poem

Gideon

It was raining and it was Wednesday, praying,
Where the man stood on the corner coldly
Handing out green New Testaments

They were gold and it wasn't raining
But it was cold where the man stood
Loving in a torn friar's robe

His face was torn, gaunt and gilded
Where the two streets swished with cars,
Cold cars with torn people

Staring grimly into the grim air, praying,
Eyes that sped through pages of green New Testaments
Stacked high along the corner.

It was Wednesday, gaunt and gilded
Where the weathered man stood in the rain
The day was sobbing on the green corner.

-nathan shank-
10/15/08


Thoughts? good, bad?
How is the ending? Is the poem too short?
Does it need more punctuation?
Does "swished" work?
Anything corny?
Title?

The Stable

Hey kids, here's a Christmas poem that's been brewing for a while. It doesn't feel finished to me yet, especially the last half. So let me know what you think it needs -- as well as the usual whether it's intelligible and if there are lines that don't work. (For those who were at Scribblers last night, this is nearly the same thing I read.)

The Stable

The stable stands in floods of chill, dark air,
And it is like a hand that keeps a flame
From drowning in the wind that whines without.
And also, it is like that braying boat
That captain Noah, baffled, plies on silt
(And underneath the silt the hungry fish
Lurch through the broken doorways munching bones).
But in the boat – and in the stable too –
Breath waits to kindle out on the dank world.
And when, wing-tired, the tattered dove finds perch,
Then claws and hooves of squinting animals
Will tramp into the day outside the dark.
The stable, like the boat, will grind to ground
Against a hill and make an altar there,
And from an open door among the bones
The living scramble out and try their eyes.
But now the stable floats in lapping floods;
Its beams withstand the splashing of the night.

J. Benskin, 2008. (v.7)