Once upon a time, I read that the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Apparently most of T.S. Elliot’s stuff came out then, the rest having to do with prose. I realized January 19ththat I will turn twenty-four in three months, and since I started writing some poems before it’s too late: forty-six poems at twenty-three. I’ll post each Friday until the last week of March, then I’ll post one a day until my birthday on April 30th. Here’s number 14:

I saw him call down fire from heaven
in rooms thronged with young minds
primed for eruption

I heard him whisper names of things
secrets hidden within bittersweet scrolls
names, masteries, insights, mysteries, intuitions,
control over nuclei
of thrones, crowns, primeval beasts, modern call girls, flying scorpions, a
red dragon
of the sea,
of the song,
of the seven thunders,
of the sacred surreptitious scroll
once buried under sand

I smell incense rising:
Nag Champa, Cinnamon, Egyptian Musk, Spikenard, Lavender Sage, Myrrh, Goldenseal, French Vanilla, Rose, Raspberry Crystal, Jasmine Flower, Juniper Breeze, Sandalwood, Super Hit, Coconut, Cool Water, Paradise – Let’s Go!, Cotton Candy, Mango Madness – Think Vacation, Cherry Vanilla – #1 Best Seller, Pink Sugar, Polo Blue, Dream Catcher, Eternity – Is Forever!, and 77 other scents!
I smell prayers rising
once filtered out of our fresh air

I taste the scroll, I eat the scroll
savor each sentence
relish recapitulations, refraining
piquancies within consuming consummation
deep in all our cores
inside we who once heard him,
discovered with him,
absorbing along, the
man who acquired this taste for things

Can you feel him?
Can you feel him among the great cloud?
Can you feel him witness us now?

I can.