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THE PLAGUE

As then the plague of Europe In the fleas of outer China So now the plague of Europe Though not through the Crimea

As was the plague of Europe There is no certain cure Except befalling time And the power to endure

The woes of Germany Calamities of France Perhaps of Italy No buboes there to lance

But those who hide the bombs And those who carry guns Will total up the sums They are the plaguey ones

Who invited in This infection of the commons? Who extended welcome? Who released the summons?

Pavel July 25, 2016

THE MURDERER

And the Lord God said Before the final judgment To the slayer of the newly risen dead

Here is red earth, this clay Make another as you have destroyed Before the Judgment Day

In this cell, on this earthen floor Make from dirt the living soul To be as it has lived before

The flesh was like a city sacked Of many cells and vital spirit Make now from the clay what clay has lacked

Form it, or be not released Until you make from stiffened mud That breathing thing which you have caused to cease

For it was Mine and Mine alone My living holy residence Whose ruin I will not condone

Oh Lord, until the end, said he, The murderer wept constantly I cannot though I try go free

This dust remains a cone of dust And the everlasting rods which keep me in May never crack or rust

The Lord God said, I will return To see what you have done The grace of My forgiveness that you earn

Pavel July 26, 2016

GLORY RISES FROM THE THRONE

Ten carpenters are wanted For a local building site, Six avoid the test for drugs The same for a millwright

Across the social body The tumor spreads like cancer, The law is helpless to prevent It seems or find an answer

It is a sign of how we are, The origin is simple, Glory rises from the throne As once It left the Temple

When we have offended God Then enter all diseases—The devil of indulgences Can poison as he pleases

Pavel July 27, 2016

A CAESAR IS IN SIGHT

It is as if the robin had Produced an eagle’s head, Or swifts had grown foreshortened wings Composed of solid lead

So have our personalities Degenerated so That out of such deformities Predicaments may grow

Rain today begins to fall, How many sterile ones Like trees become grotesquely tall Beneath a violent sun?

The end of the Republic, A Caesar is in sight, Monstrosities learn politics And all the birds take fright

Pavel July 28, 2016

GODDESS OF UNFAITHFULNESS

Caesar’s horse had cloven hoofs like human hands, Intelligently always followed his commands, The eyes were near to human, filled with sentience, For its prosperity he held back no expense

It carried him to victory and back to Rome, A horse of war not destined for the hippodrome, By the hoofs and by the aspect of its eye He knew it was a demon bent to satisfy

Bent for him to ride and to interpret signs, Even in his tent at night to pour his wine— Who would not accept the gift of such a steed, He would on human flesh this horse of wonder feed

When it died he gave it back to whence it came By offering its cloven hoofs and head to flame Dedicated to the mother of Aeneas Goddess of unfaithfulness we know as Venus

Pavel July 29, 2016

THE END OF THE ARCADE

Machinery for you to drive That has a steering wheel, It makes you feel you are alive, The movement is not real

When you have no money left The wheel is disconnected, Quibble that the game is theft, Your money is collected

I saw the young play silly games At the end of the arcade, They gave their hearts for wealth and fame But nothing had they made

Pavel July 29, 2016

This Way to WinPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

IF YOU ARE STILL

Suddenly above the great escarpment Armies on the march with swollen banners Terrible with rain and hollow thunder

Huddle without motion, bear the torrent, No one sees you, even by the lightning Wait until the summer thrashing stops

Warring armies fight their battle near you You can be untouched if you are still Unnoticed in the clashing of the powers

Then when they exhaust their mighty strength The air is silent, nothing can disturb you, Feed in peace enfolded by the dusk

They who seemed so great have passed to leeward Rumbling then dispersing in the night Nothing left except the dripping trees

Pavel July 30, 2016

Summer RainPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

THOSE WHO GO IN FREEDOM

No words are ever needed— Even strangers know— See beneath concealment The mystery below

The human soul discovered The quality revealed, Few can tell the secret, The core of it is sealed

We glance at one another See but do not see A sister or a brother, Prisoner or free

Those who go in freedom Have God within the core, But those in self-subjection Have time but nothing more

Pavel July 31, 2016

YOU LITTLE DONKEY

See, you little donkey, here’s a carrot The Devil tempted Jesus Christ this way Round and round the millstone goes the donkey Grinding up the Devil’s bitter grain

Now the bitter loaf comes from the oven Avarice and violence soaked in blood Dreadful serving everyone must eat Sitting at the Devil’s foul table

A parody of feeding the five thousand A nauseating banquet served in Hell Seasoned with the tears of wounded children Screams of infants as the entertainment

Christ before the Supper rode a donkey Taken from the stable of its master The same that breathed its warmth upon the manger Legend, so they say, who do not know

Pavel August 1, 2016

TWO BREATHS

Invisible to those who have no vision Established by the resurrected Christ Fully formed and here, no farther heaven, Boundaries that crucifixion spliced Passage near at hand, invisible, Here and now, forever, close and bright, Ever-standing city, citadel, Those who ask are those He will invite

Spirits never great but clear and humble Simple honest cherished ones, His blessed, Well-beloved hosts He will assemble, Citizens, His retinue, His guests

Closer then the space between the breaths Like walls above the world and all its deaths


ALL FALL DOWN

During the open public fight, The cops in the street as witnesses, She says to Bill: You told on me The police and the town are all against me

She yells: Where have you put my phone? While the children stand to the side and wail, Then presents her inner arms To prove there are no hypo tracks

Sees the line of weeping kids Infants really, not much more, Forms them into a circle saying Let’s go ring around the rosie

Makes a small distracting circle Leads her little children round And round and round and far away Until she tells them: All fall down

Up and then the waiting cop Says: Take the children into the house, But all the damage has been done And will be done again and worse


INTO HER ADDICTIONS

Into her addictions, starting with tobacco Initiates her own son at the turning of thirteen, Then from time to time illicit analgesics, Soon she will be sharing heroin

Slave creates a slave, no need for an enslavement By war of conquest or on a plantation, Impressment of their own, this hideous recruitment Helplessness in endless generation

Shortened be their lives, shortened be their pleasures Except for what they borrow from their sleep, A nation medicated, unceasing the disease, The rot in every empty soul runs deep


REST IN PEACE

Woe to the bloody city, all lies, full of plunder, whose looting never stops! The crack of the whip, the rumbling sounds of wheels; horses a-gallop, chariots bounding, Cavalry charging, the flame of the sword, the flash of the spear, the many slain, the heaping corpses, the endless bodies to stumble upon! I will cast filth upon you, disgrace you and put you to shame; Till everyone who sees you runs from you, saying, “Nineveh is destroyed; who can pity her? Where can one find any to console her?”

—Nahum

Have there been more Ninevehs to execrate? Which others shall be sworn against, which modern state? Which will be immune from this archaic curse That blood run in the river, is there any worse?

Power builds on power in the heart of man Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Never has it stayed forever in one place, Jealous is the demon with the hungry face

But there are those who dream of one great global city Where all are biddable, contented, more’s the pity, Hegemony completed not to be improved, The outcome would be stasis in which nothing moved

A global conurbation where all tension ceased All within were dead-contented—rest in peace


YOU COULD SLEEP ON ONE

This is the day of Hiroshima August 6, 2016 To prevent, they say, a greater evil

But evil is not quantified Nor purified, nor sifted, strained It is the same

Hiroshima was different though Not war disguised as a romance No charge by heroes into guns

War become industrial Though crude perhaps in imprecision Improvements will be made

I spoke once with a bomb designer Ted Taylor was a physicist Who turned against these weapons

He said they are not dangerous If they are not detonated You could sleep on one

Slick unyielding bed— What dreams? Perhaps a sleeping city Waiting to be wakened


THE POLICE BLOTTER

In the house across the street Fragile addicts ebb and flow There was attempted suicide three weeks ago

She has a boyfriend somewhere else Leaves but then returns by day Says divorce is underway

He is clean but she is not Although he could be taking pills One too many of them kills

She however drinks and smokes Often weaves and slowly leans As if through underwater scenes

She is thin, he grows obese With seven kids not much to spend Question how this bargain ends

She torments him, comes and goes—Who will intervene to save, Haul that heavy body from the grave?


NOBLE IS THE BLOOD

Shows a crown of scales From the seed head of a flower A half-ounce emperor

Flash-imperial Golden black-crowned finches No longer than five inches

Yellow was the color Of the fallen Chinese throne But these remain alone

A nest belayed with silk Taken from a spider No fortress woven tighter

The learned learn from this Persisting dynasty Palaces in trees

Noble is the blood Imperial the line That nothing could refine


Goldfinch and EchinaceaPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

YOU MUST SEE

Brenda’s had MS for years now Trial treatments not effective As they would be were she younger—In her thirties not late forties

Her husband has been diagnosed With cancer of the blood and treated Ever since the month of May— Now the hills are August green

Here‘s the problem God has chosen— Why does sickness strike the good? There is truth as deep as dying If you plumb the proper answer

Let you be as wise as God To know the reason say the wise— They know less the more they think And when they die their wisdom dies

To find the answer you must see The shapes the spirits will assume On heaven’s hills and in the valleys—Like the flowers spirits bloom


REMEMBER THIS

Dull and solid sounds Walnuts on the ground, Leaves that yellow spin In any decent wind, Expendable in August They loosen in a gust

Remember this when you See where walnuts grew, A circle bare and sterile Seeming of the devil, The poisons in the dye Kill what grows nearby

Trees that will not last They died in seasons past


WalnutPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

BLIND GOOSE

Not far away our neighbor owns a farm Where horses graze together with the geese—None will do the others any harm

One of these, a curious old goose Stopped her plucking once and sniffed the air Stretched her neck and shook her pinions loose

Her breast and back were strong but she was blind Sightless from her hatching until now No destination though she could not find

Many a migration had she led Unerring was the instinct in her bones Where they followed they were always fed

How she led them was a mystery But when she circled, honked they rose to her They all spread out behind her in a V

Now she sniffed the air and seemed to quiver Then she rose and breasted to the wind Rapidly, an arrow from the quiver

Circled round and called to them below—Startled all the others raised their heads: Come aloft and smell where berries grow

Wings were offered, serpent necks were bent They waddled in the meadow to and fro Agitated, wondered what she meant

Then an instinct driven by her voice Seemed to pull them powerfully, they rose, The urge they felt had left them without choice

Eastward though they did not understand They followed her and then across the sea Three thousand miles away from any land


FUTILITY’S DUMBFOUNDING GIFT

Radar is a splendid thing For when a rain front swiftly nears There is false color on display, One even estimates wind shear

What radar map or TV screen Will indicate catastrophe, A war that no one wanted looms, A thundercloud’s immensity

And yet as if electrified The causal spreads to causal nets That light themselves around the world, Calamity that none expect

Not war the staffs have neatly planned But war of consequences swift, Unexpected ruin and Futility’s dumbfounding gift


I DO NOT UNDERSTAND US

He served in Iraq Now at the mall, he leads a service animal An Italian greyhound with legs No thicker than household telephone wire

He keeps it for emotional support Speaks in a low unsteady voice Offers his soft-eyed companion To the caresses of small children

Why do I think now Of the third battalion, 26th Marines Ambushed near Con Thien By the North Vietnamese Army?

The NVA whose tactic was To move through their own mortar fire Killing their own if necessary Killing US Marines

Liken the utmost ferocity With the utmost tenderness—How have we come to this We children of the earth?

I do not understand us Nor understand myself Nor who or what we are Saved by the torture and pity of God


THUNDER IS A FORMAL POEM

First a goldfinch nearly weightless bends and drinks Dips and takes a droplet from a standing pool, Then the basso rumbling of a summer storm—Concussions in the atmosphere, a living jewel

One would think causality had naught to show, Never could these actions ever be transferred Between two unlike instrumental episodes, The passage of a lightning bolt, a bending bird

These very rhymes are indications that reveal The canopy of God and His continuum, The overarching tabernacle of the real, The past, the present and the future Kingdom Come

Thunder is a formal poem made to rhyme, The tiny heart that beats the murmuring of time


ALONG A COUNTRY ROAD AT NIGHT

Along a country road at night Drugs in bloodstream driving her Mail drops numbered four she clipped And shaved as short as with a scythe

The State Police arrested her Booked her at the county jail, Prescriptions stolen in her bag, Substances she should not have

Her license they will take away Little public transport here Will leave her cast away, marooned A slave of drugs she buys herself

Trapped in her dependency In self-inflicted slavery What master need impose on her? She is her own strong conqueror

Against what can this wretch rebel? Control implanted in her cells? Dictatorship inside the heart Unless she tears herself apart

And still may not detach the worm That grinds with teeth so keen and firm Small children weep and helpless see Their mother her self-enemy


SHARE

God gives not the art of reading minds For if we knew each other’s thoughts so well We would know the griefs of angels when they fell

But in the afterworld of spirits saved And in the worlds of light which have not fallen And before the fall of any Eden

All shall know all other spirits’ thoughts One mind to the other in that heaven not be closed Praises of the Glory be their shining clothes

In radiance of Glory do they go as dressed Dressed as is the Lord in robes of precious flame Light His raiment shining, Love His blessed name

Then they share the joy of knowing Him Echoing to one another all their harmony Clear as any bell that sounds, no mystery

When you kneel before the sacred Flesh and Blood Share within your thoughts His Presence with their hearts The living and beloved dead, that all may have their part


LORD CREATOR

I see now that your wings are brazen Held up in a curving V That light reflected through the membrane Turns to bronze your belly too

All honor, homage to your Maker Artificer, Lord Creator


Bee Feeding 2Photo by Pavel Chichikov

THE GAME

Many times around She claps her father’s hand, Returns and seals the circuit As sharply as she can

Tireless lets go Until she passes by, Explores the empty passage That often we deny

Claps the hand of witness—They say we die alone—Denies the force of darkness The fear of the unknown

Dares and reassures, A game we always play, Until the game has ended On the final day


Slap on the HandPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

IN THESE FOOTHILLS

In these foothills long ago There was a publican named John His memory not fully gone

Same the sun of August past Light that streams across the hills We die, these last

But there are other summer hills A light more lasting than the sun And these a destiny fulfills

That every curve and light and blade Must be preserved in memory But not the one that we have made

That all the rooms where we have lived Inhabited will always be In sanctifying memory

That from the fountain there will fall The streaming ever-flowing water That house and fountain be forever

That in the house there lived a love And love will never be subdued Or subject to a solitude


Uncle John’s HousePhoto by Pavel Chichikov

RUNNING ON EMPTY

Once she’d always turn the volume up As high as it would go when she was driving But now that she has lost her driver’s license She pedals on her bicycle to work Swiping, mopping at a custard stand From after midnight until summer dawn

Made the volume loud to press the emptiness That filled the inside of her mind in corners Mixed with fumes of heroin and methadone Bewildered as she was inside the desert Of sly foreboding and of sharp remorse So now in moonlight on the unlit road The music no one else can hear is playing

Loud enough to drive the demons far And then they take their refuge in her bones


SAVED BY A HAND The female crayfish lost and gravid Crawls along a country roadPuzzled when she finds a yellow leaf She curls her tail around her eggsInvestigates the leaf, but whereCan be the water where the creature lays? A stranger lost in a foreign landWhat is this leaf, where can she go?The code in her cells can tell her naught Except to seek the edge of homeBut the man who finds her picks her upBehind the head and tosses her to safety He might have used her for his baitBut she is gravid with her youngAnd so he saves her from destruction As the human filled with spiritLost in a dry and alien worldIs saved by a hand and tossed to heaven

PavelAugust 21, 2016

Gravid CrayfishPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

WE WOULD DO WITHOUT

Crayfish have two ganglia Sufficient for their needs Good enough to reproduce Ample when they feed

One develops in the head Between the two antennae The other is between the legs But brains they haven’t any

We can pick a crayfish up But they can’t do the same To us, we can discomfort them Without incurring blame

If the Lord had chosen to Evolve them larger than A human being ever was, Much smarter than a man

It would be we they used for bait To catch a bass or trout, They would do the calculus And we would do without


Crayfish EggsPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

THOSE NUKES WILL NEVER LAUNCH

“Those nukes will never launch,” he said But the skipper of the Bolivar said: “Gentlemen, you’ll be happy to know Despite the target switch we still have Moscow.”

Two hundred fathoms undersea A pinhole lets such potent pressure The strong thin stream drills like a diamond— The hull’s integrity must be maintained

Peace is a stationed nuclear sub Cruising the sea in utter darkness But war is the pinhole, lets death in For all of us, for you and me

Hear the civilian optimist But the skipper is a professional A gentleman, an officer And he will do what he must do

How thin the hull not understood How dark the sea and unforeseen The pressures of the deepest depths In the deepest trench of Armageddon


THE BLACK HORSE

Near the epicenter A black horse made of powder Compressed by hellish power

How could it be, and why? Upright, neck awry Beneath a birdless sky

All the people dead This animal instead As if exhibited

As if in mockery The valley Urakami The city Nagasaki

A statue that should be Shown for all to see In every target city

In cities be it shown In flesh and not in stone Repent, repay, atone


YOU ARE IN YOUR PLACE

I saw you looking at me Alien from elsewhere Creature of the air

Where the wind is drying The air conducts a chill - Do you mean me ill?

Can you see my body Do you see my beak? What is it you seek?

Now I will depart And paddle through the pads Of lilies and be glad

Stranger you are strange But you are in your place And I have seen your face


Turtle SnoutPhoto by Pavel Chichikov

B-17

A codger now, he was nineteen Flight engineer on a B-17 Life-expectancy depended On whether the Asian war had ended Before they flew above Japan Now he’s a ninety-year-old man

The other evening over us Our people heard the ominous A heavy bomber overhead That filled civilian souls with dread An antique warplane from a show Drawn against the twilit glow

They wondered what the sound might be That charged them with anxiety Thunder coming from the sky Conveys that those beneath might die—But I have heard how warheads sound, Sub-orbital, above the ground

A ripping, tearing through the air No time beneath it to prepare A splitting through the atmosphere A moment of heart-crushing fear—You will not know the throbbing of Great engines thundering above


B-17Photo by Pavel Chichikov

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