a counting
the maRtyRoLoGy Book 6 Books
1978-1985
Bp nichoL
copyright © bpNichol, 1987
ISBN 0-88910-319-4
This epub edition published in 2010. Electronic ISBN 978 1 77056 139 7.
‘One’s pestered in these days by so many Ologies
We thought we would fain see the tale of our foes;
A niche of your own in the new Martyrologies
You’d earn if you’d only go halves in our woes.’
author unknown -- quoted in C.C. Bombaugh’s Oddities and Curiosities of Words and Literature
‘If I don’t learn to shut my mouth I’ll soon go to hell’
– Christopher Okigbo (1932-1967)
these books are
Saint Albans Road
Saint Andrews Boulevard
Saint Aubyns Crescent
Saint Bartholomew Street
Saint Clair Gardens
Saint Clarens Avenue
Saint Cripsins Drive
Saint David Walk
Saint Enoch’s Square
Saint Johns Place
San Carmello Way
Christ (i.e. St.)
sections
inter
pretations
pen
etrations
at the corner of
mundane & sacred
snow in my shoe &
dreams of
Who?
of some other, higher, life
Book I
IMPERFECTION: A Prophecy
straight
as the crow flies
arrow
part 1
‘Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen, and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.’
Romans 16: 7
·
did you see Him then upon the mount?
we saw Him
and did you see Him then in the hills of Galillee?
we saw Him
·
boat water sail
in a corricle over the sea in madness
in a corricle over the sea in grief
‘forgive us our tongues of dust our lips of stone forgive us’
under the sun on a blue sea in the salt wind
sail water boat.
·
skin wrinkle brown hand tiller eye robe
wind skin beard hand brown hair tiller hand
arm wrinkle wind sun eye robe brown skin
sky boat brown tiller robe wind wrinkle eye
·
forgive us for words said forgive us for words unsaid forgive us who loved You silently forgive us the day we failed You Lord forgive us the day we failed ourselves failing You Lord in a boat on the sea under the sun in the sky beyond us forgive us
·
·
so that this way we went & this
that way & back
this way & that
following Joseph
& did you find him
in time yes
& the voyage
yes
·
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·
i have not known Thee or loved Thee enough Lord who would seal his lips up against Thee would not make my stand in the marketplace hid back amongst the shadows as they lead Thee away tho You smiled at me let me know You understood the dreadful fear within me which has no place with Thee
i have not understood Thy suffering in the simplest terms Lord how You let them know Thy spirit & Thy name how You let them laugh & jeer at Thee firm within Thyself let them kill Thee & did not curse them
i have understood so little Lord in my cringing smallness my weaknesses I have indulged Lord did not understand how they weakened me until they lead You away Lord & i was silent did not strike out did not lead a multitude against them as i should have could have had i but faced the fear & littleness within me
·
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misrtamiinst
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·
we have left Thee behind Lord, left ourselves in that leaving, far from truth from being true to Thee, fled, in our fear, over the sea, forever, i can never forgive me, we can never forgive us, the day we fled that