[New-Poetry] Jim Harrison ponders existence

[David Bircumshaw]

Y'know Jim, I ponder existence a lot meself. But I wouldn't dare do it with either razor-sharp prose or zen-inspired poetry.

I'd feel like I'd fallen into one of my own jokes if I did. Not that I get all jokes, ask RH on this subject, much mystified thereupon ....

Here's a poem anyhow, I think it faulty in parts, but quite strong in others, it has a BIG subject:


PAROUSIA
I

Imagine this: a room within, the bounds of voice; a crow
cries beyond; a clock counts; a hall empty, a hall full.
A voice 

comparing: the sons of Belial like unto the word of denial; 

preparing: the children of darkness for the prince of light; 

declaring: the advent of Israel from the body of the Nile; 

a voice aboom abounds above
bowed heads of the belov'd.


II


It dropped from the sky like a stone burning down
with the Will of Heaven. It consumed the dark lives

tangled around roots of pride. It humbled the high
and low. On our bent knees we move-still forward-led

towards the Last Day of Days, the First of Ever.


III


On bended knees towards a You-tree,
of You twisted
on the pole of the calendar,
through a snake-lane we turn,
bloodied, tilting
like shadows
repeating the angles
of flesh.


IV


Tell me a history of that saviour who bides
till the calendar ends in a dancing of flame,
for a twelfth to come self-slaughtering bride.

Make me accounts of all redemptions denied
to justice's pawns in the backstreets of time,
in slave-ships or coal-mines, on all the wrong sides;
of yesterdays bartered that something might come;
and faith sold like charity; and like hope decried,
till the day of atonement by a redeemer who hides.


V


Twelve is the count of the tribes and signs
that order the years till the ending of times;
divided then divided, by the two that parted,
it numbers in three the brand of the beast
to the faithful awaiting the bridebed's feast,
abandoned in Egypt, their rescue unstarted.


VI

By Your Whither-tree of winter
supplicant we count out
days of a world of waste
days to a mewling
new-born calendar, days
to another

zodiac and zenith
culminating by degrees
its constellated eyes.





  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: JforJames at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2006 12:24 AM
  Subject: [New-Poetry] Jim Harrison ponders existence


  http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Books/Content?oid=oid:83048

  Conscience of the World
  Jim Harrison ponders existence in his fantastic new book of poetry

  By JON SHUMAKER  

  Saving Daylight, by Jim Harrison. Copper Canyon Press, $22. 

  Jim Harrison has written a new book of poems, and it is a beauty. 
  It's been a long time coming. His first full-length collection of poems in 10 years, Saving Daylight is Harrison's exploration of the porous membrane separating the past from the future--that thing we call the present. 

  Harrison has been dissecting the world for years with his razor-sharp prose and zen-inspired poetry.


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