Jesus Smashes Saul to Blindness with Vision
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
“the only pure mystics are brutes” ~ George Santayana
One mystic that I know who lives with me
Is Prospero. He doesn’t have to think
To know that Saint Theresa’s ecstasy
Is equal to the thrill a bobolink
Delivers to a brute when held in teeth’s
Grip, fluttering and quivering towards death.
My mystic grasps that claws, which zap from sheaths
To clasp the flesh of bird and send its breath
Up into nostrils of this cat, are lined
Up with the laser-zapping of saint’s palm,
And arch of foot and flaming wound refined
Between his ribs, holy eerily calm.
The victim in each case is what God gives
While only the assailant thrusts and lives.
~ Phillip Whidden