Bob Hicks

POETRY

In the dark

In the dark
my conscience stung,
Reminded
of a song I’d sung:
Delivered, strengthened, sent
to leap a wall,
and a bow of bronze I bent;
Overcame a troop single-handed,
about the armies I’d once commanded.
[Selah]
I long for the field again,
long to overcome the sin
that keeps me here
With Bathsheba

The emberfall

The emberfall—
like resplendent lightning bugs;
slow-floating ornaments
to our merriment.
We dance,
we drink,
we stumble happily
in the dusky night.
Tiny white ashes
in our blood-red wine
cause no alarm;
we drink with abandon.
As the thunder resounds
our inebriated souls feel
the rumble.
In reverence
we look towards the mountain
with its power,
standing apprehensively silent.
The rumble subsides
the emberfall continues
and we dance
our drunken dance of indifference.
More wine,
more laughter,
more uninhibited whirling and twirling,
stumbling though we may.
The wine is strong
the Earth is moving
And then
burning