Copernicus Poternicus

People: Copernicus Poternicus, how come you deserted us? We thought you would return with us from the megalopolis. Copernicus: I could have predicted this confusion by contradicting your conclusion, but you inflicted a contusion on my delicate constitution. Ay, ay, ay! My cardiac! My tympanum! My scholastic, core curriculum! My endoplasmic (poor) reticulum! And […]

Autumn’s Oracle

It flits like wind: the many plated fall that haunts the hollow echoes of the trees. It sits in gloom, the ever-darkened hall of piney bowers bending in the breeze. – And far away, approaching on the air, the mountain smoke-streams: hard, and sharp as spite. Severest winter— soon to come and tear aside the […]

Go Away

stop holding out your hand you just embarrass both of us i don’t want to know i care go talk to someone else i’m going to my room now go away – stop coming in my room! the creaking floor-boards make me sad you’re gonna hurt yourself please leave my room. go away – stop […]

The Thunder of Reform

We see our fathers standing strong, the granite pillars of the church, who drove the nails into the door, who boldly drew the word and preached like thunder from a stormy sky. – We look around and mourn our loss— for “godly men have ceased to be,” and so we venerate the past and make […]

Waiting in the Dark

Who can know the purpose of the King, or probe His mind to hear His hidden ways? Who can tell the reason for their days, the sighs or joys their earthly song will sing? They come in anguished sorrow oft to ring their pleas and prayers before the throne and gaze steadfastly waiting, ready for […]

A Severe Delight

It rushes down the mountain: a cataract of sound a spray of mist and shade-light a roaring, silence round. – I pick my steps on slick-stones, a cat afraid of glass, to plunge my head beneath it and feel it—surging past – I feel the flecking wet sparks I step onto the ledge, but find […]

Gossip

Once I saw a picture of a man down, his blood pooling on the street while the swarming EMTs took forks and knives to him instead of gauze, butchering a life they could have saved— Oh God, forgive me . . . it was a mirror.

On Playing the Piano

Our hearts stay locked inside until we find the keys. Then our fingers run where words could never go. –

I Hide my Hope in Christ

To the tune of : “I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord” I hide my hope in Christ— the Lord of all my days; the One who framed eternity and taught my soul its ways – I never knew His grace I never sought His throne. And yet the Father turned my will and made me Christ’s […]

My Glass House

I walked my walk up to a house of glass and up the crystal stairs that gleamed and shined with sun. I walked up to a house that was my life, and hardly knew what I had done. – The walls were mirrored: reflecting, liquid worlds, that whirled around their world: my presence at their […]

melenoria

Poetry