James Mullaney, 15 january 2012
When Mary swayed beneath that tree, she owned
The purest spirit mauled by purest spite
That wherefrom ever mournful music moaned;
And the gift - or the curse - of omnisight.
Millenia pressed to a breathless flash
Like phantom pharaohs in Egyptian tombs;
And history's telos burst like the plash
Of molten meteors' demonic plumes
In Mary's gaze. Woman, behold your son.
Behold, your mother. A reciprocal
Seeing, then, settles the world's salvation:
Hers the universal, ours the local.
From focal points in heaven and on earth
The rood in Mary's eyes makes fortunesworth.
James Mullaney, 15 january 2012
Woeful nights, the pure gold of Mary's faith
Blazoned the brighter for the stillborn dread
That roiled inside like a nether wraith.
On the third day he arose from the dead.
That golden dawn, purled sunbeams rayed the way
God's gleam lights Mary's face: From end to end
Of colours' spectrum. It was a Sunday
When death and doom were destroyed and the rend,
Wrought by sin, was grafted over with gold.
Sunrise in Mary's heart arrayed splendours
Across the vasts of space. Now as of old
The Spirit of Wisdom richly renders
The Easter bonanza in Eucharists,
Sun-gilded morrows and scintillant mists.
James Mullaney, 9 january 2012
With every glass I pour a libation
From the still of worldly knowledge.
How eagerly you imbibe your desolation.
Of course: It's college.
A string concerto newly found, once discovered
Sweet notes abound! (when uncovered.)
Like the bard whose epic tales of desperate zeal
Claim, "...None may see, but some can feel,"
Deny the loss and seize the day -
Live to win!
What makes a star a star so distant and obscure
But nebulae within?
James Mullaney, 6 january 2012
When there's a golden glow in my garden,
Like September's version of snow, I seek
God's solace there. This Forest of Arden
Veils, cloisterwise, a humble heart and meek.
But there are trickster-gods who govern us
Who want to make of our environment
Sheol, the rapture of an incubus,
The Styx, a dirge, a malevolent Lent,
The earth, smote, smoke and ash. It only stops
When Mary's voice descends, in plain English,
Like wings of Cherubs thrashing the treetops:
Shh...Everything's fine. So. This is her wish:
That we find in hers a sufficient grace,
Yet haste to green the globe's forestial face.
James Mullaney, 4 january 2012
Am I deceived, Mary, to trust in Thee
When orphans in Shenzhen sew my new shirt,
While the ice caps melt in the swollen sea
And four million Congolese die over dirt;
While Mesopotamia howls in strife
And fires expunge what remains of the West;
While Frankenstein patents modified life
And torturers shame us - under arrest -
While triplex condos house sleek neon bars
And debutantes kiss-kiss showered in light,
And media baron affix false stars
And Yankee Stadium roars through the night?
I trust in Thee, and call the world my home -
New York, New York...or Imperial Rome.
James Mullaney, 4 january 2012
A bleak, mildewed sump cellar just permits
The girl to breathe. It's late: Men will come soon.
A casement high above her bed emits
A sallow luster, pale as Hades' noon.
They promised her work: Housekeeping, sewing.
Her own papa arranged it. Ten pesos
And a pint of 151. Knowing
She'd try to escape, they dosed her a dose
Of barbiturates here in Jackson Heights,
Beat her, raped her, tried to induce despair.
Cursed, dismal dungeon, where she recites
Her brokenhearted, broken English prayer:
Guadalupe! I nothing have to lose.
I far from you. Sincerely, Anna Cruz.
James Mullaney, 4 january 2012
In Africa there's a boy brutalized,
Days and nights by, in ghostly jungle camps.
He's stripped, shred by shred, of the civilized
Dashiki he wears when he glims the lamps.
They chop off his hand. Exposed to vermin,
Lice, cold, gangrene, malaria, AIDS, death,
His childhood bashed, he recalls a sermon
About a mother in heaven. With breath
Bated, neck craned, he naifly extends
His toy to you: A silver gas station!
You repose him where the Vintager tends
Canaanite vineyards for the glad nation,
Shouts of mirth rock the baobab in the stars,
And Echinacea salves a brave scout's scars.
James Mullaney, 3 january 2012
The sunrise finds you mending broken toys
For Jesus. Softly rouse him. You sing hymns,
Boil curds - then off he stomps with other boys.
The hills hint modestly of cedar limbs.
Blessed are they who shun the world's conceits,
Who never shrink from anonymous toil,
Who still shake out the sandy linen sheets,
Prepare unleavened bread, and olive oil.
A mother's love tells on tongues of true bells
From age to age in the Star of the Sea.
Chaste is the chalice where our Savior dwells
Fired with dominion and for you, Mary,
Who never waxed more flush than at the hearth;
Who supped the bosom bliss of planet Earth.
James Mullaney, 3 january 2012
Who weeps for Jesus at the clutch of doom?
His mother, whose face most mirrors his face.
A sword has pierced her soul, so full of grace.
The wondrous youth who ambled in the coomb
She renders to the wolvish-throated tomb.
What grief-staind mercy for our wayward race.
In her lineaments all mothers trace
The nameless shapes of loss such hurts assume.
She clasps his head to her breast, shouldering
The lifeless trunk, but the spirit is fled.
She studies Golgotha, bewildering
And otherworldly, now that Christ is dead -
Ever the crown of her long-suffering,
Ever the flag of mothers sorrow-ed.
James Mullaney, 3 january 2012
At Jacob's well a mille of teardrops dried:
Without repenting of a sin she found
A spring of water welling up inside
To life eternal, perfect, and profound,
Where Jesus makes his glory known: to scamps
And junkies, cons and mental patients, drunks
With dogs unloved in migrant squatters' camps,
Samaritans in lousy shelter bunks -
Yet stands sunk in thought as deep as taproot
When empires implode and dynasts crash hell
Because they were too blanched to kiss the foot
Of one aqua cool saint by a blue well
Who found the living water in her soul
And showered down a marigold-spiked knoll.
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