sperma Theou*

"Here, too, however, the Spirit does not interpret, does not initiate us from outside, as it were"
                                                                                                                        (Hans Urs Von Balthasar)

"Therefore we thank Thee for our little light, that is dappled with shadow." (T.S. Eliot)



"sperm of God"

 habitual is til the red wounds can curl into bloom
                                                          (somehow),
                     
sticky as bee's womb, at first
--squirrel with twig in its jaw (a kind of womb, too!),
                  

then a plant's inner fur, sated on wind,
                  
(or even a Lady's forced off-shining,
                                    arms always found  swelling
                                                                (somehow))--
______________________________________

Here is my version of the Incarnation, with mention made of an often neglected mother's role (inspired by Balthasar somehow)

Squirrels (3): Just two



"Just two"

Then two squirrels came sent to me,
  hoping I'd

tell these my lost loves-
  so I thinking them worthy proposed
                                                         they

do something new

-in spirit of travel, say!-

  so I sent with them as they left a
                                                      certain

part (a fifth) of heart-

The sun I thought then at first

won't shine on mud
  so these brunal runners ran hard into

their own woods,
  intuiting my own state, mindless

of heart, of course
  (sensing a perennial poor lost lady!)

They opted for woods, of course

  Two have already said as much, today-
poor yr love and muddy, too

Kateri (1)

*"Kateri"
   (for Steve Catlin)

Dear umbrous squat Kateri crawls
  like rain, eyes squirmed,
  scaly comb at her neck

  -to gall one for very holiness!

Wildly galled, indeed for to believe,
  do and eat came (for her)
  rather scurriedly, with no time

  for a true locust love-

 just some waters & beyond
______________

*I hope with this I've righted the terrible wrongs committed against her in Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers.

Uma*



*A poem inspired by my reading of one half of Anita Desai's novel Fasting, Feasting.
------------------------

"Uma"
(for Helen Senkiw)

Closed up to the gills
  a girl roils,
               regrettably--

  with empty tray, stands
like a party doll (in pigtails)

     eyes thick,
     collapsible

like every shunted  jasmine                       

  Uma,
like every collapsible ode to
                                   sun-whips
                                      silent tides,

  deep dark Uma,
                      my
                         wounded
                                      water
                                             bird

Running as a kind of lie



"Yes, but it hurts to realize!" (Lawrence Durrell)


A cento of suns (I still find) wouldn't
  nor let alone those

forested paths strung like the foetid
  body of a lie--

Always second or third from me the
  eyes, smile

that ought rather to smooth, to know
  but don't--

In a steady scentless rain, in park
  trails

always feeding second or third from
  that which ought most

and never does, soothe a numb, in-
  consolable me

Always lying eyes & the run

Ode to Narouz*

*A poem inspired by Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet. A work remarkable if only for its masterly portrayal of the imagination's true desert heart and, in particular, of the Hosnani brothers in Mountolive.
__________________________


Whip in hand, Narouz speaks and bats
  lie split at his feet:

to a brother's glib oily bitch, a whip! and
  an old desert queen
   -true hearts-

Sand and eye's clutching vision, inter-
  twined, slink like Suras
   -in desert light!-

Linking palms of lovers also split,
  lying dead like bats
   - at his feet-

Remarried



Like every mari complaisant , perhaps
 who's all tweed and gin
   (& no more)

  -soft on sighs-

scraping slowly up the stairs,
  swollen reptilian eye
     of
       the
        new/
         old
          husband

     carrying
        her
         handbags
          to
            the
              top