Luke 1:81
I am thing. Certain.
Stricken dumb, call me Beta.
A blessed shadow.
My mute-loose tongue laps
virgins and stricken in years,
Wholly ghost, I rise.
Luke 2:53
A light to lighten
tarried afraid mis-spaking;
marveled salvation
Lettest depart peace,
wist ye not the openeth
heat of womankind.
Luke 3:39
The Wildman cries,
“Here’s the news, can’t fill his shoes!”
I fan the fire.
In my tight Levi’s
I’m a wild flamer. Hot.
The coo of heaven.
Luke 4:45
God don’t mess with no
Son-of-a bitch. Fat with fame
And me and we, Heal!
You dirty devil,
Hold thy peace and come out. Spake.
What? A word is this?
Luke 5:40
Launch deep and draught nets
And when they heave, withdraw wild
Into –ness and heart.
Strange new wine busts old
bottles and drunk man
desireth better spirits.
Luke 6:50
Work it all weekend,
kissing cheeks, shaking
a withered finger.
Fruits and floods corrupt;
Oh mercy. What a house. All
spirit and eye beams.
Luke 7:51
My boys be marvelin’
in brothels and bars, spinnin’
tales in deadly mouths .
Son, when her tresses
tingled the sweet spot of sole,
what love forgave thou?
Luke 8:57
Mary, Joanna,
Suzanna. Reap seeds, candle-
light devilish snubs.
Choke swine and awaken
dead hearts of Legion. Bewail
not. Eat meat. Bite tongues.
Luke 9:63
Mountains change things. Not
hole, or nest, my house is cloud.
It foameth secrets
of slain and rise and
three. And then came twelve, five, two,
and fifties. Fragments.
Luke 10:42
Spirits, I wolf, lamb
I am Serpent, seventy,
a miracle in your mouth,
labour in your field.
And fire on the mountain.
Love your scorpion.
Luke 11:55
Jesus doesn’t like
division or the law. Woe
is a white bone bled
dry. With closed eyes and
forked tongues, dummies search for signs
on wicked platters.
Luke 12:60
Jesus likes sparrows
a little but hair even
more. Give me an hour
and I will make that
tongue sing; Covet cloud loins,
and showers will come.
Luke 13:36
Jesus likes touch. Dig
and dung it, and fruit will come.
We all loose ass, weep
and gnash on Sabbath.
Spread your branches and gather
your brood at the pits.
Luke 14:36
Same lame maimed dropsy
story. He who exalts the
wives of oxen on
the ground near hedges
by a highway resurrects
recompense. Hear ye?
Luke 15:33
Wholly ghost, I am
the eldest son of the field.
I want party. Skin
silver sheep so life
can cloak from ye. And brother
remains lost, not found.
Dig this… ashamed he
Was. Wasted. An unrighteous
Mammon.
For the children of
this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
Luke 16:32
Unjust in the much
At least a table tittle,
I knoweth hearts, wives, holy dog
tongue lapping waves
of a great gulf, begging thence
and burning with thirst.
Luke 17:38
Here a lo, there a
lo, everywhere women grind
beneath eagles-a-
thither in rain-fire.
Trow not, good stranger, glory
a whole lotta faith
Luke 18:44
Blind camels stuck with
needles justify better,
And you don’t know it.
The mock-spit and scourge
Of one beat will rise on three
then your eyes will see
Luke 19:49
The stones cry and I
cry and He cries. We all cry
trenched about on stage
Attentive thieves cast
long shadows when fleeing this
house of bought prayer.
Luke 20:48
Authority is
A durst beat, stone re-
jects teetering
on the tongue, a word,
my word will grind, be powder
for widows cheeks, Son.
Luke 21:39
Mites of truth I say
Widows rise against nations.
Pestilence famines
for answers in hearts.
Moons—perplexed and roaring—shall;
Heaven and seas shall…
But my words shall not.
Come early to the temple,
Overcharged with drunk.
Luke 22:72
Let’s eat God and kiss;
And deny plus three; sayest
suffer in a cock
crew. Smote present past
the Christ I bred. Heeled our ear,
severed by tongue; We are
Peter and tears, Man.
Know not what thou sayest, but
if that’s what you say, We
am. Let’s eat meat, you hear?
Luke 23:56
For, behold, coming,
Blessed are the barren wombs,
paps which gave no suck.
Mountains, Fall on us;
and to the hills, Cover us.
If they do these things
in a green tree, what
be done in the dry?
Jesus cried, Father,
into thy hands I commend
my spirit, loudly:
he gave up the ghost.
Luke 24:54
Jesus rolled the stone,
Left his linens
But it was I, Wholly, with the women and Mary’s. Ask Cleopas, and
Oh man. Amen!
Chad Faries is the author of two collections of poetry, The Border Will Be Soon and The Book of Knowledge. A recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, he lived and taught in Central Europe for many years. Currently he teaches at Savannah State University, where he also hosts a radio program on WHCJ 90.3. When not in Thunderbolt, Georgia, Faries gets lost on his motorcycle whenever he can. Above all, he is a “Yooper”—a native of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.