The Infernal Operator

 

 

The Infernal Operator

The incubus is having

another rough night;

a bitter bell keeps ringing

between his horns, foreign, 

off-tempo, pounding like

the gallop of a three-legged horse,

or the arrhythmic crash of cambered granite

tumbling from a fallen cathedral,

and to top it off

there's an angel in the fire,

feathers burning acrid, ashy black,

dialing, dialing the clouds, asking 

the great silence left when the clacking

rotary wheel cogs home: Where is the bird-winged host, 

my alabaster birth brothers, the holy
triune fatherspiritson
to pull me out?

The incubus knows the angel

has landed in the wrong fireplace for this,

yet still he wishes

it would happen, to see at last a miracle 

not born of tormented flesh 

or the familiar's lascivious alembics,

 

and also so the noise would stop,

the pale, luminous eyes round as blue worlds

cease following him

from window to window as

he tries frantically to let out the stink.

Doesn't it care, this minister of grace, that

the incessant ringing, the billowing smoke

of its rendered virtue, distract him 

from his greatest opus?

(50 Shades of Damnation,

to be published next spring.)

Why doesn't its everpresent

compassionate disaster master save it?

Instead it burns and burns

as the phone rings on unanswered,

sweetly smiling, staring at him 

as if the lines weren't down

in a world on fire;

as if there was something

he could do.

 

 

 

~October 2015, lightly revised June 2023 

 

 

 

 

  

I couldn't as yet find any angels to wrestle, but I do have the incubus and his quandary here.(To read poems in this series, click the eponymous tag.)

posted for Wrestling Angels at desperate poets

 

 

 

Images by Salvador Dali, Fair Use via wikart.org

Top:Debris of an Autobile Gives Birth to a Blind Horse Biting a Telephone, 1938

Lobster Telephone, 1938

The Infernal Operator

The Infernal Operator

The incubus is having

another rough night;

a bitter bell keeps ringing

between his horns, foreign, 

off-tempo, pounding like

the gallop of a three-legged horse,

or the arrhythmic crash of cambered granite

tumbling from a fallen cathedral,

and to top it off

there's an angel in the fire,

feathers burning acrid, ashy black,

dialing, dialing the clouds, asking 

the great silence left when the clacking

rotary wheel cogs home: Where is the bird-winged host, 

my alabaster birth brothers, the holy
triune fatherspiritson
to pull me out?

The incubus knows the angel

has landed in the wrong fireplace for this,

yet still he wishes

it would happen, to see at last a miracle 

not born of tormented flesh,  

and also so the noise would stop,

the pale, luminous eyes cease following him

from window to window as

he tries frantically to let out the stink.

Doesn't it care, this minister of grace, that

the incessant ringing, the billowing smoke

of its rendered virtue, distract him 

from his greatest opus?

(50 Shades of Damnation,

to be published next spring.)

Why doesn't its everpresent

compassionate disaster master save it?

Instead it burns and burns

as the phone rings on unanswered,

sweetly smiling, staring at him 

as if the lines weren't down,

as if there was something

he could do.

~October 2015

posted for    real toads

Fireblossom Friday

(For my other poems in the incubus series, just hit the eponymous tag below.)

Images by Salvador Dali, Fair Use via wikart.org

Top:Debris of an Autobile Gives Birth to a Blind Horse Biting a Telephone, 1938

Lobster Telephone, 1938

Epistemology: Prayer

Epistemology: Prayer

  So,

what       do

we      know   of

prayer?  A   hundred

 nights   I've  prayed

let       me    stop

loving      you

  let    me

    stop    

looking   for     you     in    wind's

twisting    of    clouds,  the  dead

face   of    full   moons,   toppling

piles  of  shut  books   in  tumbl'd

rooms.  Let  my  soul  grow  still,

calm,  old   as  it  should.   Let  it

laugh  in    dog's   tongue,   learn

love   with  small  things, dropp'd

stars,   dawnsongs  of   sparrows,

down  of    new    hatched   birds.

But no                   these prayers

like  every   other   I  have   ever

prayed         return  to   me   un-

answered.     Perhaps for prayers

to  work   they  must   know  you

for what  you   are:   a  loss  with

every gain,  a  candle  where   no

flame can be;   perhaps   prayers

are only the   match   we    strike

to light desire;  or  perhaps   you

must not care,      beyond fear,  beyond mind,

 if they come true.   I know nothing about prayer.

~January 2014,

extensively revised, April 2014

Another in a series I've written on  various epistemological conundrums of mine.

posted for    real toads

Sunday Challenge: Shape Poems

Kerry asks us to provide a poem in that form known as a concrete, visual or shape poem--one whose shape on the page reflects or is an important element in its subject matter. I have done my best, but I must say the "new, improved, updated" version of blogger makes it very very difficult. Please excuse any irregularities.

Here, for karin, and any curious others, is the original, unshaped, unrevised version written in January. It is a bit different and more rudimentary, as my finished poems always morph and develop a bit from the drafts, but I think it says much the same thing:

Epistemology: Prayer

What do we know of prayer?

A hundred nights I've prayed

let me stop loving you

let me stop looking for you

in the curl of the clouds

the dead face of the moon

a  toppling pile of books  in a tumbled room.

Let my soul grow old as it should,

let it laugh at dogs and love only

the song of blackbirds,

 the soft skin of a quiet child

but this prayer

like every other I have ever prayed

goes unanswered.

Perhaps for prayers to work

you must know them for what they are

a light where no light can be

a loss with every gain

perhaps prayers

are only the match we strike

to light desire  or perhaps

you must want them

 to come true.  I think

we know nothing about prayer.

~January 2014

I really think the revision is a better poem, so thanks to Kerry for the challenge.

Image: Woman Praying, 1883, by Vincent Van Gogh
Public domain, via wikipaintings.org