Philip Kobylarz, Industrial Devotion, Photograph
Is It Just Me
or is the world disposing quickly of us,
like a tearful kaleidoscope of leaves,
unable to cover November’s wound,
mourning a billion trees in flames.
Or is winter why the wise men came,
guided by the sky’s nipple in the night,
a sparkling revelation of distant hope,
of wait we are coming to kiss his hands
before wood holds
his name with nails.
__________________
Daniel Edward Moore
Review by David B. Prather
Moore is truly adept at mixing sensuality and the sacred, of turning convention into the most surprising expression which turns our preconceived ideas into startling questions of reality. The music of this work is splendid.
Review by Theric Jepson
“Or is winter why the wise men came, / guided by the sky’s nipple in the night” is the sort of perfect absurdity I love in a poem. It’s a startling image, utterly wrong and, simultaneously, deeply accurate. I immediately screenshotted it to share on social media only to realize it wasn’t yet published. Which is a shame. As I write this it is December 8 and this is exactly what this Christmas season needs to shake itself loose of the staid and the usual. Bring on the nipple of the night this Yuletide! But seriously, it is right. All literature is about beginning and endings, creation and destruction, sex and violence, birth and death. Did not God call himself the Son of Man to make just this point? Are not nipples and nails part of the same eternal round?
Review by Jared Pearce
Describing the guiding star as a nipple is, I think, very keen. Here’s a devotional with a little grit and grime.