James Mullaney, 25 april 2012
O Mistress mine, that total gift of self,
Thy sweetly swelling heart's desideratum
Is naught but Nature's tribute to Herself -
A favor less bestowed than owed verbatim.
When men of low repute presume to render
Abject obeisance where and how they please
Stanchions eternal fall asunder -
And bothersome annoyance frets Thine ease.
Kingdoms pass away, but not my function:
Dethroning imps who cause Felicia strife;
And someday, taking Host and Holy Unction,
I'll praise Felicia more than natural life.
But Mistress, salve my heart's sore controversy
And promise hapless slave You'll practice mercy.
James Mullaney, 25 april 2012
Empress, receive dominion over me -
My life, my craft, and all it touches here.
Thou art my Muse, Thou art my Holy See,
Unheedful yet as summer beaches where
Cherubic tendercare hath Thee enearthed
Or elegantly crowned in ocean spray;
With wind and sand and fondest love engirthed -
Epiphany upon a Saturday.
Then follow I, gardenia-scented Ms.,
A hero or a clown to do Thy will.
A better man may aptly call Thee his
But I submit my pen to Thee until
Released from writer's care and worldly plaint
I worship Thee as heaven's seaside saint.
James Mullaney, 21 march 2012
My quietest hours, when longings cease,
In predawn peace steadfast and billowy
I ramble, pondering those Mysteries,
That safe sylva, the Holy Rosary.
My intellect arbor, frowzy at first,
Entwined in every viney distraction
Became clearer, more sure: If thought is thirst,
Daily prayer is holy liquefaction.
Mary and her Son branch around me now -
No blasted air expelled by Satan's sob
Unlimbs them. Phoebe, pray, alight the bough,
And drowse in an aerie while still a squab.
Preen well for him for whom wee sparrows glide
You nestling dauntless on the mountainside.
James Mullaney, 21 march 2012
Light flecked with gold enshrouds the Most Holy,
Mary - divine lodestar of creation -
Logos on her thigh throne, centered solely
On the awe and ever of salvation.
Now peek again: A Jewish matriarch
Pulls fast her pup to her bare white bosom
As he squirms, spits, and smiles. Rustics remark,
How chubby-cheeked and ruddy he's become!
The mother of that holy, human child
Shall reign with him forever sovereign.
The tender lamb so sweetly domiciled
Will best the world to let God's mercy in.
For now, the great travail is yet to be -
A cradle of repose is Galilee.
James Mullaney, 21 march 2012
A crack in that exquisite virgin vase,
A funereal shudder of taut strings,
And Mary is gone. Quake ye angels' wings!
Your roaring rumbles Rome's basilicas,
Beclouds the Arab's cunning algebras
And tolls the knell of everlasting things.
Lulling the infant church a bald boy sings.
His voice foremuses dolce arias.
Abed and strewn with sprays of jasmine sleeps,
In drape, a sweet and saintly mother's heart.
Shall a kinder flower emblossom love?
Unveiled in mystics' cool and dewy deeps,
Serene on a catafalque of verse art,
The loveliness of Mary rests thereof.
James Mullaney, 21 march 2012
The Logos who indwells Isaiah's verse -
Maelstrom-mounted yet tender as a man
Bends breath to Mary where his breath began.
Saints on bediamonded psaltries rehearse.
She speaks! Gladsome lambs of the Universe -
There never was a gentler command than,
Avow you each to each a guardian.
The pliant sky plushes her grand traverse.
And as Mary rises - a rarer sun -
Row upon row of adoring angels
Blow trumpets, beat timbrels in promenade.
For he would not cede her to corruption.
As psalmodies rise on oceanous swells
She rises, robed in mauve velvet brocade.
James Mullaney, 21 march 2012
Now if the King of Kings is like a sea
Who fathoms all, Mary is like a fjord -
Tirelessly channelling his mercy,
In spray and swell exulting in the Lord.
Hail Mary ever. And when the lagoon
Tops its banks with brine and fossil remains
And casts ashore the Trident of Neptune,
Hail the elder gods. Betide the sea lanes
Between us and heaven spume churlish moiled
Tremulous waves, who'll see us to a bridge -
One that braces all walkers? Undespoiled
Eulalia, saint of sailors. When ridge,
Slope, shelf, slough their deeps and whitecaps burgeon
The Yo's! of drowned salts will gale the Virgin.
James Mullaney, 19 march 2012
I met a maid who tamed a philomel -
A likely Kelly knitting tufty prayers,
A fairy piccoloist piping airs
Behind the hayricks in a cozy dell.
The bird, he huffs his plumes into a swell;
And taken by his tune all unawares
The tawny swain who shucks the vetchling tares
Mistakes that music for his dinner bell.
The rube aside, the maid departs her hose
And ties them streaming to the yokel's plow.
Come stumbling back, he nuzzles with his nose,
Then lets the golden zephyrs graze his brow.
She plays this prank on all the Romeos -
Delighted, purring softy, even now.
James Mullaney, 19 march 2012
A trellised rose garden rose gold and white
On the crest of a lavender landscape;
A rill dimpled bright like a cut glass in light
When a bashful moon punctured the cloudscape.
A maid gathered bluebells and baby's breath
On the skirt of an evergreeen woodland;
And when the time came to gather up Death
She was swept to Arcadian Goodland.
She met her big sister, Emily Ann,
And the two-month-old stricken with fever.
Then mother informed her her fancy-dan
Was with Dis. She refused to believe her.
A rooster may strut a whirlwind hour.
The Devil, though, lurks long in the bower.
James Mullaney, 15 january 2012
Saint Mary loved Saint Joseph most of men;
A wholesome aura lit he in their home.
She clasped the Torah when he breathed Amen,
And smiled at heaven when he spoke Shalom.
When Joseph and his cousins held a bris,
Madonna brought the sacramental wine;
And when he plumbed the blue nocturnal bliss
No brighter ray than she presumed to shine.
Would Mary have objected had she known
When Joseph tutored mitzvot to the Lord
He groomed him to ascend King David's throne
And put impious Caesar to the sword?
The question turns on different kens of Christ:
How best to cleanse a garden, cockatriced.
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