The pull

I guess that they designed it thus:
Four holes in the dome, one woman
Not there to clean but stir up dust, embodying
The beam by which the morning visitant
Is struck; through another gap at evensong
It slopes to stroke the censer and the priest,

Scribing something in a language I can’t read.
Like some galactic starship’s S.O.S still echoing
In space when all the crew are dead, it carries
In its emptiness a pull that I can’t shake
And weighs me down to sit and try to voice
The ringing letters of these walls: to someone

Earlier than me, something means, something means.
And all that I can feel is the stain that I can’t see
Or care enough to make the world, as this building
Does, something gentler, more meaningful than me.

Below the wood the tarn

Below the wood the tarn
as still as a hunter
waiting.

The doe in fog, a sodden net,
inches lower, dips her head,

ears stretched for steps, safety
catches, breaths.

Hooves as delicate as ladies’ hands
grace mud, then press a grasp
so smooth, so welcoming.

It’s not until she’s dipped her cloven
feet in deep that she feels the
pull, and cannot leap.

For a moment in her fear she sees
a doe beneath her, looking up,
one shoulder arched

like Nosferatu as she tugs.

Underneath it all

Can you imagine being boiled alive
how your body would jerk in the rising
bubbles like someone starting to dance?

You wouldn’t see your life before
your eyes (you’d just be thinking
about the heat) - you’d see a clean

white bed, sleek as sheets
of ice. And at your ears, the wind.

Violence

So violence is a good thing then.
Or so I thought, paused and witnessing
The crucifixion once again.

Not drowning but waving, the wrists
That twist and try to lift form an embrace.
It’s this, I hear, that is the act of grace.

You can’t nail yourself to a cross, and I
For one can’t carve a Christ in agony.
But how was he to show and I to see

Without these artisans of misery?