The Brotherhood

A member of this fellowship, I find
The hope that stirs in me belongs to us.
I know full well the urging of my lust
And yet retain an easy state of mind.
Among these holy men we’re all one kind.
We feel both movements of the flesh and gusts
Of Holy Spirit’s mixing all the dust
And mud of earth in living water signed.
How can I fear that God will not be kind
To all my foolishness? The stubborn rust
Of sin he scrapes with fellowship, and I must
Only give my life to ties that bind
Me in a company of living men
Whom I regard as kin. They call me Ken.

Her Auburn Hair

Her auburn hair descended like a cloud,
A golden iconóstasis to shroud
The touch of trembling lips upon his feet.
Her tears like rivers stained with nard and myrrh
Washed the calloused soles and horny nails.
Her sister Martha stricken like a stele

Of salt in fear, a bewildered stele
She sees without seeing, eyes clouded
By memories of foolishness, but nails
Had ripped her dreams of late, and pallid shrouds.
Aromas of her kitchen smelt of myrrh
A taint of death, disease and rotting feet.

The prophet felt the kisses on his feet,
The hot salt tears. They spoke of knives of steel
In local villages, an ominous murmur
That trailed the hero’s path, a dusty cloud
Of discontent. Beneath her auburn shroud
Of grief the woman prophet’s lacquered nails

Unconsciously portended savage nails
Which soon would stab the prophet’s hands and feet.
No brilliant canopy of light would shroud
Him from the glares as passing strangers steal
His nakedness. O’erhead the passing clouds
Like senseless grazing cows will neither murmur

Thoughts upon his plight nor smell the myrrh
And aloes of his tomb. But slugs and snails
of darkness drawn by putrefaction's clouds
and fumes will be the first to witness feet
Transfigured as the God of All steals
Into the corpse. A sudden shroud

Of glory lifts like sails aloft on shrouds
Of grace. The quaking earth and seas demur
With loud objections as the Son’s Day steals
Across the land. His hands retain the nails
of pain and ghastly wounds still mark his feet
but glory rising radiates the clouds.

The dewy clouds of morning bless the feet
Of woman-prophet bearing myrrh. The shroud
And nails remain with useless swords and steel.

Judas Iscariot

Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, "Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days' wages and given to the poor?" He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial.
John 12:3-7


The house in mordant stench of sudden death
Fell silent as the woman kissed his royal
Feet I could not bear her body’s love
Her carnal show of sobbing fiery passion
A weeping play of woman-purity
And face to floor her hair like holiness

Descending like a cloud of holiness
Upon his feet as if the knell of death
Had sounded through her purity
And stirred up this unseemly show a royal
Waste it seemed to me a foolish passion
Of bestial need and imbecilic love

And yet he gazed on her with manly love
A smile making mock of holiness
Betraying as I always knew his passion
For the lovely girls who’d suffer death
Before the splendor of his royal
Glance I wanted in my hands her purity

You say I lusted but her purity
Aroused in me a longing for such love
I would surrender any royalty
Despite his proof of godlike holiness
And I'd pursue into the jaws of death
A woman who would stir me to such passion

Despising righteousness he shuns the passion
I can offer him and turns to purity
Of virgin girls inhales the scent of death
Delights in smelling sinful woman’s love
Extemporizes on her fallen holiness
And vows to raise her up in royalty

He’ll have his throne too soon his royalty
Will reek with fumes of grief in a passion
Of disgrace her rancid holiness
Will stink like myrrh and her purity
Will putrefy with fetid love
This fatal woman soon will mourn his death

I owned his death despite his royalty
Her fevered love was true her passion
Holiness I lusted purity

to Mary of Bethany, Lady Chastity II

Sit here quietly I pray
I offer you my hand
I know you will prefer to stay
To company this man

I offered you my hand
As more to follow than to guide
To company this man
Simply biding at his side

I neither follow nor can guide
Without the touch of flesh
I need to stay here by your side
In quest like Gilgamesh

Bereft the touch of flesh
Of carnal Enkidu his friend,
The pious Gilgamesh
Would even deities offend

With Enkidu, his mortal friend
He wrestled night and day
And even deities forfend
To mediate their fray

They wrestled night and day
Till loathing morphed to amity
Immediate their fray
Resolved intense affinity

And loathing morphed to amity
And coped with earthy lust
Resolved intense affinities
Found goodness in the dust.

You coped with earthy lust,
Your tender hands to hold and bind
Find goodness in my dust
And heal the jaded eyes gone blind.

You tender hands to hold and bind
And soothing touch my face
They heal the jaded eyes gone blind
I look upon your grace

And soothing touch your face.
I know I must prefer to stay
And look upon your grace.
Sit here quietly you pray.