If you’ve read something better, Chances are I wrote it.
for Johanna
D.A.Vid
BC
Eleven Plants Sun Moon
Thirteen Daniel
Fifteen Haman
Seventeen Ezekiel
Nineteen Adam
AD
Twelve Ezras
Fourteen Lazarus
Sixteen Toward Golgotha
Eighteen Temple cleansing
Twenty Transfiguration
ELEVEN
God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation. . . . . . . . Let there be lights in the vault of heaven to divide day from night.”. . . . . . God made the two great lights: the greater light to govern the day, the smaller light to govern the night, and the stars.
Genesis 1:11-17
What quakes this glint of sun and moon? What whirl in trenchant
Weary strength, gives rise to Dawn, gives flank, gives brawn, OR
Gentle transition, plant and tree, what calmer God now carefully
Seeds what be. The lilt is HE? a careful abiding Christ: that lame
Can walk and blind can see. [Creator seeds this soil so tenderly?]
What glimpse of bird and brush is still to come? What summons
Culls dull dirt to mellow plum? To apple [good] all growth [that
Could], the vine that twined, or spruce or kined? a host of green,
ALL nuance, fill, the lilac, rose, the willow weeping still, but not
From ill intention, use, a simple truth to path abstruse, for calmer
God endured the sweetest length, a means perhaps, an asp for strength.
Though habits hasten Adam’s lapse, all isn’t future, even torture.
TWELVE
Herod was furious when he realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding district he had all the male children killed who were two years old or under, reckoning by the date he had been careful to ask the wise men.
Matthew 2:16-17
“What child is this? A male?” In the low clay room no soldier is
Erect, even who bears a sack of heads that trails a crimson
On the clay tile floor. “The youth? Ezra.” “And a certain male?
His age?” They cluster at a fire. “36 months; is certain.” “You
The mother?” “And Benzion you the father?” “How old man is this
Lad? Speak truly.” “Elsbeth can vouch for him. ‘Tis clear she
Says a truth! 3 years.” “Such fabrication! Punishment? Simple. Strip
His garment.” Suddenly even the captive males are weeping. 3
Guards nudge forth to bare the lad. All sob. “Here, kneel. The
Pain is quick.” In arc from high (the smoke hole), sword cleaves
The nameless head from shoulders to splatter on the clay tile
Floor. In a welt of crimson glitters the token silver medallion.
THIRTEEN
The king conferred high rank on Daniel and gave him many handsome presents. He also made him governor of the whole province of Babylon and head of all the sages of Babylon. At Daniel’s request, however, the king entrusted the affairs of the province of Babylon to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego; Daniel himself remained at court.
Daniel 2:48-49
Daniel, who braved the Lion’s lust, who ground his fears to dust,
Who scorned the pitch of Hell, proclaiming Son’s emphatic birth.
There muscle-laden Puta hefts the Book! To grimace at its weight?
To hush, to wait, while Heaven coughs its phlegm, Satan in deed
Fit guardian of the Gate, were Mercy omnipresent, there Jesu at
His supper! There Jesu Christ, I suffer! There Shadrach, Meshach,
Abednego, who deviled Fire itself. Or Pope to disbelief: a wound
Of summons in the commons? A blast like no-man’s? There Leaks
The pitch of itch, the pen! There seeks aloft the cough and grin!
All victory’s pyrrhic, starved or prim. Daniel, sweet shadow licks
Your chin! Come, master, prophet, carve it thin! Your world SO
Narrow binds the Cosmos. So steady all poem to quest for proses.
FOURTEEN
Martha said to him, “Lord, by now he will smell; this is the fourth day.” Jesus replied, “Have I not told you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Jesus . . . . . . . . cried in a loud voice, “Lazarus, here! Come out!” The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with bands of stuff and a cloth round his face. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, let him go free.”
John 11:39-44
All swore the male deceased, and hours so—such stiffening hardly
Reclined upon the cot, Lazarus alive? The Master intoned, “He
Sleeps.” Ushered the muttering family out and us to guard the door.
“He sleeps?” slurred John, his voice a certain tremor in a quiet so thick
VOICE cut it like a knife. Again: “Sleeps?” “Why not?” “Come now,
Master, a truer course is not to frighten us.” “Here, Peter, kiss his lips.”
WAS said! I shudder yet. “KISS THEM?” “Ach ja, unruly monk.”
“Dear sire, I shall not keep my stomach.” AND THEN our Jesu knelt
Where even cadaver smelled and placed His lips on lips. “What make
You there?” The answer curt . . . “Ach make a man!” “And kiss that
Heap?” “He is! He is asleep!” Then, simply put, this Lazarus resumed
To color even quick. It wrenched my guts! [But cleared 10 hundred!]
FIFTEEN
When the king returned from the palace garden into the banqueting hall, he found Haman huddled across the couch where Esther was reclining. “What!” the king exclaimed. “Is he going to rape the queen before my eyes in my own palace?” The words were scarcely out of his mouth when a veil was thrown over Haman’s face. Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the queen, was present. “How convenient! There is that fifty-cubit gallows which Haman ran up for Mordecai, whose report saved the king’s life. It is all ready at his house.” “Hang him on it” said the king.
Esther 7:8-10
Haman, who’d skewer Semite, pinned to a Leafless Tree. Who’d
Nail his Esther to the boards and much the same on CALVARY.
Viceroy to Ahasuerus, he lunges into Vision. See there the pathos
Of his twisted corpus! Who’d burn the Jews in masse for an old
Man’s wicked slight, who’d spend his youth prefiguring the Cross.
And where in Godly Kingdom is the loss? Pure Esther shapes a
Murderous off-spring in the belly, seeks senile Kingship’s darkly
Retribution, this Haman a neat solution, and brings on PURIM
For the wayward flock that some say brought God under. Such
Story’s Gospel blended with despair, a scent of Germaine ovens
In the air, a comely plot. Some keep the tale on frontispiece, or
Quiet. No manly Mystery this—the yarn is gapped. Hand riots!
SIXTEEN
On their way out, they came upon a man from Cyrene, Simon by name, and enlisted him to carry his cross.
Matthew 27:32-33
You, I, we, ALL saw Savior struggle with that great rough wooden
Cross toward Golgotha, belly, back, visage contorted with its heft.
Not yet the sky was cleft, was simply toil on a dusty path, and
Thousands looking on. The pain of us was such as mirror ache of
Christ, there, just there alone, feet clutching dust and rock upon
Seldom traversed path but for to perish. This mensch we cherished!
Bloody countenance ennobled by the barbs of wreath with which
They crowned Him. Fierce aching lunge laid low by that which
Pressed Him into earth. THIS the child 3 Magi graced at birth,
His mother somewhere weeping in the throng. “Come, move it,
Come, move on!” To witness goodness humbled such tormented, that
Even the Eleven were eager to let Him die. “There, I’ll take it.”
SEVENTEEN
[Yahweh] . . . said, “Go and shut yourself in your house. Son of man, bonds are now about to be laid on you; you will be bound with them and will not be able to mix with others. I am going to make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth; you will be dumb; you will stop warning them, for they are a set of rebels. When I speak to you, I shall open your mouth and you will tell them, ‘The Lord Yahweh says this.’ Whoever will listen, let him listen; whoever will not, let him not; for they are a set of rebels.”
Ezekiel 3:25-28
Startled, Ezekiel quakes from work to address his God. The God
Is hardly odd, so stern, so unforgiving. Would each and every burn
Without repentance, shed all false gods to cringe for absolution?
What force is there, what Sin, ablution? This old man’s old, a proper
Prophet, years etched upon his face. Puta, facing, fails to detect a
Message. ALL SAGE must shudder. The message has no Mother.
Ezekiel traces eternal worm. All worm has turn. No Torah more a
Prescient, one cannot deny the Future. And Future torture? From
Presently deceased, to ancients rotting, Judaic God alone is Godding,
From thorns, pierced flesh, rude rood to itch and “Moses chose us”
Baseless kitsch. One path remains aspiring zealot to endure; regard
The empty tomb of “Christ.” In God we trust? Led flock to range there.
EIGHTEEN
Jesus then went into the Temple and drove out all those who were selling and buying there; he upset the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those who were selling pigeons.
Matthew 21:12-13
Was it simply outrage the Master stirred, that and not his Word?
Some judge his voyage ended at the temple, cleansing the money
Changers and the thieves, all bartered assorted pigeons, goods, this
Prism prison of our Needs. Yahweh Himself a brave investment,
Inched toward glory, mortal wealth the truer story. With paper’s
Exchange in sockets where injury was a debt and scab the healer,
All manifest to dealer at his table, where Cain slew dividend and
Worshipped able, paid tribute to all Tribune on a gilded tributary.
Where poverty was scary to the poor in heart, who lacked all path
To start, forgone all manner of repentance, the gaol a lighter sentence
Than the fire of debtor in his Godly jail; or gel or poison, a wad of
Current foison to swallow raw or choke the heart. Quaker bake or?
NINETEEN
Yahweh God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7
.His genitalia like petals against a thigh sweet Adam contained
An arm extended, greets Gott above careening with Creation,
This languid lad, a delicate selection, yields surge, feels spark,
Spurns stasis. Just centimeters distant from that Godly touch,
Kindled into life and basis. One wonders if it’s God he faces!
That thrust from brain pan, celestial Crew, all hue but blue,
E’en Eve perhaps, or youthful Jesu, a coming life, a swarming
Melody of Christ! From galaxy to planet waning’s charged, ‘tis
Good enlarged, and Yahweh clenched to let it out, Spermatozoon
Of inception, first phase of humankind’s perception, from Duty,
From Beauty poised in indolence, to Satan’s prance, to dance.
Adam though leapt from dirt to seed to beauteous proportion.
TWENTY
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone. There in their presence he was transfigured; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the light.
Matthew 17: 1-3
Upon a high and holy mountain came a vision struck them dumb,
Peter, James and John, for suddenly was Christ in all His radiant
Glory. There, just there, had they assayed an Indic Kief, was
Intensity; some thousand grams beyond belief transfigured soul
They had often sought to touch, a sudden such, presence million
Fold increased in just His garment, blinding white, a look that
Seared them quite, a brazen gaze intruding on their soul. And
Fell to grovel soil, to promise such glad devotion as ‘D shield
Them from his eyes: “Ach God sweet God beatitude your sighs!”
The swirl of incandescence, for sun poured from His visage,
Then cloud appeared, eclipsing all but Christ, a voice until relented
Had all twice upon the earth, cowering in fear of retribution.
2014-17
David Swartz [D.A. Vid] born in 1939, lives in South Carolina. “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).
