Skip to main content
Falling like angels
cast out of a place in the past
perhaps heaven
or whatever it was
no doubt some serious hell

should we call ourselves Gabriel
appearing to some latter day Daniel

in some feverish dream
revealing specifics
beyond the tablets
the fine print of the Commandments
consoling him
with the 11th edict
Do not fuss and keep your own counsel
the way a lawyer would
to a client who couldn't afford to pay

it is doubtful that Daniel
feared the visions or the night
Lucifer had not yet been invented
Milton had not yet
penned that portrait of pride
and Satan was also far from Daniel
and when Gabriel came to
Muhammad
he said he was
reciting from a book
so for all of us
Christian and Muslim and Jew
the back story was written first
and read later
rewritten to the best
of the recollection of prophet
whether friend or foe
and repeated thereafter
to help us trade places
with the prophets
and hear the words they heard
for ourselves
that's the theory

somewhere between there and here
we wait to come home
and occasionally hear \Daniel
and occasionally die
before we are heard

still we cast off
the next messenger
before we finish the sweater
Image result for casting off sweater
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Danusia and the brickworks

Kipling, who made comments about big guns and so many other politically inappropriate things it would be impossible to include them here, once visited Medicine Hat and declared that it had all hell for a basement.  It does have natural gas, and a flame is constantly lit in the coulees to mark the spot.  Some say it is a waste of gas, but at least you can actually tell the whisperer by his flame.  Harder to pin down is the wind.  In southern Alberta they say the cows sleep standing up because of the wind.  And you only know there isn't a breeze when you get bit by a sand fly. Here I met Danusia, the daughter of Polish combatant, who, along with her childhood girlfriend Bogusia, sold Toni home perms and L'Oreal hair colour to fellow children of displaced persons, who cut hair and did it up just so in the Flats, where it flooded every Spring, or thereabouts. Danka and Bugsy were married, as was the custom, to strapping Polish lads who worked at the IXL brickworks, where red
Post a Comment
Read more

Of course she's not a true red

As the parent of a "ginger", and having red heads on both sides of the family, and having married into two Irish families, I know first hand that ginger covers the whole spectrum from strawberry blonde (to my way of thinking a classic ginger!), to orange (carrot tops), to a real rust red (what my father in law would call a true red).  When Pat Todkill first set eyes on his granddaughter, he remarked, "Of course, she's not a true red".  For one thing, Emily the Elder lacked freckles on her face and upper body.  For another, she really was and is a strawberry blonde. A further observation.  Even people with the raven blackest hair have rust red lights--caveman red, soot covered ochre if you like.  Woolly mammoth red.  Sometimes it takes just the right light to pick out the smoldering ember, but beard and eyebrows tend to incorporate the tell tale ginger strain, like chili pepper in a spice jar of mixed pepper corns. And, of course, brunettes are
Post a Comment
Read more

I double dog dare ya

I double dog dare ya to repeat the story you heard in 3 Trees the shop of Indian incense and beeswax crayons from Germany perhaps a source for Waldorf or Montessori Nepali filigree or Balinese woven silver and semi-precious gems cut loose dresses and butterfly pants from Indonesia or somewhere similarly hot and breezy and yoga cushions maybe made locally and unmentionable remarks harder to tell than listen to I think it was a tall woman of subcontinent ancestry who was trying on bras and dresses and saying she was generally pleased at the selection and the clerk who replied yeah who knew Asian women have boobs and height and take up space and commisserated with her customer who mentioned she didn't think men looked for a mirror to see how their bum looks before deciding and buying down the risk she knowingly showed to me I was there for the sale half price and no tax the gift they give 3 times a year to generate so
Post a Comment
Read more