Psalms for the Poor. Kent Gramm

      Psalms for the Poor

      Copyright © 2015 Kent Gramm. 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.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      ISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2597-7

      EISBN 13: 978-1-4982-2598-4

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      for Robert

      Psalm 1

      the law of the Lord

      1

      This is the Law. The Law is everything:

      a sad man cherishing a slice of pumpkin

      pie, a wife of dreamy cream beside him

      snowy white and fluffed, the winter sun dim

      through the coffee shop window, many voices

      moaning round of romance. This is a race

      of rock-loving farmers and brooding, pacing

      kings, cancer in the genes. There are no choices.

      Glaciers melt in Odysseus’s face;

      Athena looks around and packs it in,

      reports to God that everything done brings

      unintended consequences. “There’s grace,”

      God says with a sly everlasting grin.

      The memory of love checks her watch, sings.

      2

      But I was saying, everything is Law—

      the brooks, stones, companionship, suffering.

      How does a constellation wheel? Its spring

      is in the numbers dribbling along awe

      like jewelly bread crumbs. It’s all in numbers,

      all of it, right down to the ants. And chance

      is covered too, explainable to parents

      on a planet circling Arcturus—blurs

      in our best telescopes but intelligent.

      Nothing is, that is not the Law. Always

      two plus two is four; passion is always

      red, purity blue, Son of God argent;

      I will always remember you. I sit

      with the sun going down, and this is it.

      3

      Can it be written in a book, the Law?

      Some book, with pages like accordions,

      print vigorous as spermatozoa,

      punctuation bright as a million suns,

      an index hot and right as algebra—

      its states like H2O a trinity

      transforming on the page, liquid fiction

      crystallizing with a sheen: history

      now, nonfiction, suffering and death—“one

      damn thing after another”—how it bleeds

      its ink! And then, the last chapter a gas,

      white-winged horses farther than eye can see

      converge to Brahman minuscule and vast,

      a Way that rises into poetry.

      He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water,

      that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.

      Unless I touch his hand and lay my fingers

      to his healing side I’ll say he’s a ghost,

      like King Saul or Auntie Maud—in the clothes

      of my low brain, that will see anything

      I want to see. But my hand is something

      else—it won’t lie to me, it won’t believe;

      it was this that plucked the fruit off the tree

      in the Garden and it knows everything

      and nothing. You will call me The Doubter.

      I will believe only what I can feel

      and nothing I am told. Words are nothing,

      but when I feel His hand like living water

      I will draw it to me like a willow tree

      and I will believe; so all in its season.

      Psalm 2 (a)

      Why do the heathen rage?

      The heathen rage because they hate our freedoms,

      and their brides desire our televisions sets.

      They crave attention and our Happy Meals;

      they wish they could play for the New York Jets;

      they wish they could be all that they can be.

      The more we give, the more they try to get.

      They are crazy to be Americans.

      Give them half a chance and they’d be Cheyennes,

      Santee Sioux, Mescalero Apaches,

      the Last Mohicans, Crees, Arapahos,

      or what have you—you know the litany—

      so they could get handouts and casinos.

      They’ve seen that baby playing on the dirt

      floor in Mississippi, and they want her.

      Psalm 2 (b)

      Why do the Christians rage? the heathen ask.

      Why do they trumpet prayer like sounding brass?

      Why do they shove their muzzles up our ass?

      The Christians rage because they hate their freedoms

      and everyone else’s—but then again,

      since when do Christians rage? These believers

      are something else: they have taken the name

      in vain—squandered the term on righteousness,

      kidnapped Jesus, and left us sinners stunned

      at Calvary. The god they worship hates

      pale light through summer blinds, reflected sun

      on morning walls, its shadow-barred white

      beside the Mediterranean bed,

      the glass of last night’s wine, the sacred head.

      Psalm 3

      Lord, how are they increased that trouble me!

      We