Chris Rice Cooper
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Guest
Blogger
Australian
Poet Michael Fitzgerald-Clarke
The Jesus Suite
***
and immediately all the
doors were
opened and everyone’s chains were
unfastened
Acts Ch. 16 v 26
Percy Bysshe Shelley (left)
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Necessity of Atheism knocked
on my sterile nineteen-year-old
mind. Heaven some sort of
irrelevant stalagmite
some sort of dark object passing
beyond consciousness—stalled years morphed
into nothing
an orbit bleating as consequence as colours of perception
contract then flower then move to
a now shared in coming
from something—I am miles away from supper—need is a
quality of still point
of poetry sudden in discourse. This
Age is early, a
brilliant cornucopia yet souls flap uselessly
as days form, unform
kiss the sensate veil, let wholeness be
under longing each fey
mountain of belief
*******
King Solomon
So I turned to consider
wisdom and
madness and folly
Ecclesiastes, Ch. 2 v 12
Inspire each rise, let
life be pure imagination borne by
smoke vague and calling
my heart the blood ever coursing
a few steps ahead. Wise man, why can’t I bottle joy why
must I build with sticks
as I kiss each beautiful leaf each
silent friend baring
their past handfuls of time white rose
petals a sixfold music
peppermint-flavoured bitten from
difficult knotted
wings—this system flawed and beautiful
buried somewhere in clouds,
each gentle molecule aware.
I am a creature of skin
of erect edges of folded, old
beginnings. The sun is old its dreams are older than GOD.
Nothing coheres quickly.
*******
Book of Job
He does great things and
unsearchable, marvelous
things without number
Job, Ch. 5 v 9
Begotten in word and
style, an alphabet curved into water
three times drunk as art
and sun play as carnival—pass
under future history
replete with cirrus clouds and the
festivity of the colour
yellow, each mask lengthens with
sunset, lakes in eclipse
cleanse an urge to Heaven
belonging to a ladder in
a world touching silent scars a
birth with stars growing
in space elegant with search and
number—missing from
September’s guise perfect wise
allies soak their sails
under bridges and I am covered by
foam, to emerge as
poetry pink in spiritual heat, intricate
as prophecy that lets my surfaces
syncopate in form
*******
Painting attributed to Margaretta Angelica Peale
Sustain me with raisins
The Song of Solomon, Ch.
2 v 5
Left: attributed to Salvador Dali; Right: Joan Keats attributed to William Hilton
Be a poem that erodes
swiftly, let dust never be rock, else
day not erode into
sound Percy Bysshe Shelley loved
raisins, almost super
sensually—a Red Sea moment parted
his ink, it rose in
beauty in mystery as deep as forming a
universal heart chaste
with song Give otherworldly songs
air—each star is
invention high, implied & sacred. Be
shy,
each soul recovers their
promises blown into skin, and yes,
time mystical and exotic
direction. Let us drink the cup
of John Keats, it is all
we knew, and as heaven offers
birth, the pieces
contend for a quilt of light to adorn
a mild spirituality
replacing objects for words
1896 image of David praying
Turn, O LORD, save my
life;
deliver me for the sake of
your steadfast love
Psalm 6 v 4
Left Weeping Coconuts or Coconut Tears attributed to Frida Kahlo; Right Moses on the Knesset Menorah
Time is perfected in
wayward sway, muscular galaxies
completing their poetries
weave & explosion, dark with
extent to claim the
sky—below the future personality
muddied by etiquette
offering repose in its fruits felt as
tears, a style, a class
of taunt thousands of years said—let
us ask sleep, else we
dream invisible pyramids made with
broken stones. Is that you coughing Moses. Was the
sunshine too sweet. Manna and cranberry juice forty
years delicate music
within the trek of breezes It’s hot
in pink places, style a
language of taken breath, vegetables
of our youth that
decorated water with light, & burden
None of my words will be
delayed any longer, but the
word that I speak will
be fulfilled
Ezekiel, Ch. 12 v 28
Fruits and Strawberries attributed to Salvador Dali
GOD, toss your
three-sided magical coin—I claim your
Antarctic strawberry
magic as a certainty flowering in
angelic history that
shuffles from art to cure, from answer
to a hymn of skies in
another somewhere usually clothed in
another way, vows making
butterfly wings stronger than
guns. It benefits a view of being—let us visit idea
in our
soul’s essence, as
several phantasms from decades ago
sew themselves black cloaks
in time. Barely has belief
registered any wandering
sensation—let us shoot our
great-grandfathers’ yellow sense of time as
the tide ebbs
again, as magic seizes the new reflections once
lost
Encampment of Isrealites on Mount Sina
1836 Intaglio print attributed coo J.M. W. Turner
all Israelites shall
retain the inheritance of their
ancestral tribes
Numbers, Ch. 36 v 7
A crisis. Six copies of The Necessity of Atheism are extant.
I love Percy Bysshe
Shelley, but he is not my saviour. A
solution in the heart of
a tree—echoes, the fragrance that
colours persistent
fire. The saints of five hundred years
ago
are friends of woolly
soul. Let us fall sweetly, with
coincidence and skin,
with writing a place where hope
is waterproof, and nourishes
the roots of trees, transmutes
them through air—listen
as wombs hold love and other
decorations won from
patterns. There is no stopping.
There is a potential
death. And another believes in
souvenirs &
south-westerlies
*******
I am the Alpha and the
Omega, says the Lord God,
who is and who was and who
is to come, the Almighty
The Revelation to John, Ch.
1 v 8
Jesus Christ was my
personal saviour, oh but that I had
known my insane mind was
His. I was an atheist, loving
nothing but my spiritual
blindness—and His holy delight
someness excited my soul
even whilst the sun, delicately
poised, agrees to
winter. The cost is between us. Let us
sail into seasons
evolved into smoke toked by monks and
thieves. Let us steal geometry put it into a canvas
bag,
destined for Russia’s
clumsy perhaps. Oh, purpose, as
Christ bursts my
heart. I was mute, overcome. My
juice slaked my shallow
courtesy and fruits and flour
and halva were a halo
*******
I am the Alpha and the
Omega, the first and the last, the
beginning and the end
The Revelation to John, Ch.
22 v 13
Fitzgerald-Clarke's handwritten notes of Jesus Suites
Auditioning for death
each day, Jesus Christ will be my
personal saviour, I just
don’t know it as days offer their
marrow as air troubles a
music disturbing thought. For
each cloudy, quivering
soul night raises quiet with, Jesus
is more than
psychological truth as his steps pen a
manuscript of starry
light that travels from heart to heart.
A complete and immense
beauty of purpose. A love an
unrestrained vastity. And no words find me alone—the
streets of the city
might be unforgiving, so let us sing
resurrection, let us fly
to a oneness of perpetual blossoms,
where faith given fruit
a moment to be generous.
Heart Illustration with circulatory system attributed to Bryan Brandenburg
my heart stands in awe
of your words
Psalm 119 v 161
Is there half a
gate. Is there a three-sided coin. A journey
of will missing a
wayfarer, be equipped with a thermometer
and a femininity of
mind. Let us love endlessly unsettled
between act and
falling. The knowledge sleeps through
many weathers chipped
with unusual dust Priests of the
secular dream change
your money invest in pomiculture
and marry the piercing
wind purveying opposites—let the
Age meander away from
urgency to the forever ambivalent
landscape a few words
cannot form. Please learn the ethics
of gruel, as a jazz
riffs mythic lines noctilucent in Mary’s
womb. Peer into the insides of sight, grip and hold
passing
months
St. John the Evangelist by Domenico Zampieri 1620
And we have seen and do
testify that the Father has sent
his Son as the Saviour of
the world
The First Letter of
John, Ch. 4 v 14
The Red List attributed to Marc Chagall
A pleasant poetry is not
enough. I take my soul in my hands,
and fling it into Jesus
author of flowers and heart dancers and
the gamble of
skies. Let us hug time, call its husk an
escape
from confusion, the
genes of a bird made from air imagined
and led through
cloud. Jesus, this clumsy nothing is
young
with prophecy flowing
into its past. A design thin with
intimate instances of
heaven, the opportunity to be steadfast,
and other. Immersed in truth, yet terrible, narrow
warfare
remains difficult—sour
wine in a coffee cup, a bird pecking
at a sacred cake. Let us taste butter straight from the churn
as we reminisce, and
cherish eternity
*******
The first page of Colossians
If with Christ you died
to the elemental spirits of the
universe, why do you live as if
you still belonged to the
world?
The Letter of Paul to
the Colossians, Ch. 2 v 20
Attributed to Salvador Dali
Ah, the airy murk about
the tree of blood. Rest in fallibility smeared
between women and men equal in inner pink as seas mutate, clasp fingers, see
innascibility as both divine and new syrups from names floating near
hurricanes. Let us skirt ancient continents, and
follow string theory incanted in candlelight. Let us open windows, trace curlicues in the ways to holiness. Let us number affections forcing equivalence from air to soul to the New Testament of the Holy Bible—sing our humanity, its sweet
currents layers of Paradise. Meanwhile Christ becomes word becomes earth becomes mountain—love becomes infinite
contraction, awakening.
*******
30 AD Greek papyrus of Gospel Luke
Blessed are you who weep
now, for you will laugh
The Gospel According to
Luke, Ch. 6 v 21
The Magpie attributed to Claud Monet
How many saviours does
it take to make paint dry. I’m in
detox. Soon I will be
able to fly again, when I stich my
velour wings. Look up the cashed-up fish
then windsurf
the nearest lake. Jesus, the breezes animate being
gooseberry green—the RHS raw with heat until
coincidence
wings overhead toward the glassy moon—oh, cold
thought,
Antarctica is the promised land, raise another solution
teacher watch
it become a stubborn number longing to
leave Earth. Happy are the honeybees drinking from hollow
time. Jesus, plant extempore apple trees, secures the
language of fruit. And holy numbers as sheep as doves
in
drizzle
*******
Is A House Full Enough attributed to Hyatt Moore
Copyright granted by Hyatt Moore
If any want to become my
followers, let them deny
themselves and take up their cross
daily and follow me
The Gospel According to
Luke, Ch. 9 v 23
Yes, in the Townsville
quiet, Jesus Christ is my personal
saviour. Yes, the quiet
music of the solar system bequeathed
by GOD is corporeal
prayer. And ideas sing, there is no
ending as true as the corporeal
poetry of Jesus, the faces,
the breath kissing absence. Yes, I have prayed the protection
of the blood of Christ shed on
the cross, and in the
sumptuous spontaneity of this
moment the sound of the
wind through the trees intimates the
one tree most alive.
A sudden
shock. A voice writing
love. And beyond a
universe-sized
miracle, a universe surpassing
miracle
languid and perfect. Thanks Jesus. Faith is washing me.
I’m ready
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