Jul 23, 2014 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1
There was hardly time for her to close the door; but a moment in the darkness passed before she cast her veil upon the floor and welcomed him to end his long-held fast. Then on her breasts she felt his wine-drunk lips whisper, “Rachel, Rachel my little...
Jan 28, 2013 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Sonnet, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1, Victorian Sonnet
His finger carved a sentence from the stone and the command carved a people from the whole. But they spilled an ink that settles in the bone when they ignored the scribblings of the scroll. While people beneath were busy fouling souls, casting a god they could not...
Jan 4, 2013 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Rhymed Couplets, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1
“You must leave your land, your gods. Take flight.” The Voice was so unyielding, so obscure. How could he trust that whisper in the night beckoning the patriarch from his home in Ur? At the dead end of his doubts he could not— and perhaps it was only...
Apr 17, 2012 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Rhymed Couplets, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1
Before the earth was swallowed up in sea Noah barred the doors and all skies darkened grey, for once the gate was shut, he heard no beggar’s plea; to flinch at life’s last moment could not the hammer stay. Did he hear their clawing hands in his dreams? The...
Dec 11, 2011 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Sonnet, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1, Victorian Sonnet
The mistreated Earth in her heartache sings love songs to Life but shares her bed with Grave. Hers is a marriage of our making; our hands pressed her to become another’s slave just as Michal, the daughter of King Saul, was given once by will and once by force,...
Dec 3, 2011 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Sonnet, The Unspeakable Name vol. 1, Victorian Sonnet
“But, my Lord, who will I say has sent me?” asked shoe-less Moses on his holy plot, expecting an answer from the burning tree. But the cloaking, indirect “I Am” is not a name but a refusal to be named— words that reveal as much as they...
