
after William Carlos Williamsso much dependsupona babyGodswaddled inclothslying in a woodenmanger so much dependsupon a manGod swaddled inpain hanging on a woodencross Listen a conversation


The marketplace vendors admit they can’t explain God.They shrug and pocket pomegranates. Argue the flax issouring too quickly. They weave a melancholy spiritinto baskets full


After 1 Samuel 24 His beard tightly curled, black locks in ringlets,Saul’s regal forehead slumbers on bedrockat the mouth of a shepherd’s desert cavelike an


The name given to a mountainous region in the Book of Genesis, where the binding of Isaac byAbraham is said to have taken place For



A Crown of Sonnets for Advent
Like all of us who carry hidden pain,he soberly performed his task that day.When his turn came to sacrifice and prayhe did not celebrate, did


Announcement
An anxious mind is paralyzed by choice.The angel doesn’t offer choice, but birth —springing the snare of virtue versus vice. Her eyes fixed on her


Weight (Metaphysicals XI)
How can we stomp it out?all the rude crudesmashed glass & heartachethe grabbing stabbingfussing & fumingSledgehammers just breakfingers Unset boneswon’t heal straight Is it worthall


Did it Hurt
did it hurtwhen the tongues offire landed on theirheadsdid itburnsinge ignite something in theirtonguesso they talked all crazy and the sound of the windroaring like


Anti-Hero
After Matthew 26:52 Blood streaks splatter across moonbeamslike a pearl-string snatched from a virgin’s neck:the ear of a guard, hacked off, falling down to dustto


Pride Be Not Death (Metaphysicals X)
Pride be not deathfor as I’vestretched to reach out from thesebrambles to cut away the vinesabout my ankles to step out on thispromontory you swell

Sarah, Longsuffering
After Marc Chagall’s “Sarah and Abimelech” What kind of fool flings his wife to another manas if tossing a meaty shank to a drooling wolf,thinking


The Part of the Moon (Metaphysicals IX)
I play the part of an earthboundstone you the part of the moon in this silent ceaseless standoffAs a rock an oversized pebble I’m kicked along some


Nominal APR as Call to Worship, Or the Glorious Application of the Immutable Rule of 72 to the Words of the Prophet
The fear of the Lord is Zion’s treasure. — Isaiah 33:6 Beyond eager to bear witness to the miracle of compounding, I have deposited,Lord, my


Harlem Sunday
Harlem Cultural Festival, 1969 As though Eve herself,in all her intricate glory,electrified once again the rib, as though her twin lungs, rumblingwith divine breath,let loose,


250th Anniversary: Newbury Congregational Church
“Go, some summer evening, to that hallowed place, where your thoughts so readily run back over the past, and so willingly entertain the hopes of


Imagined Corners (Metaphysicals VII)
Take the globe by her imaginedcorners & stretch her flatlike evening against the skyBlow your trumpets angelsto stir our souls& stir bodies that have died