Does prophecy help? What does exegesis reveal? What texts do we provide exegesis for? Isn’t all of Creation and sacred text awaiting exegesis? If we remember the sacredness of everything and nothing, would be stop hating? Do we miss the rhythm of harmony when we fall into judgment?
Michael Dickel
I. Prophecies of the poet
Dark shadows slip under waves
to catch an indecisive moment
and let it surface to lustrous now.
Thus, no decision becomes one.
Star glimmers, the sun on waves
accenting troughs’ deep colors,
remind us that contrast
strives to give shadows light.
Night falls, dawn rises—
or perhaps night rises to
the falling dawn. Invert
a scene and shadows
reveal unseen truths.
II. Poetic entropy
Sleep and dream fly
off together—dish and spoon
beneath a cowed moon’s
reflection. I wonder if daisies
die when the wine turns to dust.
Surfaces turn to dust,
flutter across the screen,
another abstract movie—
flashes of light and shadow—
celluloid crumbling.
Eyelids crumble, flutter,
resist an impulse of wake-
fullness. A wake behind
the boat loses momentum,
returns to a lake’s surface.
Flies surface on a window—
dark specks against winter sunlight—
driving speculation that our world
will fall back to dust, chaos.
III. Poetry books
Bargain books of poems,
English poems, that poetry
for kids, those books online,
some in a bookshop still; a
book stores gleaming nostalgia—
but even history books age,
textbooks go out of date:
bookstore compounds—
brick-and-mortar, resistant,
walled strongholds—
book-free used books,
if you want to buy books,
poetry books, poetic coruscations—
slick bargain books of poems—
unrealized, found search-term hints.
IV. Poem lover
A glistening thought
slips into the night
and away at dawn.
A sleeper calls out
across the river
that drought dried.
A lover sought to
understand these
and other glimmers.
V. The end of poetry
Darkness cool and short
relieves the solstice heat
while the earth stealthily
slips around toward winter.
Dogs darken barks at sight
of shadows & eclipses but
dance high, wild with glee,
when they see glinting waves.
Tree bark peels away
only to display colors
beyond black, brown,
or gray imagining.
Peeling my eyes open
from sticky, closed lids
gives a methodology to see
this world unravel from dreams.
Summer opens as its end
begins—long day shining
toward long night—without
noticing the cold harmony.
© 2017 Michael Dickel
The BeZine 