Yahweh the Promise-keeper
an inked effort
Slow Train coming says Dylan
Intuiting the laying of the track.
When a man loves a woman
Says Sledge
He can't see.
The great day will be darkness not light
Says the One with name wrapped
In gold.
All the universe shy of promise
That the sun will rise again says Hume.
Tweet tweet says the bird.
Five mass extinctions says the rock master.
Looking back a billion years says the star gazer.
Mull the matter and you will get it says Hume.
The sun rises
And the sun sets
Says the One
Who chose his name
Alone.
Are you chiding the day of calamity
To bring in a day of blood-sport?
Asks the One who swears by his own name.
Be mindful of Us
Says the royal We,
Caching the sacred name.
Imagine
Pleads Lennon.
Gather together
Yes gather yourselves
Decrees the One who issues decree.
Does not our mystery unite us?
Beseech the ones with appellation and practice
Splintered.
Get out of her my people
Says a Voice out of heaven.
At last says Sagan
Something verifiable however
1914 came and went and the world did not end
But they kept believing how amazing.
A twig will grow out of the stump of Jesse
Prophesies Proto-Isaiah.
Let thy kingdom come pleads the intercessor.
Every one to his chosen work says Emerson.
The stump sprouts notes the watcher.
Shake off the dust and loosen the bonds
Cheers Deutero-Isaiah.
And keen through wordy snares to track
Suggestions to her inmost cell
Ventures Tennyson.
And would it have been worth it after all?
Wonders Eliot.
In that Day confusion from He Causes to Become
Will knit judgment to illusion
Says the One who has spoken his Name.
Every man’s sword will be against his own brother
Says the One who undertakes an End.
Zombies draws one apocalyptic artist.
Bare bottoms on parade draws another.
Machines of agony draws a third.
Castles draws a fourth.
The eye
Most tyrannous of the bodily senses
Is in American poetry a rage
Says Bloom.
How much longer must we sidestep!
How much longer must I bear these people!
Cries the One
Who declines to be defined
By people.
I’d like to get away from Earth awhile
Says Frost echoing Keats and Job.
Wherever you go/There you are
Says the bumpersticker.
Safe in their alabaster chambers
Says Dickinson
Reading what ministers blot.
For a stone will cry out from the wall
And from the woodwork a rafter will answer
Says the One who sometimes hides his purpose
In poetic trope.
Zing zing zing
Go the strings of the heart.
Boo
Says a breath.
I fly to the hills prettied with daffodils
And flap to my nest where I lay my breast
Says the bird.
I swim in the sea and watch TV
I slip in between and cannot be seen
Says the fish.
War in heaven!
Notes Milton
Usurping the church.
Permission to fight!
Grants the One
Building a wall of stone.
Permission denied!
Declares the Son
Building an orchard.
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evilsays the wolf
For I am the baddest
most heavily armed
warrior
In the valley
We meld through the spider-mass in the pole of the web
We shoot to kill
the world is mine
I soon shall dine
On the plunder and the blood of the feast.
What lies beyond? Why are we here?
Is there a God? Dare we cheer? pleads the soul
Uneasy.
Sagacity gone philosophers done
Pulpits are waving brave songs roll
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul
Says Dickinson.
Uneasiness revels in the tavern
While the Greater Good lingers at the curb
Says Locke sort of.
I eat when I’m hungry drink when I’m dry
Says Dylan.
The fishes will sleep with the birds
While the wolves softly vanish away
Yet the daffodils will be spared
Says the One
Who will not leave us alone.
In the pan of Hume’s balance
Vying
Lies the brick of continuance
And in the other pan a feather—two—
And down and fluff and gossamer a-drop
Says the poet.
You must have a mate
Says the spirit of the air
You must stuff your head with knowledge
You must dazzle up your lair
You will be a god though you drop into the dust
You will laugh at boots that trample you
You must you must.
CIA subverts the U.S. government
Says the advertisement.
Peanuts!
Cries the hawker.
I will call to account mankind
Says the One
Who loves them deeper
Than their charmer
Loves
Himself.
And I saw a new earth
Says the prophet
And the apostle
And the revelator
And the sage
And the angel
And the prophet.
Throb baffled and curious brain!
Says Whitman.
We must lead men to the particulars
Says Bacon.
And Blood came out of the Wine Press
Says the vision.
If I had a brain says the Straw Man.
If I had a heart says the Tin Man.
O Jerusalem Jerusalem weeps the Son
O Father
Watch over them
For they know not what they do.
What else is there to say but everything?
Says Brooks.
I will remove mankind from the surface of the ground
Says the One who is true.
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