“These Are the Words that Moses ”©1
Dan Lukiv, M.Ed.
English and Creative Writing
McNaughton Centre, Quesnel, BC, Canada
E-mail: lukivdan@shaw.ca
1.
Grumbling in the shade of tents!—
You forgetful sons of Abraham.
How you wailed over these giant-boned
Men, whose city walls pierced clouds,
Who had walked beneath waves
And bobbing corpses,
Who loved mountains—Images of their
Own glory!—who trampled grasshoppers,
Whose crunching they barely heard.
O Anakim! Was Philistia, who shared your
Salty winds, your cousin or merchant friend
Or both?
Surely if you had survived the flood, you could
Send off mere grasshoppers
Leaping into the Red Sea.
2.
Why does rain fall also
Upon the King’s Highway,
Upon brotherly mountains
And tableland too?
Even the Edomite, alone in the desert,
Gathers dew to refresh his dry lips and
Stinging throat. Even the sons
Of Esau find comfort in their mothers’
Arms and warm milk. Why does rain
Fall upon the smiter, and the singer of
Soft songs too? Why does the rain pour
Through the tent of a good man but
Off the tent of men planning his
Murder? Is this God of Jacob’s sons
So impartial that men find fault with
Him?
3.
O Og, mighty Rephaim,
Fallen like a great cedar,
Like a burned out star thrown
Down from heaven, is your
Sarcophagus cold, smooth,
Black like the basalt of Bashan
And the mantle of God’s foot-
Stool? Does your great body
Pass a shadow upon the glossy
Slab?
There you are, as still as your
Memories, your feet, your
Tongue, your fallen high walls and
Heavy gates, all broken. Stop
These men who scuttled alongside
Serpents and scorpions, who now
Bake bread in your precious cities!
4.
This furnace of sand and whips
And beast-gods, did it boil dross
Into the words of these Hebrews?
Did complaints blister their lips?
Did all things unnatural in their
Burdened hearts rise up, up into
The hands of Abraham’s Father,
To be tossed upon the slag heap
Called Pharaoh’s tongue?
5.
The distance between Moses’ face
And Jehovah’s, between their very
Mouths, was not the thickness of
A vision, nor the length of a dream.
The space lay in words,
In syllables aflame,
That an unnamed angel
Articulated.
6.
A frontlet band between your eyes—
Of course the heart should reside there,
On any sort of forehead—flat, lumpy,
Concave, scarred, or sunburned, but
The symbolic lacks the glory of true
Substance, like a god lacks the glory of a much
Better idol. Once people realized that,
Especially after so many would finally
Leave Babylon to re-fill flattened
Jerusalem, parchments of foursome laws,
Stuffed into little calfskin cases,
Later into better ones, bigger outpost
Charms, phylactery, boxes for foreheads,
Would appear, and the difference
Between ordinary men and holy ones
Would stand up like history,
Like the great voice of all antagonists
Everywhere. Certainly the word blockhead
Did not refer to such men of god. That
Would be an insult soaked in bile.
7.
“Little by little,”
The ground will roll away
Hittites and Girgashites,
And their fire-crazed priests,
Replacing even the claws of the bear,
And chewing teeth of the lion, with
New strong feet and birth pangs and
Children who frequently say, “Tell me
About Abraham, papa. Tell me
About the promises our God
Made to him.” But one day the ground
Will roll back, and bear claws and
Chewing teeth of lions will return: see
The progeny, beast-gods, for people
To worship and carve and sacrifice
Their children to; listen to feet running
About; O the birth pangs! and
Children who frequently say, “Tell me
About Dagon, papa. Tell me what
Makes him part fish.”
8.
“Father, I had a dream.”
“Tell me about your dream, my son.”
“There were baskets of figs
And pomegranates and sacks
Of wheat and barley, and jars
Of honey, even syrup of berries,
And they filled up a great torrent valley.”
“That is a lot of food.”
“Yes, father. And in the dream a
Parchment in my hands read,
‘Where does this food come from,
My son?’ When I told the parchment
That I did not know, water rushed
And swirled through the torrent valley,
Sweeping away all the baskets and
Sacks and jars.”
“That is a very bad dream, my son.”
“Yes, father. What does it mean?”
9.
These Canaanites:
Jehovah would not untie clouds,
Transform the land into a kiln
Or rivers into blood,
Or open up the jaws of earth
As he had in the stories of fame
And astonishment,
But he would send swords
Like consuming fires
In the hands of Abraham’s
Children.
10.
What man, or God, is blinded by
Cupped offers of noble acts
Like depriving oneself of chelev2
In exchange for favour, or license
To carry off victims for pleasure
And gold? What deals, eye to eye,
Nose to nose, stand above seraphs
Who touch red hot coals to
Unclean lips?
What handshakes bind what hearts
In spite of widows and orphans
Who won’t keep their bellies
Quiet? What mothers barter to
Eat each other’s children while
Soldiers outside their city’s walls
Cry out, “Surrender or die!”?
11.
Like rivers flowing with blood,
Like swarming insects,
Like visions of idols bursting
Into flames!—
How boils, and bloated animals
Dead upon their sides,
Mirror images of unhappy
Faces. O dread upon kingdoms
That fill up with scattered bones,
Upon a woman unable to
Deliver her child,
Upon a man wallowing in a muddy
Well, trapped as his legs tire out!—
This multitude, like a great cloud
Of locusts: how it casts darkness
Upon kings and lizards.
12.
Into the fires of Molech:
Headfirst, feet first, larynx
Screaming, face contorted
By terror—into the bull-man,
Its metal glowing red, its arms
Outstretched like those of an insane
Parent. Into Molech the furnace,
The bane of kings gone mad, the
Zodiac of fancy, the child of
Inspired thought dripping with
Dementia. Molech the sword,
The altar and god of horror, the
History books, dripping, the graveyards
Of silent soldiers and decomposed
Sons. Molech the man who loves
His wisdom more than love.
Molech Earth, Molech ideology.
Molech fires. Molech, where is
Your paradise?
13.
Prophets that croak like frogs—
Their syllables are dreams and lies
That dark angels make true, if they
Can. And men that profit from this
Cacophony of sound and
Scheme love “artfully contrived”3
Visions, and their bellies, and
Oracles that hypnotize.
Under a tent of darkness,
These liars love to chop up
Good men for a price.
14.
Now that first lie,
“You positively will
Not die,”
Spoken by that puppeteer
Of slander,
Lined a roadway
With smooth rocks,
So that men could push
Their heart-filled carts to the
Unseen realm of underworld
Caves where undead live
Unlives, in murky sleep,
And along the trip
Passion for the lie would persuade
These men to cut their flesh
And shave off their hair
And tattoo names of deities
Upon their sweaty skin—deities
Who would certainly
Never say such things as
“You will positively die.”
15.
This fruit of choice,
Bitter in the hand of Cain,
Sweet in Noah’s saw,
Round in the hole of an ear
Pierced by an awl. No
Slaves of lifeless gods of stone
Or metal or wood! Or of cruel
Men who hate the kind word!
O slaves of good men who
Feed and clothe and house,
Like fathers—flesh-born
Images of a Greater Father,
Whose slaves neither
Bow to their bellies or
Any other man’s lust.
Where will they reside?
In the desert? The mountains?
The ships at sea?
Wherever they rest, they find
Their heads upon the breast
Of Abraham.
16.
O Moses, who would
Ever get over the passover,
The grief of Egypt, the wailing
Of Pharaoh himself, the blood
That saved a few behind the
Blood that would save a
World? You foretold plagues
That would torment and terrify,
But not death along with spit
And reviling, unbroken bones
And impalement. You mediated
A covenant of laws, some on
Stone, but not on hearts for men
to wonder at. You delivered a
Great crowd from swords and
Sea, but not from slavery to death.
Unlike the echoes of Egyptian despair,
Your works would ring through time
Of greater works, greater glory,
Even the death of tears.
17.
A king with a real beard and
Crown of gold
And promises. A king on a
Heavy throne, like those men
Of power in the nations round
About. A king who breeds horses,
Especially from Egypt. A king
Who weds women by the dozens:
Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites,
Egyptians, Sidonians—beautiful
Women who worship frogs and fish,
The sun and moon, stones and
Firewood. A king who can’t find
The book of the law, or whatever
Priests call it. Why have a king of
Everything when you can have a
King with a real beard?
18.
And no Levite,
Camped about tent cloths,
Or temple stones,
Who plucked the harp,
Sang psalms, guarded gates,
Or kept fires hot,
Should twist and grunt
Like a muzzled bull
Forced to thresh.
Did not Adam, garden keeper
Who named wild beasts
And flying creatures, eat
Good fruit unstolen?
But when a greater prophet
Would speak of lilies and sparrows,
And storehouses in heaven,
How many of these plump
Men would sing new
Psalms?
19.
The domino fences, built by
Less than two or three witnesses,
Divided men always one better than
Another, from the land of good things
To other lands best unexplored,
And the trails of blood that joined
Home to home, from the sun that rises
To the sun that falls, became the stuff
That filled pages of books of kings
And lesser beings;
When the better domesday
Places each fence back where
It belongs, alongside better weights
Of measure, and all the history
Books are forgotten like arthritis and
Blindness and crooked spines,
And all the earth spins balanced and
More true than any merchant can
Manage, then the mists of Eden
Will refresh the land between the seas
And all the blood of men.
20.
What are chariots, even wheels
With spinning blades, against
Kishon waters that swirl and foam,
And what are victory horses and
Chariots swallowed by the sea,
And what are the sword and shield
Of a taunting giant against a sling
And stone, and what are horses
Hamstrung, or men who exclaim,
“I will exterminate this brood!”
Or a great army against a few
Torches, jars, and horns, or
Scriptures burned to keep people
From reading them, or, for that
Matter, what are jails, scourgings,
Curses, and impalement against
Hearts filled with more than mere
Credulity?
21.
Fortunately, gluttons and
Drunkards have not overrun
The land, like hawkweed,4
Hate, bullets, or
Graveyards. How parents would
Take their hopeless children to the
Older men, and outside the city
Walls, stones would fly. See
Corpses on stakes, down before
Sunset, like weeds felled
By the scythe. So many!
So many! This does not speak
Of 501 against that logician, or
12 or 23 neighbours much like
Henry III’s court, or fanatics tossing
Rocks at Paul, or Paul, I mean Saul, and
Other fanatics killing Stephen, or haters
Of God’s firstborn who failed to
Stone him. This does not speak of
Seas empty like Ethiopian stomachs,
Or all the different sorts of spirits that
Make tongues wag and curl into mindless
Laughter. This does not speak of 71
Men shaking fists at criminals of the
Universe. Where is the honour in
Such things? A family disgraced!
Too many! Too many! Such a little
Earth, unable to spin away from its
Toxic skies and unearthly children.
22.
Give back all oxen found and
Withheld, all sheep that have
Strayed from their folds;
Give back asses and cloaks,
Sacks of grain forgotten in a field
Or left helpless in a wagon;
Give back Abel’s blood, and
The glory that serpent tried to
Draw into its strange lungs;
Give back the Sabbaths stolen
Until the debt totalled 70 years;
Return the hand that reached for
Fruit not hers to her naked hip;
Give back all the blood Nimrod
Spilled for fun; Give all the bulls
And asses unevenly yoked
To kinder men with straight
Furrows; Give all the laughter
That Noah heard to a theatre
With a good roof; and all the
Mother birds plucked from nests,
Give them back to their hungry
Children; Give back every sparrow
Pierced by Nimrod’s sons,
To fill the land with song;
Give back scrolls burned, books
Of light burned, people burned,
To the shelves and table tops
And mothers’ arms where they
Belong; do all of these things,
And a few more too, and re-write
All the history books, and then
Give them to our children to
Read.
23.
“O Jacob, do not hate your
Brother,” your red twin, who
Hated his birthright but loved
Lentil stew, who settled in a land
Red and craggy, and lofty like
Clouds. Such a “field of Edom,”
Rich in raw dirt, acquired by
Swords that turned Horites
Into red pools. The new sheiks,
From desert to wilderness, highlands
To sea, fortress to fortress, who
Walked tall into tableland and clouds
That headed east like merchant ships—
How they turned up their noses
To that seed, of all things, that would
Crush some serpent in the head.
Ha! “I am Edom, a man of copper,
Iron, and pine forests! See my
Splendour! My olive groves!
My vineyards! My women!
My wells of clean, cold water!”
Ha! “Tell my brother to give me
Another bowl of red. The red!
Ha!” Won’t his God flash forth
From my Seir?5
“I am Edom, king of peoples chased
Into graves. I am kings of all things
Red. Ha!—Remind my brother—yes!—
Remind him that his God Jehovah says,
“You must not detest an Edomite,
For he is your brother.”
24.
This forest of idols, like indecent
Faces in a bad dream or slippery
Creatures in a black river; this
Glory of the nations; this place for
Sun dancing, temple prostitutes,
Child sacrifice, orgies in the name
Of new grain, bloody gifts to beast
Gods born in caves lodged in the
Skulls of men; this kingdom of carved
Stone and wood and poured gold—
What men share their wives with
Other men? Or make cuts upon
Their bodies, and cry out, “My God!
My God! Are we not at peace?”
25.
See, prickly like briars, mobile like
Tumbleweed, inflamed like pride:
Tributary camps of Amalek spin
Out of the dry Negeb. How Esau,
Grandfather of enmity, taught
His children well, like all great
Patriarchs with their wide-eyed
Sons upon their thighs:
“Amalek, remember, a belly
full of stew is greater than things
Not seen.”
Unprovoked Amalek, punisher, firstborn
To gnash, to plunge your sword into the
Back of Jacob, Esau’s only brother. Down
Went the feeble! The faint! The weary!
How little history mentions you. A king
Hacked to pieces. A prime minister over
The land of burnt faces to the land of
Lumbering elephants, hung upon the
Stake you planted for the better man
You hated.
Where walks he who says, “I am
From Amalek”?
O the gnashing of that peacock man on that stake,
Who cried out in hatred and rage and horror—
Where are your children, Esau? Where have
They gone?
26.
Jacob, seizer of the heel,
Son of an old man, Isaac, and
Grandson of a nomad who held
The seed of all good dreams
In his lions; Jacob, a Syrian,
Wasting away under the lies of
Laban—O Jacob, Aramaean:
You became Israel, the flesh
That had wrestled an angel, then
You became a Jew, then
A people dispossessed
And scattered like seeds in wind;
Jacob in Spain, Italy, shops in
Ireland of all places.
O Jacob, when will we sit around
The noisy campfire and speak about
Our dreams and disappointments
And say, “I am a son of Adam,
But I have faired better than he”?
27.
Uncut stones, whitewashed with
Lime born from hillside kilns
Fire-bellied and furious—O
The law in clear words upon
Flame-brightened white, a backdrop
For curses or blessings: see
Grapes unfinished like men
Blind or lame, or
Grapes that drip like a new king
Whose wild hair runs with oil.
Why would a man, a father, forsake
His house that his wife expertly keeps,
Or his land of syrup and goat cheese,
Or his ruddy boys and merry girls,
Or his plump sheep, baskets of dates,
And Pilgrimages to that city of hope?
Why would a man gather curses, like
Fire, into his breast? See him, afire!
His life aflame!
In the sun, uncut stones gleam,
Better in their absence of colour,
Like dreams of men at peace.
28.
You, the head and not
The tail,
Free of the coughing disease
And mildew of walls and tables
And hearts.
Your enemies run like frightened
Deer. See your figs,
Filling baskets!
Where is
Your fever, your inflamed
Flesh? Where are your Egyptian
Boils, your piles and eczema?
See your smooth skin, rubbed by
Fragrant oil!
Who has robbed you,
Defrauded you at midday?
Your women: safe. Your vineyards
And homes: safe. The cooked flesh
Of your bulls, sweet between your
Teeth. Where is your ass, your sheep,
Your daughter, your wife to be?
In danger?
Why does no malignant
Boil grow upon
Your knees, upon your feet
Or head? Ah, to breathe easy,
Like a mountain goat overlooking
A crevasse.
You have multiplied like the locust.
The diseases of Egypt have
Fled the land, like frightened
Birds. Search for the barren
Tree. Has it become shy, like
The rock badger?
Who would trade all this for wine
Turned to vinegar? Who would
Choose dread and blindness?
What father would do this?
29.
Why should a poisonous plant,
Like wormwood,
Take root in your bones?,
And why should the fruit of this
Crooked plant touch the lips
Of your sons and daughters?
Why should the wind carry your
Seeds throughout land and time,
To grow to maturity in your
Sons’ sons, with roots in every
Joint and thought?
Why should men filled with bitter
Xylem and phloem say, “We are
Not foreign objects in our
Father’s nose, are we?”?
30.
Must a man fly into heaven
Amongst eagles that see
Shrews a mile off,
And falcons that dive at
300 k6 like flashing rockets
On the wrong vector,
Or must he fly farther, to the
Great throne over every light
Beam that stretches our amoebic
Home, gathering darkness
Into things grand, like
Nebulae and galaxies, or
Must he sail a ship across seas
To coastlines rocky, and loud
With spray,
To find the law of Jehovah
Clear and simple and clean?
Where is this law, firm like
A mountain and green like a
Cool valley? Where is this law
Asks the man whose heart
Has been circumcised and
Whose tongue has been
Healed?
31.
O Moses, unclawed by age,
Full of breath and strong
Blood, how did you tuck away
That Egyptian wisdom into a
Dark cave?
And how did speaking to sheep
And listening to their bleats for
40 years teach you the wisdom of
humility?
What strange training
For a prophet—! a saviour!—
Who would lead millions of
Stiff-necked brothers
Through a dry land where
Scorpions and serpents
Scuttled and slithered.
Your eyes bright, like flames,
And your legs firm, like hope—
O your brothers! What
Short roots they are!
And such weight!
Does your spine ache when
You stand up straight?
32.
Mount Nebo, upon which
Moses’ lungs collapsed
And the force of his eyes
Disappeared: Like all such
Rocks that stab space—
Arrogant, unabashed by their
Slabs and torrents. This
Deathplace, solid
Like Egypt, and the great ones
Yet to come, like Assyria.
Where
Have the mountains gone?
Have the winds chewed
Them into sand that flies
Away?
Moses prayed to his Rock,
No doubt, before that last
Breath took him to a greater
Tomb. Where have
All the great mountains gone?
The ram with two horns?
The he-goat, hairy, with one
Horn? What did Moses say
To his Rock humble enough
To actually take the hand of
Men? What wind could
Wear down this force of love
And dynamic energy? What
Force could remove Moses
From the memorial tomb
Within this Rock?
Moses must have died in peace,
Knowing that in the end
He was here to stay.
33.
Two-horned Joseph,
Neither an ox, castrated,
Unworthy of sacrifice,
Nor a unicorn of all things—
O you wild bull, although
Gentler (?) than the crazed
Iberian from Spain,
No one will mistake you for
Marduk or Taurus, you
Soldier with two swords. O
You hater of blind gods,
Even those filled by gold,
How you will plough all day,
And eat while you thresh
And snort. See your
One horn,
Stronger than the other:
Which horn will exalt itself first,
Like one of those pretty
Women who tinkle as they
Walk?
34.
O relic hunter,
Have you set up your kiosk
Along a broad highway in
That Great Babylon,
Mother of harlots,
Or in a noisy market in Sodom,
Which still exists like the air
That fills our lungs,
Or in the tableland or gorges
Of Moab, where winds climbing
Out of the Dead Sea come to kiss
The future?
Have you set up your place of business
To sell your holy bones—pure, you
Might say, like fine olive oil
Poured from a golden flask?
Have you made trades—bones of Enoch,
Joseph, Moses7, and the only man who could
Truly speak of things timeless
For the goose that lays golden eggs,
Perhaps?
Where is your kiosk?
Where is your fortune?
End of Book I
ENDNOTES
© Copyright © 2009 by Dan Lukiv. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.
1. All Biblical quotes and references: The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (1984). Brooklyn, NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York.
2. Fat; also may refer metaphorically to the best of something.
4. Sometimes called Devil’s Paintbrush.
6. By “k,” I mean kilometres per hour.
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