Though I am not a prolific poet, the poetry I write is usually infused with gospel concepts and imagery. But I had never thought of poetry so directly inspired by scriptural narratives before.

As is usual for me, the time between when the idea for a poem occurs to me and when I actually write it is substantial. It has been well over a year, and I am now approaching the one year anniversary of my trip to Israel for Sukkot, the Feast of the Tabernacles.

This last Sunday, I sat down and wrote a draft of the first poem, and then honed it during the next day and a half. Hope you enjoy it.

____________________________

By the Hand of Uriah
( 2 Samuel 11 : 14 – 15 )

Just open it! one roared a goading taunt,
and then the rest in chorus joined the dare.
We face the foe alone, the king doth not,
so open up the letter that you bear.

For not a moment tempted was his eye.
Oh faithless fools! he shouted as he stood.
Though least among his mighty men am I,
with Israel’s king I stand; his word is good.

My honor tried by query of the king,
though sore I yearned to know my wife once more,
while cov’nant’s ark in tent doth dwell, such thing
I would not do and slept outside the door.

To my hand commends the king what he did write.
In vain his trust is not, as God’s my light!

____________________________

Read more of my original poetry.

I started it more than three years ago and have been trying to finish it since. I would sit for hours at a time struggling to eke out a few words that could match what was in my mind, and then, exhausted, put the poem aside for a month or more before trying again.

First, a few points to help you enjoy the poem more.

There are a couple of places in the poem where the rhythm requires a non-standard pronunciation. Those places have been marked with an accent over the vowel. For instance, “crackèd” should be pronounced “crack-ed” not “crack’d.” Otherwise the words should be pronounced as you would normally read them aloud.

My poetry tends to be complicated, and this particular poem is probably the most complex yet. It utilizes some very obscure language, references, and etymological connections, so I am including a gloss of some of the words after the text.

This is not a nonsense poem. It is based on true events with multiple layers of meaning.

And without further ado…
—————————————————-

The Kingdom of Pissemyre
by J. Max Wilson

East of the cemented waste, the aspen stood, a sapling still,
And there a few aphidian peasants leeched their lives from phloem’s rill.
They lapped the aspen’s sweetest sap; rapt in bohemian blissmare, blind—
And sapped the sapling of its health (though still it prospered of a kind).

Then came the Bishop Barnaby and Stinkfly Deacon forth to feed,
And sanguinary sermons spoke with lurid liturgy and creed.
And so, by priestcraft’s gory glut, their doctrine inadvertently
Restored the tree to verdant form, though only temporarily.

Then from across the crackèd desert came the Piss’myre army, strong—
The ‘nighted nibelungian host marched one-by-one as ‘counts the song.
And up the sapling, up they marched (still one-by-one-by-one) until
With formic might the pissant host subdued the lesser peasants’ will.

The dreaded deacons then received the doctrine they themselves had taught.
The bloody bishops banished were, to starve to death for all they wot.
And in their place the Piss’myre lords set up a new society;
A kingdom grand, a great machine of order and efficiency:

“Divide, assign, to each allot a place, a part, a role to play;
To each his branch, his twig, his leaf, an overseer to obey.
Revoke their freedom every whit, yet to their vice impose no let:
To cultivate and harvest more their sweet, mellif’rous excrement.”

And gladly, gladly did submit the chattel to their slavery,
Contented only to be free to wallow in debauchery.
So nurtured by their overlords the lech’rous population waxed,
And ‘neath the load of sponsored sin the aspen sapling’s blood was taxed.

Through sun-scorched day and dark new moon, the kingdom throve thus for a spell,
And still the tree, all wan the leaves, drew strength from root’s deep, clonal well.
‘Till on a night an august storm with thund’rous wind ‘rose from the west;
The trees all danced ‘fore God’s great breath; from each its wrath obeisance wrest’.

The scent of dawn hung o’re the earth, while sun’s ascent revoked the night,
And lo, what new apocalypse dispensed now was by mourning light?
The jagged edge of xylem cracked; the leaves pressed wet against the ground;
Behold! The Kingdom down is cast! It’s unseen canker now is found!

There! bored by pissants through the pith, an hidden tunnel had been wrought
Up through the trunk, through which the yield of sin-crop might be swiftly brought!
And compromisèd thus the constitution of the sapling’s core,
The aspen could not then endure the storm and tribulation sore.

To ev’ry kingdom, vast or microscopic, certain laws are laid,
And exhortations, prophesies, and types and shadows in them played.
And so a warning sign is raised to kingdoms great and persons small:
Beware the taste of honeydew, lest thou like Piss’myre also fall.
—————————————————-

Gloss:

• pyssemyre is the Middle English version of “pismire,” which is an obscure English word for “ant.” (see pissant below)
• phloem is the food conducting tissue if the tree.
• mare is an archaic English word meaning “a spirit or demon” and is the root word for nightmare. I have coined the word blissmare based on this meaning.
• bishop barnaby is an old name for a Ladybug beetle in English folklore.
• bishop comes from the Greek word “Episcopos”, which is also the root word for Episcopal. Epi-scopos in Greek means literally “over-seer” so the use of overseer later in the poem is intentional.
• stinkfly is an obscure name for a lacewing insect.
• nibelungian is a reference to the race of subterranean dwarfs whose hoard of riches and magic ring were taken from them by Siegfried in Germanic mythology
• formic means “1. of or relating to ants or 2. of, derived from, or containing formic acid” The Portuguese word for ant is “formiga”. In Spanish the ‘f’ over the last few centuries transformed into a silent ‘h’ and the word is now “hormiga.” The word is probably related to the smell of the formic-acid secreted by ants.
• The same smell of formic acid referred to by formic is probably the reason for the reference to “piss” in pissant, as well as in pismire, meaning the smell was associated with urine.
• wot is the past tense of the archaic English verb “wit” which means “to know.” It occurs 9 times in the King James translation of the Bible.
• let is an archaic noun that means “an hinderance” or “obstacle”.
• melliferous means “bearing or forming honey.” Some types of Aphids excrete a sugary substance called honeydew. Certain kinds of ants will herd aphids like cattle and harvest from them the honeydew.
• chattel is a movable piece of property, specifically a slave. It is etymologically related to the words “capital” and “cattle.”
• throve is the obscure past tense of “thrive”
• clonal is related to “clone” and refers to an organism descended asexually from a single ancestor. Aspen trees are often part of a vast, clonal organism consisting of many trees with shared roots.
• obeisance means “a gesture or movement of the body that expresses deference or homage”
• apocalypse is Greek for “to uncover or reveal” and means “revelation” but the poem also references the secondary meaning that has since developed, with which you are familiar: “end-of-world destruction.”

• xylem is the woody portion of the tree.

In the years since I wrote this, my poetic style has become more formal, but the focus of this poem is less on structure and more on etymological pun and religious symbolism.

Why Osiris is Green
by J. Max Wilson

When one is inspired,
‘Tis wise to hold one’s breath.
Lay hold upon that aspiration.
To exhale is expiration;
And expiration, death.

When one is expired,
Overcome by death’s proud sting,
He long awaits his respiration,
To inhale is inspiration—
‘Tis inspirationing.

When one is perspired,
Sweat glistening on his brow,
He labors with each transpiration
With God to be his conspiration,
And God will him Endow.

Hold your breath Osiris!
Hold it evermore.
Eternal life is your’s to keep—
Don’t open up that door.

Hold your breath Osiris!
Buried in the sea;
For in this life we’re underwater:
Don’t set your spirit free.

I haven’t shared much of my poetry on my blog, but I hope to share more in the future. The only other original poem I have posted is a Christmas poem I wrote a few years back. Since the Christmas season is upon us again, you might enjoy checking it out too: The Christmas Tree

In the bleak of mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When he comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a manger of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him.
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part—
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

May we remember, amid the wrapping and ribbon this year, to give the Lord the only gift that is really ours to give, a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The ancient Scandinavians envisioned the Universe as a giant ash tree they called Yggdrasil or Mimameidr, the World Tree. Yggdrasil was described in the poems of the Poetic Edda¹ as “ever-green” (Voluspá² 19).

A few years ago, I stepped back from our just-decorated Christmas tree to admire it in the dimly-lit room and suddenly this Scandinavian universe-as-tree imagery came pouring into my mind. I found myself looking at a small model of the cosmos, full of stars, and worlds, and beings, and sap; of chaos as well as order—each branch a fractal image of the whole.

This impression remained with me for many days afterward and I sat frequently gazing at the tree and thinking about the new symbolism that the tree could be given. At the time I had been reading a lot of poetry by John Milton³ , John Donne⁴ , and Gerard Manley Hopkins⁵ and I was inspired by them to try to capture my impressions in verse. While the resulting poem is far from perfect, it endows the Christmas tree with a new symbolism that still moves me, regardless of my imperfect attempts to communicate it.

Merry Christmas everyone! May the Lord bless you and your loved ones as we celebrate His Holy birth.

The Christmas Tree

Miniature universe, great world-tree,
Whose lofty branches the firmament form
Adornéd with lights as through God’s own decree
All hung from celestial bows, stelliform.
Here are the heavenly hosts signified:
Thrones, Principalities, Powers, all set;
Reflecting in glorious spheres, simplified,
The cosmos in symbolic rev’rence here met.
Lo! Here’s a seraph! And there, cherubim!
Who sing the glad tidings in a worshipful song,
As they fly through the sap-smelling, heavenly scheme;
_‘Mid the twinkling lights and celestial throng._
And affix’d at the top a new star shines forth laud;
Announcing salvation: the Condescension of God.