your failure . . . I will draw a line . . .
You pluck my beard then marvel that I withdraw? . . .
Adios? . . . We got it from here? . . . Cheerio, old man? . . .
Does any here know me? . . . Does Yahweh walk thus? speak thus?
Where are his eyes? . . . You sneer each buzz? . . . I’ll shape myself
Just so . . . And you? . . . The sun got in your eyes? . . .
You flatter me then fling me flouted failing to see my hoard . . .
My kingdom conferred to the wicked gravitates
To the righteous . . . Should love be tried by candy or by ire? . . .
Is it your will? . . . Considered? . . .
Speak with all you do . . .

And what became of Lear? . . . Dead to those who would not hear . . .
Eternal to those who do . . .

There is a better way, the serpent said to Eve,
So let us look, and soon you will believe.

XI

A thousand years is bid a roundly-numbered theme
To denigrate the hope the Reign be real.
A figure it could be of speech supreme—
Of what? Of whom? Of how? Of why?—No deal.
If purpose feeds each year a needed task—
Of carpentry, resurrections, or shaping grit—
Then dawn of understanding will unmask
The claim that trope will rule over writ.

If the meantime now is short before absquatulation¹
And fine-points not yet answered beg for time
Then should deferral superseding make them blush
As they gather life and hope with eyes toward the sublime?

____
¹ Etymological note:

____
Further:
² “The Center of the Earth” not being Christendom’s hot place.
³ “Gog” being Hebrew yet read by my silly self