Pillars of Ash In the beginning Nature had no voice. Then the gods threw a pest Of fire called language Upon the world And are watching it as it blazes. Now fire clings to the palate, Burns the throat. The smoke of rhetoric smarts our eyes. Tongues of fire consume the page — Paper curling into ash, Perusing fingers sifting to ash, Bodies stiffening into ash, Pillars of ash that’ll topple and disperse In the coming wind and rain .

All the World Was Broken: An Ecopoem   On weightless air, the cocksure ravens flew.   Wild sheep chewed grass; deer   And bison chewed too.   On a slanted hillside white mountain goats   Enjoyed a lofty view.   In forests, eucalypti, fresh-minted, grew.   And fire-green firs with purple cones,   Did too.   For the silver-studded starfish there were oceans   Wet with green and blue –   And oceans for the whale and dolphin too.     On blackest soil, the man called Adam grew   H

In the Beginning Was Strange to think I am the universe and everything in it too. I call out. No voice returns other than my echo. So evidently, I am my own cause and, worse, horribly alone. Bored, I fall into a deep sleep and dream of many things: wave-like particles in plasma; diverse organisms, vertebrates and invertebrates; metals and gases; all kinds of finite bodies with perishable qualities, competing for succession and place and rank. Time passed and, with time, entro

God was striding the heavens when a snake emerged from a bone black gap between the wet green grasses. Six days passed and earth was in...

The brickwork is broken, Gardens are in disarray, The iron gates swing free from their hinges, Rain sings in the gutters &...

Lamech’s Revelation Lord, I have seen the inner workings of man and I am afraid. Poor and pathetic: he is corrupted from the start, living in a blasted world. But my eyes have seen the ark of salvation, which you have prepared in secret: my own son Noah, the justification of all that is to come. He knows the secrets of all living things. He was born in the night but came out perfect. He is my Adam on whom God will pour out His righteousness. The same God who will one day wipe