Twisted Shapes of Light. William Jolliff
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The Poiema Poetry Series
Poems are windows into worlds; windows into beauty, goodness, and truth; windows into understandings that won’t twist themselves into tidy dogmatic statements; windows into experiences. We can do more than merely peer into such windows; with a little effort we can fling open the casements, and leap over the sills into the heart of these worlds. We are also led into familiar places of hurt, confusion, and disappointment, but we arrive in the poet’s company. Poetry is a partnership between poet and reader, seeking together to gain something of value—to get at something important.
Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are God’s workmanship . . .” poiema in Greek—the thing that has been made, the masterpiece, the poem. The Poiema Poetry Series presents the work of gifted poets who take Christian faith seriously, and demonstrate in whose image we have been made through their creativity and craftsmanship.
These poets are recent participants in the ancient tradition of David, Asaph, Isaiah, and John the Revelator. The thread can be followed through the centuries—through the diverse poetic visions of Dante, Bernard of Clairvaux, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Hopkins, Eliot, R. S. Thomas, and Denise Levertov—down to the poet whose work is in your hand. With the selection of this volume you are entering this enduring tradition, and as a reader contributing to it.
—D. S. Martin
Series Editor
Twisted Shapes of Light
William Jolliff
TWISTED SHAPES OF LIGHT
Copyright © 2015 William Jolliff. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-0840-6
EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-0841-3
Cataloging-in-Publication data:
William Jolliff.
Twisted shapes of light / William Jolliff.
p.; 23 cm—Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-0840-6
1. 2. 3. 4. I. II.
call number 2015
Manufactured in the USA.
For Jacob Henry, Rebecca Peace, and Anna Fulton
That was the true Light, which lighteth every man and woman that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.
Part One
Age and Belief
Once age begins to draw its tether, every wisp
of faith is like a breath beneath the surface of the sea.
God exists? Maybe. God knows? Possibly.
God’s concerned? Debatable. So the snare pulls
tight around the tan slim bodies we used
to count on. At first we seriously think
about chewing off a leg, but opt today
for pleated pants and shoes that don’t make
our feet feel like strung hams, and we pay
extra for lenses just thinner than ice cubes,
forgetting the time when lips formed easy ahs
and spoke to God as if he were a drugstore clerk
somewhere in the center of Kansas, who asks
Can I help you find anything? You just holler
if you need me, anything at all, and sometimes
we did call, and believed that he, and we, heard.
Forgiveness released us with the ease of a whisper,
peace rained each morning like flakes of yeasty manna,
and I believe was as easy to say as yes yes yes.
Ways to Die
When you think of all the ways to kill a man,
as I sometimes do,
you see pretty soon that some ways
take you away from your fellows and kin
while others throw you in, all in.
There’s the twisted pharmaceutical weirdness
of chemical injection—
something as lovely as the rest before sleep
puts a dark cloak over its hollow-eyed head
and the next thing you know, some poor boy’s dead.
And once I saw a film-maker’s version of the chair,
in Texas I suppose,
and you know right away why they use the hood—
you could see the body, not quite human,
wrench its twisting self into a pained oblivion.
I’m not quite sure why Romans used crucifixion
to murder our Lord,
but if the pictures and the pendants tell the truth,
He died with His spirit already on the rise,
His arms spread as wide as the look in His eyes.
Pictures of Katie
I never said it was possible, I only said it was true.
—Sir William Crookes, 1832–1919
Say your brother died of some disease.
It could’ve been anyone, anything,
but the brother was Philip, and you were close,
and the disease was yellow fever.
What would you do?
Become yourself in time,
president of the Chemical Society,
the Association for the Advancement of Science,
even the Royal Academy—
the circle that, forty years before,
had shunned those desperate studies
closest to your heart, even after you’d given
them thallium, tagged and weighed.
You surely loved your poisons, especially that:
so blue, so soft it leaves its mark on paper,
but a signature so pale you can’t be sure,
always sure, you see it.
And you would invent the radiometer,
the Crookes tube, the spinthariscope,
discover cathode rays, and even be knighted—
but not until you’d spoken with Philip
once, then sought him again through every