Idiot Psalms

1   

       A psalm of Isaak, accompanied by Jew's harp.

O God Belovéd if obliquely so,

                     dimly apprehended in the midst

                     of this, the fraught obscuring fog   

                     of my insufficiently capacious ken,   

                     Ostensible Lover of our kind—while

                     apparently aloof—allow

                     that I might glimpse once more

                     Your shadow in the land, avail

                     for me, a second time, the sense

                     of dire Presence in the pulsing

                     hollow near the heart.   

Once more, O Lord, from Your enormity incline

                     your Face to shine upon Your servant, shy

                     of immolation, if You will.

                                     2   

       A psalm of Isaak, accompanied by baying hounds.

O Shaper of varicolored clay and cellulose, O Keeper

                     of same, O Subtle Tweaker, Agent

                     of energies both appalling and unobserved,   

                     do not allow Your servant's limbs to stiffen

                     or to ossify unduly, do not compel Your servant   

                     to go brittle, neither cramping at the heart,   

                     nor narrowing his affective sympathies

                     neither of the flesh nor of the alleged soul.

Keep me sufficiently limber that I might continue

                     to enjoy my morning run among the lilies   

                     and the rowdy waterfowl, that I might

                     delight in this and every evening's intercourse   

                     with the woman you have set beside me.

Make me to awaken daily with a willingness

                     to roll out readily, accompanied

                     by grateful smirk, a giddy joy,   

                     the idiot's undying expectation,   

                     despite the evidence.

                                     3

       A psalm of Isaak, whispered mid the Philistines, beneath the breath.

Master both invisible and notoriously   

                     slow to act, should You incline to fix   

                     Your generous attentions for the moment

                     to the narrow scene of this our appointed

                     tedium, should You—once our kindly

                     secretary has duly noted which of us

                     is feigning presence, and which excused, which unexcused,

                     You may be entertained to hear how much we find to say

                     about so little. Among these other mediocrities,

                     Your mediocre servant gets a glimpse of how

                     his slow and meager worship might appear

                     from where You endlessly attend our dreariness.

Holy One, forgive, forgo and, if You will, fend off   

                     from this my heart the sense that I am drowning here   

                     amid the motions, the discussions, the several

                     questions endlessly recast, our paper ballots.

                                     4   

       Isaak's penitential psalm, unaccompanied.

Again, and yes again, O Ceaseless Tolerator

                     of our bleaking recurrences, O Forever Forgoing   

                     Foregone (sans conclusion), O Inexhaustible,

                     I find my face against the floor, and yet again

                     my plea escapes from unclean lips, and from a heart

                     caked in and constricted by its own soiled residue.

You are forever, and forever blessed, and I aspire

                     one day to slip my knot and change things up,

                     to manage at least one late season sinlessly,

                     to bow before you yet one time without chagrin.