Religious poem

The Prophecies of Paracelsus

That twig of light, that branch, that
fork, that form.
Beyond that, a city. A horse drowning in
a river, and beyond that, a city. Wildfire, and beyond that,
a city. God, a slippery thing,
an eel, is twined
from our hands. That rainy hum is
the wharf, is the light that etches a bridge
between pronouns, the bottle
of amber formaldehyde, the infant
orangutan, the wing
of a gull stitched to its scapula. Here is a river
drowning in a horse’s dark eye. Devitalized, humming, rainy,

Jesus Christ Is Risen Today

Jesus Christ is risen to-day, Halle-halle-lujah.
Our triumphant Holy day,
Who so lately on the Cross
Suffered to redeem our loss.

Haste ye females from your fright,
Take to Galilee your flight;
To his sad disciples say,
Jesus Christ is risen to-day.

In our Paschal joy and feast
Let the Lord of life be blest;
Let the Holy Trine be praised,
And thankful hearts to heaven be raised.

A Christmas Ghost-story

South of the Line, inland from far Durban,
A mouldering soldier lies—your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: “I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?
And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking ‘Anno Domini’ to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died.”

The Clouded Morning

The morning comes, and thickening clouds prevail,
Hanging like curtains all the horizon round,
Or overhead in heavy stillness sail;
So still is day, it seems like night profound;
Scarce by the city’s din the air is stirred,
And dull and deadened comes its every sound;
The cock’s shrill, piercing voice subdued is heard,
By the thick folds of muffling vapors drowned.
Dissolved in mists the hills and trees appear,