nreview v1n1 - Poetry - Jesus Was a Clean Beast; Geography

Of every clean beast shalt thou take to thee by sevens, the male and the

female . . .

-Genesis 7:2

And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast,

and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

-Genesis 8:20

Thus the imperturbable wolf did die first.

With fur sleekly licked, all but pomadely shining,

with eyes as yellow as distant tallow lamps

did he go without a shuffle, nor stumble did he not

to the altar beside the dripping hull of the ark:

glad of some space, some open sky not rife

with bleatings and hummings of close-packed blood.

And of the clean beasts there were yet six,

and of the wolf six, to make good a seed

that snow might not be void of vulpine track,

no more than the powder creek bed in the arroyo;

that always might man's dreams feel prowled and stalked,

and the hills be never vacant, without the tilted throat

of a wolf whose bones regret his first betrayed kin,

who takes the lamb and the fatted calf in pilfering revenge.

Thus the gregarious rat next did die.

Thus fell his good nature to Noah's piety

on the altar, no doubt a certain number of cubits large,

on the peak where the pitch-dark planks grew dry.

Frankly did he stretch his neck to the blade,

for only since that day has the rat slunk and scurried

amongst our garbage and our baby-crib bars.

Then had he a furred, yea a catly tail,

which he prayed would shock the squeamish from that time forth,

and appall the brave with its lacey pink whip.

And of the clean beasts there were yet five,

and of the rat six, to make good a seed

that even the rich should dead-bolt their shutters

from the red eyes ringing the patient window-sill,

scritching along the rafters, making whoopee in the cellar;

that even Fifth Avenue never would be empty,

nor all its golden fixtures gleam without a turd.

Thus the impervious cockroach third did die,

thus did he his tracery wings outspread, exposed the onyx back

to the honed scalpel-tip of Noah's knife;

on the mountain, in the shadow of the gopherwood ark

thus did he not, just before the strike, turn and rush the wielder

with saddened disdain and bright-eyed moxie waving feeler-like,

taking the range of his sudden death, as he does now.

(Noah wondered at the chitin, thought he saw a jewel

which might be worn as a pin by the wife of Shem.)

And of the clean beasts there yet were four,

and of the roach six, to make good a seed

that no matter how much scouring the scullery-maid did,

parquet and board might serve up banquets

to a beast whose needs were grim;

that no ceiling should ever remain untravelled

and fall to an envy of vermin's other ways;

that the bathroom in the night might ring to women's shrieks.

Thus the impeccable boar fourth did die,

his trollish snout and upslung tusks blithe in the sun

after forty days of slime in that sty of a pen lashed to the ribbing,

stifling with the breath of life overbreathed;

finally under his hooves the swamp he slashed through each night

in the sea-sick dreams he had aboard that swaying womb

-for him so firm on terra, so native to the dirt-

womb still creaking like a cradle ark on an earthen floor.

And of the clean beasts there were yet three,

and of the boar six, that its rut might free a seed

to haunt fen and marsh, to root out mast;

to nuzzle fatally the hunter's steed in his stable-fat gut

and skewer the heart, to toss the beagle loose

from his ripped-out cry; to dreaden the damsel new to distress

from the high wall plaque in the lord rapist's hall,

a trophy of his aplomb with lance and thrust,

in seeking with its tip the softest part.

Thus the immaculate skunk fifth did die

dainty and discreet until the very last,

black and white perfumer of love's keen sniffs

(until Noah's sanctity turned civet to retch),

who guided Noah's shaken hand to the very spot

through which the blade could sever life

without disturbing the volatile sac,

which now to prick would desecrate the ark

and make of Ararat the first place of vomit after the Flood.

And of the clean beasts there were yet two,

and of the skunk, six, to make good a seed

which would blossom forth nature's profoundest stink,

that whosoever smelleth it must never forget

the wrath of God that brought him to that pass.

Nay, the brimstoned Gomorrah, the sulfured sodomite,

was sweet as frankincense compared to this.

Thus the winsome weasel sixth did die.

Slendering so willowly the gangplank never dipped,

nubile and pert, shy beyond deception,

whose courtship of hens made them happy to unlatch,

she went out maiden-like to the harrowing stone,

trusting in her pelt and Guineverish pout,

but glinting death seduced her through the neck

on that mountainside beside the teeming ark,

all of the dirty beasts raucous and pushy,

impetuous to rout once the rites fulfilled command.

And of the clean beasts there yet was only one,

and of the weasel, six, to make good a seed

for slink and guile through cabbages and weed,

for murderous teeth behind the meek smile,

for nuzzle in their dens and glide into our barns,

for sucklers of eggs, the yolks of life unborn.

And the vulture gloriosus thus at last did die,

before the filthy eagle, the grimy hummingbird,

stately in his hulk above the reborn earth.

Crowned and robed in the colors of a king,

solemn and circumspect, patientest with death,

a kindly mercy in his carrion face,

he unhunched his wings, cramped from the hold,

and Noah did that holy work the Lord ordained.

And of the clean beasts there were now none,

just the dirty remained in their dirty little pairs,

but of the vulture six, to make good a seed

to horrify the shoulder of the byways of the smirched,

to brood above pastures, leave the cow picked white,

to suffer attributions: behold, the angel of the devil;

to squat gratefully over maggot and rot;

to sit in nodding judgement of the hypocrite rest.