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O Mighty Beyond the Chimney Yet Under the Bed - One Address To the Lord After Berryman's 'Eleven' Astutter

for Andrew

'I don't try to reconcile anything' said the poet at eighty,
'This is a damned strange world.' - John Berryman*

I beg (as did Berryman as did
also Job) Do not give up on me
drag me (gently) pull me (tug
tenderly) gather me (dew me
softly cover) do not delay
Shepherding (O Numberless One,
Creator of the Majestic Zero
beyond all counting, that I may
be beyond 'the Ninety and the Nine'**
so) woo me (though a cold bed I
am and make, though human hand
pen/paw at Thee O Mighty beyond
the chimney yet under the bed

yet (pillow me) pillow me plead I
'that my chaff might fly'*** and my
eyes dimned be turned toward what
glimmer remains of corners dark in
recessing mind, O Lord, would have
You take (mine) mind shake the
stiffness necked naked hairs numbered
over all the fading flesh of me

Now (love even me/sand-one-grain,
let Blood stain to Purity, what once
is rendered endures, that one moment,
may, where self-will wilts, (only)
You do what You Will to in me instill

Einfall****

You (spill then to me
in torrent, rinse, fling out drear
dark (say it Elizabethan) Sin
score yet that long longing for
You wrung: Look. Shake me out.
Drained (I am, for wanting that
You (might YOU) Force me far to
me Freshest Be

What hands I have cannot grasp
or reach (draw You in)

for now my tongue must serve
all that (or type or pen thin
ink (India*****) to (You/Not You)
convey impossibly

* - from the second of 'Eleven Addresses to the Lord' by John Berryman
[you may read the entire 'Addresses' here, copy and paste:

http: //falconwarren.blogspot.com/2010/12/eleven-addres ses-to-lord-john-berryman.html

** King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.) Matthew 18: 12: 'How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? '

*** a phrase from Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, 'Carrion Comfort'

****India Ink [from wikipedia online] is a simple black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing...originated in China, the ink was brought to India in the 4th Century where additional elements were added to the ink process.

***** Einfall - German word with meanings several, 'invasion, incursions (into) , ' 'clever idea, ' 'notion, whim.'

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
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