David Miller






Gospel Songs


something bronze
or glass

or else sand

lightning & fire
strike


***


musicians
in strange places

strange?
there were back streets

& odd structures

buildings
where they sang

& played
& where 

they prayed

& I
wished to join them


****


a climate
of miracles

healing
laying on of hands

into wholeness

in stories...

stories
yes

&
later at least

in songs


***


or
a climate

of suspicion

a climate
of denial

a hand
or hands

hoping for
iron & steel

touching synthetics

touching tiles
at best

grasping
cardboard

grabbing at
snow ice sleet rain


***


belief
dwells

with
doubt

faith
dwells

with un-
certainty

uncertainty
dwells

with
belief

doubt
dwells

with
faith


***


a rain
of sparrows

a rain
of swifts

a rain 
of starlings

a reign
of quantity


***


rippled
glass

so cold
yes

cold

elsewhere
heat haze

horizons
blurred

harried


***


she hid her face
(tears)

I drank wine

elsewhere
the child

thus
& thus


***


start from nothing
or as close to nothing

as possible

& call it purity
as a starting point

for an exception

a new beginning
from the old

or oldest


***


children slaughtered
in moonlight & sunlight

an escape on an ass

in moonlight
& sunlight

& moonlight


***


oldest
or

rather

some-
thing

other

(not
Egyptian

or
Babylonian)


***


...&
I wished to join them

who? 
those I mean who were made whole

were made whole?

whose demons had been driven from them
who were blind & now could see

– such as we’ve heard & heard! & to what purpose?

ah who were rendered limpid
rendered at least but more

limpid? yes in uncertainty


***


if rendered
then somehow whole

if whole
then somehow rendered


***


wood & nails
flesh & blood

the given?
the basic?

& the spirit
leaving the body

to be

otherwise
embodied


***


there was a road

there was a room
there was a supper

there was bread
there was wine

there was a tomb
there was a rock

there were wounds
there was a road


***


who was it
who wept?

I drank wine
but who wept?

& who sang?


***

David Miller was born in Melbourne, Australia, but has lived in the UK for many years. His recent publications include Black, Grey and White: A Book of Visual Sonnets (Veer Books, 2011), Reassembling Still: Collected Poems (Shearsman, 2014), Spiritual Letters (Contraband Books, 2017), Towards a Menagerie (Chax Press, 2019), Matrix I & II (Guillemot Press, 2020) and Vitruvian Shadows (The Red Ceilings Press, 2020). He has compiled British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of ‘Little Magazines’ (with Richard Price, The British Library / Oak Knoll Press, 2006) and edited The Lariat and Other Writings by Jaime de Angulo (Counterpoint, 2009) and The Alchemist’s Mind: a book of narrative prose by poets (Reality Street, 2012). He is also a musician and a member of the Frog Peak Music collective., and has performed and recorded as part of The Mind Shop and with Louise Landes Levi, Ken White, Rod Boucher and others. Previous books and chapbooks have appeared from Enitharmon, Gaberbocchus, Arc, Stride, Reality Street, Burning Deck, Singing Horse, Chax, hawkhaven and Harbor Mountain. He gained a BA in History of Ideas from Middlesex Polytechnic/University and a PhD in English Literature from London University, and for many years taught and did research in English Literature at Nottingham Trent University.

 
 

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