Fourth Sunday of Advent: 535, Montecassino, Italy; 2024, Wilmington, USA
They run amok all o’er the land.
They leave us not but strife.
I so pronounce end times at hand
To live alone this brutish life
With them who speak but naught.
Cut out your tongue with bladed knife
That, aye, not you may speak as ought!
A triple crown with smiles
Unlocks all that: what they had sought;
But, aye, reject the earthen wiles
Of him who does must play.
Two worldly feet stamp in the styles
On us, the dumb, this latter day.
Not in the pearly gates
Is where his brazen keys hold sway:
His legs to wooden doors doth gait
To show his hoarded stash.
But we, the mute, know here, in wait,
That soon his teeth will gnash.
1500 years later,
Now locked up in a box am I
In a land I never knew existed.
All kinds of people do gaze
And bow their humble heads
To my tooth
Ensconced in glass in glass.
Better yet than then,
Now silent I can be,
And never must I move again.
And smiling above me,
(As she’s wont to do)
Is that same material and language
Of the Donation
Which I caused to future vision
And withdraw to beg forgiveness for being a part of
What I saw was coming.
Because of it they filled my chalice with poison
But failed to pull my tooth now beheld
In North Carolina.