rage (four poems)

bon-fire

Before it got too dark to see
we gathered 
fallen leaves 
and snap-dry sticks

and tepeed them there
in the pit.

My father crumpled up 
yesterday’s newspaper, 
my brother struck the match.

With our backs to the night,
we gathered 
together, half of each
lit like the underside of a leaf.
We stayed
until the flames 
licked the bones
down to coals,

and spoke our stories 
over the ash.

let me love you

Oh, let me love you like the errant flame
that burns the field to ash before the wind,
a wand’ring knight with neither place nor name
except that which is given here to him.

And let me love you like the passing rain
that cools the fever in the furrowed gash.
A salve of justice choking out the pain,
a promise that the fire will someday pass.

But let me also love you like the sun
that drives its drowsy flocks to pastures new
and lifts the heads of those who live undone,
that they may enter in through gates of dew.

My love is still untamed, a trinity
of doubtful forces, yet He harvests me.

speak

When it’s wrong
do not withhold
the fuel that sets the blaze
to reveal
what it truly is
beneath the shine and glaze.

Do not hesitate, my friend.
Strike the spark and lay it deep
within the pile,
Let fury split the ash,
that what remains 
is only purer for the trial.

What burns within you now
but a joining torch
of the Eternal Flame?
Let all other fires falter
but the Holy One, the Same.

solar flare

yes, 
we carry fragments 
of the sun 
with us
into the void,

but
I am not God, 
and that makes all the difference.

wrath: four poems

i. zeal for this house

I’ve been so long tending
this old fire in my chest,
that I forget what sparked it.
But it still keeps me warm
when I worry that
I might someday be wrong.

I’ve been so long raging
against things I couldn’t know,
like a line of cleansing fire
taking field and forest too,
like a pyre for the witch,
for the stranger, for the son.

I am angry at so many things
and none of them at all.
I can’t look straight enough
along the lines to see the source.
But I fear
it’s nearer still than all of these.

ii. look, the sky

Look,
the sky
is unfolding
like a magnolia blossom
and the long tender ears of corn
are reaching up and up
to touch it, bounty to bounty,
sea green to rose gold,
but this idiot
is driving five under
in the passing lane.

iii. wrath is a man

Wrath is a man
who is righteous
but was just told
otherwise.

Wrath is a man
who has never
lost anything
until now.

Wrath is a man
who loves for
what he gets
not receiving.

Wrath is a man
on the brink of
seeing himself
for the first time.

iv. whales and worms

I am too easy with anger
for someone with no control,
like a prophet
under a broad green leaf,
hands extended in
hope of brimstone warmth.

And the heat is in the word:
the tip of a whip
opening your cheek.
How is it that I pierce
this heart that I hold so close to my own,
beating
together after
the blow?
How is it that we ever recover
from these wounds?

Sometimes it takes
whales and worms,
sometimes different words.
Sometimes it takes long
and lonesome
to quench this flame
until you matter more
than me.