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Fiction and Poetry
The Red Sweater
She’s a beautiful girl. Red sweater, white shoes, cherub cheeks. Unsmiling eyes. The first time I saw her, I wondered if what George and Nina had said about her was true. That she’d been found on a nameless sidewalk in a blind city, swaddled in red and scraping her tender hands on the rough fibers… more »
THE VISION ON PATMOS
I AM the voice of the unseen
You shall never know me,
Listen as my words evaporate
What I say refers to nothing.
All the days of life vanish
Each one polishing your soul,
When the last morning arrives
Then you see through time.
There I stand always waiting
As your prayers glimpse me,
Or perhaps in love you saw
My perfect form more closely.
Pursuing all… more »
Crescentius
from the burial ground
at old Copp’s Hill
two clay-daubed ministers
rise floating from their earthen mound
flitting through the red-bricked ville
fleeting in the moonlit skies
their shrouds of Cotton
in breadth Increase
with the billowing gust
their faces forgotten
their breaths long ceased
their bones dust but spirits robust
beyond the lofty chasms
father, son overtake
father-son towers
two new-bloomed phantasms
at last both awake
to smell their concrete flowers.
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Michael… more »
Sibyl
You descended into hell.
You plunged, razed it with your eyes –
This song is in praise of you.
You descended into hell
in a boat
with the outstretched branch of your kindness.
You burned into hell
You pocketed the stone of my death
and flung it at the forehead
of the last lake.
You kissed the cold pennies
of my eyes
And in hell, amongst the… more »
Father Wallace
Father Wallace was generally able to keep an open mind when it came to the new members of his parish, so he was surprised by the strength of the dislike he felt when he first met Jordan Sullivan. The feeling wasn’t immediate. When Father Wallace first noticed the handsome new face in the congregation, his… more »
The Angel
I was nosing about in Harvard Bookstore when an angel came to me in the form of a sausage dog. She was completely mute in the aisle between Economics and Philosophy, and I was stunned to silence. She wore her body like a well-groomed mink; her fur was lustrous as a newborn otter’s, sleeked and… more »
Elbows and Knees
If by my pray’r alone I could well worship thee,
In bed, bath, and bier I’d lift my voice and be
Content. But oh — as difficult as ’twas to breathe
When Thou lay vertically upon the cross — so ’tis
For me to pray whilst I in placid postures plea.
Lord, turn my knees
and elbows
upon their
ends,
That
through my
prostrate state
I may… more »
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