Mothers day at the Franciscan Friary

Jesus flies a kite
The goat with the leech on his throat climbs to the pines at lean on the wrong side of the treeline
Across the valley the cat sleeps against the friar

There are flames next to flowers
Jesus corded to the archangel, the steel wires
The savior is on strings
His eyes a-froze

and the mountaintop shack
the power lines, the electric pole
there is a dead girl in a long box
and children punching daisies

the transoms beg their birds, their mouths open
they await the feeling of wings
through their lips
on their tongues
the child-soothing murmurs, the stroke
the trace of love on their tongues

the feet of the sparrow on the sinner’s tongue
on the tongue of the just-dead
on the tongue of the newly-dead
the sparrow mouth
the mouth of the sparrow
one’s mouth agape for the arrival

the constable come straight from the work
the gun off his hip and hid
the large-calved woman leads the prayers, the red binder in her swoll hands

the young their tongues aflame with the words of their parents
the songs the chorus placed before them, the cutlery on the table, they use the forks from the outside in
they use the right utensil, they chew rapidly,  they swallow never spit
the words of their father, the songs, the chorus upon the bottle in their fine small clothes
and their small shod shoes
theirs are the voices still soft green, they are at suckle before arrives the honey
their sapling voices and the mother alight

the book and the friar troll
him of little sparrow

i thought all radiated from the archangel
but now see they are a-bounce off his chest
they are refuted
his feet are the fire where they would be

we are a-pray for soldiers on dirty islands in filthy climes
where the speed in a gutter spit
it is a break of squelch in the cough an expectoration

thus after the bread
the men shall not be soothed
the men will not be soothed
the wife at recline the hands over the face
the son in a clench
the father is a-knot
he is a worry
the daughter is a soothe and she to her knees for the bread,
the friar confused, taken aback, questioned, the rosary and eyes rolled the knees knocked
she arose

the forgettable friar is of jeans and horse boots under the the sacerdotal
he is in his thinning hair the bringer of the bells
the bells, the bandana
the father is now at rest
the son is of peace
she daughter kneels forward in the pew
the father the son start in the opposite direction of Jesus
well below the archangel

he is the ringer of bells,
the bringer of flowers to the feet of the virgin

they are flower-skirted children of great responsibilities setting friars on their knees
and jeans and jaws theirs are mreia
their cripple the canes
the cripple cancer
to the bread

their is a valley void
where the goat and the ram play
where one climbs, one yearns
the other watches, guards for he has a flak not merely the leach

for his shoulders are broad, he bears the mantle well his eyes a-scan
his calls sure
he is a fine captain, of stature,
he commands

 

Leave a Reply