SIX DIZAINS
by Dr. Timothy E.G. Bartel

ANOTHER TEACHER

HE teacher’s summer ends before the heat,
Before the earth reorients her tilt.
It ends while dogs are barking cross the street,
And fat cicadas wail within the wilt
Of drought-curled maple leaves. The rest he’s built
All summer, hammock doze by hammock doze,
Must prove enough, a storehouse of repose
To nourish every new demand of fall.
The fear of having not enough—it grows
Each year—an aging engine, prone to stall.

DIZAIN FOR VILLON

HIS should have been a love song after all,
In time with that old Frankish troubadour
Who tacked his ballade-royales to the wall
Of taverns where the prostitutes and poor,
Too-educated poets cried for more—
More ale, more meat, more cheap distractions for
The hurting heart, so burdened with its store
Of love—love pure or vulgar who can tell?—
But love no less, the love that Villon bore
Into his nightly rondel duel with Hell.

 

SUMMER BLUES

Y failures are the good that's most produced
In summer: what I broke or plum forgot,
What slithered out to bite my thigh or loosed
A stutter-stack of emails. What is not
Completed—out of fear or air too hot
To concentrate—becomes the content of
The story, strands of half-attempted love.
Where shall I use these dry and aching hands?
Too many open wounds I fret above—
An audience is sighing in the stands.

 

ON TWO LINES FROM LARKIN

UT some verse or another will persist
Long after theory has died. And when theory
Is gone, what will be left? Shaped words exist
In beauty for all time. We ought not weary
Of texture on the page, the late night, beery
Intoxication of the perfect form,
The little lyric, centuries a norm,
But still inviting to the sighing reader
Who seeks, beyond their aching thoughts, a dorm
To drop in after dark—no home but meter.

SUMMER BLUES II

CROSS the freeway someone's giving birth
In Southwest hospital a mile away.
I do not know what all these lines are worth.
The summer's slowly having its own say.
Yes, August talks, but I won't go its way
Like I once did. I equably command
(At least within my head) my own left hand,
And I am saying no to writing dross.
But seasons are deceptive—let them stand.
From form to form the poet steps across.

AS AUTUMN NEARS

UT if it doesn't matter what we say,
We surely shouldn't worry what we write.
The darkness nudges up against the day
As autumn nears; the lessening of light
Is pressing to the oaks. There is more night
In which to wait for magic to begin,
For leaves to leaven bright to sweet. Our sin
Consists in idolizing every word
We use. Look how the solid things push in,
Demand attention: hush! A water bird.

***

 

SHEKINAH

by Camille Wolaver

RIMSON shrouds surround sacred violence;
     Perpetual flame lights the Presence;
Gold enfolds the Holy of Holies,
     Sheltering mystic stones.

Incensed, the Unspeakable Name sits
     Enthroned in cloud on the Mercy Seat.
Robes sewn in pomegranates and bells
     Throws sacrificed blood there.

Thou dwellest in the holy place.

The Temple opens in the heavens.
     I see the Ark of His Covenant,
Then the woman, sun-clothed and star-crowned,
     A pillar of pure fire.

Her thin brows arch over sea-mist eyes;
     Silver tears flow forth for her children.
Rosebud mouth cries out in agony,
     Birthing God while flying.

Thou dwellest in the holy place.

The tabernacle stands in the church:
     Fear fills me and my body trembles
At the strong pulsing Presence that makes
     The gold glow and vibrate.

Consecrated hands place Heart on tongue.
     The bloody tissue dissolves slowly.
I receive God into my body;
     I am like the Mother.

Thou dwellest in the holy place.

The warm sun floods me through the stained glass.
     I embrace the Bread that breathed the worlds,
Breathed Himself into the Embryo,
     Breathed the Bread into God.

The heaviness crushes my shoulders,
     Floods my inner vision in scarlet,
Beating, bleeding, speaking silently:
     “You are in my Sacred Heart.”

Thou dwellest in the holy place.

 

GALILEO'S GLASS

by Nathan Gilmore

Nathan…

ATH on this sphere a score and half begun
And seen much, done much, said much in that span:
Hath lived and breathed (the wonted lot of man),
And, unaware the length of love, have run
One middle track, which hardly halfway done,
Hath run its too brief course, and selfish planned
The second worthless medal to demand:
To love and be content with loving one.
Yet base constraint! What haughty mean design
Hath marked the wretched boundary so near
And chainéd love to poor familiars?
None.  Thus deep-browed Galileo, nearly blind
Turned up his glass upon the sun, with cheer,
And fading from his sight, greeted the stars.

***

 

A SONNET TO THE DIRT

by Samuel J. Stephens

HEY say that the Earth over-half is filled
By our friend the Water; though I suspect
Since Noah’s time, its ferment lying stilled
Awaits cousin Earth’s last cause and prospect.
It’s true the dirt we scorn, and sweep it out,
Though in glory there we abide our dead
To peaceful lie, ourselves to gadabout
On topsoil, till our days end in bed.
We dig ourselves out in time, disinter
Gnomic riddles on alabaster walls;
Alas! the gaze of dusty bones incurs
Too soon the cloying of Earth’s airless halls.
No, let mud shadow their alien faces—
I abide in the sky-meeting places.

***