PCC INSCAPE MAGAZINE
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Divinity of Christ and The Christmas Concert on Orcas Island at Victorian Valley Chapel

Two poems by R.J. Keeler.  

Divinity of Christ

​Divinity of Christ:
The gathering light of candles scores
my guttering faith, a cyst--
refracted by these pithy flames

it needs endure a lance.
My frail faith, my Christocentric ill,
canst thou be ignorance,
or spite? Or via negativa?

Or, —no! Divinest sadism?
Were Christ at hand in living flesh
would He His grace and chrism
sustain—or bow to grace this man?

The search for truth sustains
the man—the quest for truth, a pathless
land. But truth bestained
sports tiny teeth—they know no end.

In truth, my faith has rived.
But He found His through life on earth;
now lifts His hand to shrive
my frail faith, to heal that wound.

Quite alien but curt:
neti neti! Not this, not this!

Such Upanishads avert
Christ’s tender, holy blessing.

The Christmas Concert on Orcas Island at Victorian Valley Chapel

This ovarian island comforted ice
after Polaris sank and Archer followed.
This glacier’s ice, many large-fish thick,
lay black and silent in tented hollows.

Then slowly homeward trudged
our sun, that glacier's executioner;
it flinched and shot its warmth, let
ice recede, let flower and sky concur--

a moss that cradled snow now's home
to melting song. Inside this tiny church
a dozen candles flickered toward
the narrow, crowded, public bench

on which we sat—as when my mate
comes home and leaves her tired, ur-
ban creature outside the door. We sang
tonight about a simple gift of myrrh.

Above a cold and remnant mist,
brilliant stars—unseen, unbidden--
blink and shuffle as Ave Maria signs
all we commoners suffer hidden:

our brightest fears, our darkest hopes.

Born St. Paul, Minnesota. Lived in jungles of Colombia, S.A., up to age twelve. BS Mathematics NCSU, MS Computer Science UNC, MBA UCLA, Certificate in Poetry UW. Honorman, U.S. Naval Submarine School. “SS” (Submarine Service) qualified. Vietnam Service Medal. Honorable Discharge. Whiting Foundation Experimental Grant. P&W's Directory of Poets and Writers. Member IEEE, AAAS, AAP. The Boeing Company. Does not subscribe to the cattle-prod paradigm of poetry. May tend to melancholy.
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  • Online Issue No. 10
  • About
    • PCC Inscape Instagram
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • ISSUE ARCHIVE
    • Online Issue No.9
    • 2016 Fall Online
    • 2016 Sppring Online
    • 2017 Fall Online
    • 2017 Print Issue - Manifesto TOC
    • 2018 Fall Print Issue - Frankenstein TOC
    • 2018 FA Frankenstein Companion
    • 2018 Summer Online
    • 2018 Fall Folio - VOTE
    • 2018 Fall Spirituality
    • 2019 Celebrating Dia De Los Muertos
    • 2019 SPR Mental Health Companion >
      • Issue Intro
    • 2019 Fall Folio -- Moon Moon
    • 2019 Fall Folio
    • 2020 Summer Folio
    • 2020 Feb Folio
    • 2021 Feb Folio
  • Feral Parrot : The Blog
  • 2022 Handley Awards
  • INTERVIEWS
  • Inscape Alumni Board