(inspired by two poems. The first is "Memo from the Desk of X" by Donald Justice. The second is "Like Gods" by John Koethe)
God, make this desk bleed
the consubstantiation of me.
What Divinity I might have,
make its stain spill out in letters
in words, in imagery, in faith,
in raspberries, in feathers, in heaven.
I'm crying citrus to an aluminum ceiling
Hard rain splatters back. Silence.
Mine is a desk of flat packed pressed wood.
My shoe is as real as my sole. It walks
on earth, on concrete, on asphalt
in rain, in snow, in heat, in gloom of night.
This is a field divided
the poetry of possibilities
versus the prose of facts.
My soles stamping out rhythm
My soul exiled into night
A stanza as vivid as a crow in the snow.
Good night to dreams
no night for dreams
Let wine be for forgetting.
Step over the wire
and embrace the facts.
The Justice Memo received
let poems go extinct.
God, make this desk bleed
the consubstantiation of me.
What Divinity I might have,
make its stain spill out in letters
in words, in imagery, in faith,
in raspberries, in feathers, in heaven.
I'm crying citrus to an aluminum ceiling
Hard rain splatters back. Silence.
Mine is a desk of flat packed pressed wood.
My shoe is as real as my sole. It walks
on earth, on concrete, on asphalt
in rain, in snow, in heat, in gloom of night.
This is a field divided
the poetry of possibilities
versus the prose of facts.
My soles stamping out rhythm
My soul exiled into night
A stanza as vivid as a crow in the snow.
Good night to dreams
no night for dreams
Let wine be for forgetting.
Step over the wire
and embrace the facts.
The Justice Memo received
let poems go extinct.
Good night to dreams, indeed. One fine poem, Pat.
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