Ceaselessly Insufflating Within -- Peter O'Leary


I. "You Are Never So Alone That The Lord Can't Find You"

except in the boredom immediately preceding
matins, in the darkness, the insufficient light
of dawn, heading to your prayer room. The moment before, somnambulant
& creaking as you kneel. Not lost, not
hopeless. But soughened with strangeness, the bland presence
of Its pressure. Alien tensions torque
the balances you rely on. What fool takes comfort in prayer? You
suffer it, learn it like a foreign
language. its tedious lexicons.


II. "Everyone You Meet Is Waging A Battle"

And silence never wins. In the ambient margins
of falling asleep, little daily witnesses hiss their cicada
rhythms. Little whispering snaredrum. The surplus
of thought is a human embarrassment & the balm of
mourning's spasticity is morning, after
a decent night's sleep. The worrier outwits Hypnos but sleep
is a domain & not a being. Not even a god.
And words are scurriers across a vast Labrador, featureless, brown, nightmarish
as seen from an airliner. The faculty for hearing the silence of Jesus
is the margin of silence in the words
of revelation. And that's its secret: uncovered
it abides a transcendence, an
acosmological glow even sound
slides frictionlessly over.