On the Moment Just As Catastrophe... and then Long After

February 17^th:  On the Moment Just As Catastrophe...and then Long After

Where I a Prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air imprison'd also, close and damp,
Unwholsom draught: but here I feel amends,
The breath of Heav'n fresh-blowing, pure and sweet

                                                                                                John Milton

                                                                                                Samson Agonisties

I was thinking about Samson

before he woke up that last time

he had all his hair, when after his

night of her all over him with her scissors

                                                a story I know says

                                                he was shaved

                                                by men but I like to think

                                                he’s so strong

                                                drunk she takes the lead

                                                and holds his slick living

                                                hair in her hand the way

                                                she’s always held him

                                                and it shines in the olive oil

                                                light and is so

                                                unremarkable she is almost

                                                through the lock before

                                                she feels the spirit rush out

                                                like a naked girl at the river

                                                when the lightning strikes

                                                nearby.  But when she’s holding

                                                the cut off hair almost

                                                right away she begins

                                                sleeping with him

                                                and they’re both done in

               

when he wakes up all skin

and no other trace of him (maybe

the basket of his hair is sold

up river) and he is still

all muscle stuffed in the narrow

end of his dream and he reaches

for her and she Philistine

beneath the lions mane is the same

as the night before, she is honey,

is jawbone, is dust and blood

on her thighs and he tries, oh but

he tries reaching for her

and it’s like waking up after too much

surgery, after the exploration

didn’t go well and the wound is sewn

and the wind is still blowing

under the bone of memory

and she’s smiling she’s asleep

she’s tight with herself and her lion.

She’s still got a fist of his hair

and maybe that’s his blind moment

seeing: he can’t not notice now

and slumps down all at once, a sack

of cut and dried cedar.

He is losing himself he is losing his beloved

God he’s nothing yet of nothing what

he will be:

                                branded blind bare

                                at the mill wheel

                                siring sons in his cell

                                the god like drops of his mercury

                                at his feet elusive

                                as the shock trauma

                                but waking up in the follicle,

                                underneath it all,

                                prickling.