Not Your Sister’s Seraphim
Black wings, white wings,
a war in heaven
challenging the foggy fiber
of our catechism; to even consider
that angels can be warriors,
to suggest that they can be executioners
and soldiers in God’s Army,
holding retribution in one hand
and golden rewards in the other
creates conflicting iconography—
Henry Travers as Clarence Oddbody
contrasted with Viggo Mortensen
crouching sinister on a rock wall as Lucifer,
Cary Grant dazzling the bishop’s wife
compared to Christopher Walken’s
manslaying Gabriel—or those gentle
and flawed German angels
in Wim Wender’s films
sacrificing their wings of desire
to their American clones; with Nicolas Cage
paling in Bruno Ganz’s shadow—
hovering in tandem,
Danyael, Simon, Michael and Samayel,
peopling your night’s journey,
screams and laughter mingling
operatically--
awakening gently
to a soft fluttering in the darkness,
finding a single white feather resting
on your cheek, recalling anew
those heavenly killing fields
littered like brown corn stalks
with the corpses of angels.
Glenn Buttkus March 2010
* * *
Not Your Sister’s Seraphim
Black wings, white
wings, a war in
heaven challenging the foggy fiber
of our catechism,
to even consider that
angels can be warriors, to
suggest that they
can be executioners and
soldiers in God’s army, holding
retribution in one
hand and golden rewards
in the other creates conflicting
iconography—Henry Travers
as Clarence Oddbody contrasted
with Viggo Mortensen crouching sinister
on a rock
wall as Lucifer, Cary
Grant dazzling the bishop’s wife
Compared to Christopher
Walken’s manslaying Gabriel—or
those gentle and flawed German
angels in Wim
Wender’s films sacrificing their
wings of desire to their
American clones; with
Nicolas Cage paling in
Bruno Ganz’s shadow—hovering
in tandem, Danyael,
Simon, Michael and Samayel,
peopling your night’s journey, screams
and laughter mingling
operatically—awakening gently to
a soft fluttering in the
darkness, finding a
single white feather resting
on your cheek, recalling anew
those heavenly killing
fields littered like brown
corn stalks with the corpses
of angels.
Glenn Buttkus March 2010
3 comments:
I like it but of course don't get some of the film references. It still comes through though.
Take Care
Judy
OMG, angel corpses, the poor things.
Good one!
xo
Jannie
I think the end of this poem is incredibly beautiful, Glen. The tone, pace, language, and also how 'angels' takes on a wider significance than the poem started with. For me, the long first stanza is too long, your ideas might be expressed as effectively with less examples. And the line 'creates conflicting iconography' feels too prosaic and out of register with the language the poem develops towards. I think editing and understating the first part could produce an exceptional poem.
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