Till the Gardens of Machpelah
Till the Gardens of Machpelah
by Halifax
Galatians 4:27
Her vacant womb, barren, screams for flesh. A low black fence, bright gilded rail,
squares a yard and bounds the pale. It aches to swell with blood and water but is answered with soured Muscat wine. Across that, a green field dotted with stone shaded by oaks fed well on bone. Ahead the empty endless future taunts her, dancing with fruitless pleasure. There’s a stone church, with plain front doors, the right wide open for you and yours.Wincing, livid and wild-eyed, she roils like a cornered predator.Within, glass views of biblical fellows, coloring Sunday service in blues and yellows. Hands and claws rake furrows in her own face to quench the hunger, to slake her gut’s first need.Past hard oak pews in columns paired, afflux with red carpet to an altar shared. Black birds on each transom arm lend themselves to her efforts.Under heartwood beams, under a lowercase “tâ€, in a lit pool of water caustic like a sea,She suffers starving in an indifferent ideal, tied and bound by unwanted care.Old Fire & Brimstone speaks the Name then drenches the alb to quash the flame. Her beauty fades like thick white clouds before a descending rain. Here is the church under stark timbers enjoining rebirth for all the members.
Each life never lived rumbles out of her for denial, “No flesh! No blood! No purpose!â€
`Proverbs 8:4 Perfect, stagnant and unchanging, the saccharine garden birds sing to her. The lilt of their song tears through her as lashes on her bare skin. The seeds within her will never know the sweet sound. This knowledge drives her away, to gnash her teeth and rip at her hair to feel pain for them. Her punisher made her a comfort for creation and knows her pain. The devourer of birds, fiery and more beautiful then her, He walks the garden and tells her what not to eat.
` Thomas 9 & 10
This is great. Such a unique subject to address with language following the inspiration. Well worked and written, including the seeds.
Thank you. I am experimenting with the Sedoka form. The second halves, each a sort of mondo to the line before, is written in white text ( thank you to Jim Benz, with his Ode to John Cage).
The last stanza, prefaced by the first, answers the given bible verses as if the poem were a Katauta.
The red-letter “seeds” element refers to a fourth bible verse (unmentioned directly by the poem) Luke 8:11.
In the last line, I misspelled “then”. It should read “than”.
Hey man, how’s it been? I wrote a comment a couple days ago that accidently got erased when i clicked on the links. I think i initially started off by saying, “hey man, how’s it been?”. Then i said i liked the ‘seeds’ in red and was too impressed by your making a poem out of scripture(s). My reading of Galatians 4:27 was a bit more on the positive side…like “yeah you may be barren but the relationships you cultivate indirectly from that experience will be 10 times as powerful”. Then i said, but you probably knew that and you were just doing a perspective piece. The invisible rhyming lines in-between gaps in the first part of poem are impressive…your material always shows a great deal of time/effort and thought. Anyway, nice read. I’ll have to look into that Sedoka and Kattauta form. By the way, if you can tell me how to single space on these submissions then i’ll put in a word in for you at the 5th ring. Yes, i am a dumbass.
I’ll need the contacts as likely I’ll be somewhere down on the 7th with all the other blasphemers. Using scripture like a DJ would use a Fifth-Dimension track is likely to earn me that.
I have been well. You?
You are not a dumbass. You reading of Galatians is more at what the writer intended I am sure. Thank you for your comments.
I’ve been doing alright. Working 65 hours a week nightshift getting a little crazy from sleep deprivation that kind of thing…which has me ‘off center’ lately and have been, at times, a real dickweed in comments area. So that’s why i end with ‘i am a dumbass’…in case i write something offensive without intending to.
My research on gardens of machpelah indicates that this may be near garden of eden or outside cave of machpelah which is resting/burial place of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac etc. who had fruitful lives bearing children…hence the title: “Till the gardens of Machpelah”? ..Just some curiosity there. And how did you come across Book of Thomas…which is Gnostic work not included in typical bible? I read something on early christian sect (Essenes?) which believed in reincarnation which i’m told was common belief during time of Jesus yet outlawed as a belief by Church in 7th century A.D. …all interesting stuff. take care.
The three women you mentioned, Rebekah being Isaac’s wife, all endured an extended time period of being barren. All three are thought to have been buried at Machpelah by the families they eventually bore.
Religion, Christianity in particular, is an interest of mine. The Book of Thomas, as well as the Apocrypha, are included in my interest.
You have been busy. Get some rest.