If you’ve read something better,
Chances are I wrote it.
for Johanna
D.A.Vid
BC
Thirty-one The Deluge
Thirty-three Noah’s Sacrifice
Thirty-five Noah Drunk
Thirty-seven Zechariah
Thirty-nine David
AD
Thirty-two Vacated corpse
Thirty-four Cousins
Thirty-six Crucifixion
Thirty-eight The curious barbeque
Forty Ascension
THIRTY-ONE
It was in the six hundred and first year of Noah’s life, in the first month and on the first of the month, that the water dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the hatch of the ark and looked out. The surface of the ground was dry!
Genesis 8:13
The multitude of stricken souls endure the boil of Nature,
This Biblical abyss the angry Flood. Some cling to Tree or
Stir of mud, a shallow skiff, the Ark that drifts in guise of
Thwarting Temple just beyond them. How came these 60
Souls to struggle [or Noah secure upon God’s covenant]
For higher ground, fitful pursuit, a sagging ancient’s breasts,
Unfit to succor wailing child, a lad upon a leafless branch,
Scattered youth and age upon that hill, who cling to useless
Hindering possessions, a Lost’s obsessions, dinnerware &
Table, individual partner, female Cain to Abel, beyond their
Lot an elder with his son? as if a pilgrim bound to Calvary,
A Christ, a slave, and slavish haste and rage, a gathering night.
THIRTY-TWO
And all at once there was a violent earthquake, for the angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled away the stone and sat on it. His face was like lightening, his robe white as snow. . . . “There is no need for you to be afraid. I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said he would.”
Matthew 28:2-6
Magda and her Mary climbed dust to greet the cave where
Master rested. Surcease of sorrow had they quested, laden
With linen for a battered corpse. Hours of incessant wailing
Had left them hoarse, and yet they cried again no, shouted
At a tremor of the soil, fear IN their soul to glean the rock
Had shifted and there? A holy being lifted to somehow stone
Itself, so bright its face so white its gown? The guards’ last
Trailing moan in their haste to vanish, as if the very caste of
Death were banished albeit smile itself would calm the planet
Or Satan himself would cease disease, bright beacon slashing
Swath through endless dark. “The child you seek is risen. No
Longer seek him in yond chamber. The reign of Christ begins.”
THIRTY-THREE
Noah built an altar for Yahweh, and choosing from all the clean animals and all the clean birds he offered burnt offerings on the altar. Yahweh smelt the appeasing fragrance and said to himself, “Never again will I curse the earth because of man, because his heart contrives evil from his infancy. Never again will I strike down every living thing as I have done.”
Genesis 8:20-22
Youth and elders Noah himself all gathered for a holocaust
Of yearning, a grateful grace of carnal incense burning. To
Sky shot smoke & flames as Abel alone had pleasèd stern
Jehovah. All manner of domestic strain was sacrificed, fed
To fire, the noble scent suffusing air and gaining waste; no
Haste was here this willful cerebration, where lamb himself
Was duly slaughtered, all son all daughter, cleanly best, from
Beast to breast, all ram, all ewe, the blood of goat; smoke
Gathered IN their throats and scorched their lungs. LEST
Disbelievers waggle tongues, the Gott of Judah frowned His
Pleasure, or smiled to see God’s work so freely given, this
Stink of heaven; no bread was leavened, no shrug to altar.
THIRTY-FOUR
Now on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call him Zechariah after his father, but his mother spoke up, “No,” she said “he is to be called John.” They said to her, “But no one in your family has that name,” and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they were all astonished. At that instant his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God.
Luke 1:59-65
The greatness of Baptist John welled from very fetus itself.
A fright had left him crippled in his speech and ambulation:
Zechariah, man to Elsbeth, sire at last to John, but countered those
Who’d call his son by self-same Zechariah, gaining again his voice, a
Miracle itself: the lad, for his dam was well past 50. It settled that
The boy was cousin John. Was said that unborn children each
Conversed while yet in belly, so impatient to be whelped, that mother
Herself gave words to tongue, each discourse by nature holy in itself,
That volumes of epistle claimed a shelf, were given Script. 3 months
And John, the coming Baptist, squalled his entry to Mankind, &
Nearly burst from navel gained true speech. that father at
Circumcision had voice in turn, all trait so odd a witch’s burn!
THIRTY-FIVE
Noah. . . . . drank some of the wine, and while he was drunk he uncovered himself inside his tent. . . . Shem and Japheth took a cloak and they both put it over their shoulders and walking backwards, covered their father’s nakedness; they kept their faces turned away, and did not see their father’s nakedness. . . . In all, Noah’s life lasted nine hundred and fifty years; then he died.
Genesis 9:20-22
This Father of a cleansed and coming age lies drunk to death
SCENT of new wine? upon his wasted breath, & NUDE,
Flagrantly nude, uncovered, a parody, it seems of Adam’s
Languid pose when quickened by the force of Yahweh, a
Nakedness somehow repugnant to all three? to Ham, Shem
Japheth themselves quite scantly, oddly clothed and edging
Backwards toward their Father. Much like Adam himself,
Noah will face the coming era, but quite in error, ashamed
At his ‘old man’s folly.’ So flagrantly subject to idle glance
With nowhere to reclaim decorum of a sage, enraged to lie
Thus splayed flagrante delicto, whose proper stance was calm,
Contrite, dignity of elder, a drunkard now expos’d in his shame.
THIRTY-SIX
As for the leaders, they jeered at him. “He saved others,” they said “let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.” The soldiers mocked him too, and . . . said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”. . . One of the criminals hanging there abused him, “Are you not the Christ?” he said “Save yourself and us as well.”
Luke 23:35-40
Even moth pinned to a leafless tree endures harsh pain, what
Then the Christ? Even Haman, hanged, lost blood, excreta. This
Son that bore the Cross convulsed in fire and ache, a blinding
Wrench from skewered palms, all perforations leaking lymph
And scarlet juice. But worse far worse, even the vandals
Taunted this good man who failed His God.“Eli. Eli, lama
Sabachthani?” And God was quiet! Inward wrenching [though
His hands burned daggers of unending loss and jagged question]
Was the worst. “This Son of Yahweh cannot save Himself!
Ach Gott, His scorn and now He’s finished.” “Jesu, climb down,
Ignore the spikes. We’ll worship even your very scabs, leak, stench
You’ve shat.” “Father forgive; they know not what they do.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Again I raised my eyes, and this is what I saw: a flying scroll. The angel who was talking to me said, “What can you see?” I replied, “I can see a flying scroll; it is twenty cubits long and ten cubits broad.” He then said to me, “This is the Curse sweeping across the face of the whole country. . . . . . . I am going to let it loose . . . to enter the house of the thief and the house of anyone who swears falsely by my name, to settle in his house and to consume it, timber, stone and all.”
Zechariah 5:1-4
If naked awkward Popes to come, chapel itself were ruined
For Zechariah’s wielding: he whose greatness furthered Michael
To endure the grope of such an Undertaking! Even Francis
Of a purer humanistic bent, God-sent; no warrior in all but
Purity, the boon of Christian come and gone. As such he
Carries on eternal obligation, to soul and child, a Saint when
Saint is simply quaint, a weft of Papal supplication toward
The womb, the Masters of the Church entombed, both great
And merely large, both pure and venal. Such Zechariah not
Simply penile, a phallus wielder as was Julius, that curious
Blend of avarice and art, who’d have his servants fresco
Dark to dark & easily endure Transgenders, Lads, Ignudi.
THIRTY-EIGHT
As soon as they came ashore they saw that there was some bread there, and a charcoal fire with fish cooking on it. . . . Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples was bold enough to ask, “Who are you?”; they knew quite well it was the Lord. Jesus then stepped forward, took the bread and gave it to them, and the same with the fish.
John 21:9-13
Lilac Light was on the Water, / But their net secured no fish.
Glitter of carnal warmth, yet / Not a fish. They had cast all
Nets in Vain. The Man Had / Shown Self twice; the Vision
Was on Ice. What God Had / Died? Why return? That we
Must burn? Why His return? / There! There On the Shore!
Once more. I‘d have us cast / A net. Not Yet, sweet Lord,
Not yet. Ah Net! We Scant. / The fish take to it Abundant.
Swath of light, a silver sliver! / Lake of Tiberias. So furious,
All Moon’d Languish, Swoon, / Implore scarred SUN Return!
Beg God’s Son to vastly burn, / Wade past, attach the Master;
Attach at last a Master’s past? / Wade past a net so richly cast.
John’s son feed my lambs! Fishy /Supper Scent doth reek my hands!
THIRTY-NINE
Saul [said] . . . “Tell David this, ‘The king desires no settlement except a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, for vengeance on the king’s enemies.’” His servants brought this message to David and he was delighted at the thought of becoming the king’s son-in-law. The time had not yet expired when David rose and set off, he and his men, and killed two hundred of the Philistines. David brought back their foreskins and counted them out before the king so that he could be the king’s son-in-law. Saul then gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.
1 Samuel 18:25-27
David, poet, peasant, King, fornicator to extreme; lops off
Goliath one sure stroke, trimmed cadaver, Christly scope,
Lineage linked to oddly Adam, cuckold Joseph, weary adman.
Leda’s Swan were subtler prize? Savored Savior whelped to size.
Princely neutered in Donatello, elsewhere in Michael massive
Metal. Godly Psalter to a rooster’s cock, Bathsheba’s booster.
Common stock, wenches wider even Saul could udder, Solomon’s
Father? Tale were utter! Wedged the fellow in a terror’s tree,
Foliage stouter than the touted 3. Accident about to BE?
Route to justice certainty. David a tale, entails bold Adam.
Hands were clean, the matter God. Look too close, ‘tis sadder,
Odd. Compute the loss? Passion obscure, an ancient Cross.
FORTY
Then he took them as far as the outskirts of Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. Now as he blessed them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven. They worshipped him and then went back to Jerusalem full of joy; and they were continually in the Temple praising God.
Luke 24:51-53
A wonder blazed ascent on sylvan wing. So taken by the
Greatness, knelt the very Earth, for merely carnal scant
Endured the thing. Was rare the naked body of the Lord,
As threading into sky He spiraled true. No more was I than
You, and each of us ennobled to behold transfigured Vision.
Ecstatic gold burst from our lips. There, soaring into ether,
Bold transcendence tore to taste the caper. All bliss would
Summon bliss to heed such vapor. I’d beg of stern Jehovah
In his mercy kindle this small verse. We’re left behind though
Soaring, brittle, worse. A billion suns exploded on the path
He raked And each of them unequal to His Face. Word
Reaches us He’s stationed King of Kings. Let such be such,
the
Mystery stings.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Alighiere, Dante, The Divine Comedy, Various Translations.
Barnes, Bernadine, Michelangelo’s Last Judgment: the Renaissance Response, U. of California, 1998.
Buonarroti, Michelangelo, The Sonnets, Various Translations.
Colonna, Vittoria, Sonnets for Michelangelo: a Bilingual Edition, U. of Chicago, 2005.
Connor, James A., Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.
Forcellino, Antonio, Michelangelo: a Tormented Life, Polity Press, 2009.
Hall, Marcia B., Ed., Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, Cambridge U., 2005.
Jones, Alexander, General Ed. The Jerusalem Bible, Doubleday, 1966
King, Ross, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling, Penguin Group, 2003.
Panyard, Christine, The Sistine Chapel: a Biblical Tour, Paulist Press, 2013.
Partridge, Loren, Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Ceiling, Rome, George Braziller, 1996.
Sanzio, Raphael, Raphael: the Complete Work, Harrison House, 1969.
Vid, D.A., Biblical Fictions, iUniverse, 2010.
Vid, D.A., Last Judgment, iUniverse, 2013.
Wallace, William E., Michelangelo: the Complete . . . , Universe, 2009. 2014-17
David Swartz [D.A. Vid] born in 1939, lives in New Jersey. “David Swartz is a poet who shouts into the Void but who is heard perhaps only by God…” (E. Sokolovsky. “The Great Poet”. “Slovo\Word” #91).
