Poems, Autumn 2026

1. The Merciful Man

He walked along the brush,
Feasting on the currants
Off the trees. His enemy
Sought to trap him, it's sure.
Yet, he mercifully moved his feet
And forgave: For why throttle
The man who stole, when you owe
Hundreds of Talents of Gold?
Thus, he prayed for mercy,
For a righteous man shall receiver her;
He who is merciful shall receive mercy
So the Beatitudes say:
And upon the path were a perfect fish
A bass, just recently died:
The heron stood on the pier
And probably dropped it in flight.
He picked up the fish, a trophy of a catch!
And threw it back into the pond.
For, it had died of its own
And was not lawful to eat.

2. The Tree of Life

Imagine if you would,
A Hickory Nut on the forest floor
With a little rotted piece
Concaved on its green husk.
And consider the vines
Beneath its shell, where the fruit
Once sat protected.
Now, imagine, this shape
Were designed by a logic
And that logic described perfectly
The physics of something else.
Or the logic that was used to solve it did.
Consider that Hickory Nut,
Its very shape like a curve
Its volume or surface area or a line within it was the logic
That would describe the very physics of something in our world.

Now consider, a formula that is as a tree
Shifting in time, a Date Palm,
Flowing in the wind.
It bends and flows;
Consider that tree, there
Swaying in the breeze
Is another form of logic,
Its very volume and motion
Used to describe an advanced form of physics.
Can you? Just for a moment?
Understand, it's like the tree of life.

3. Silence

Jerusalem, you whore, imperious:
Stay quiet, my love.
Write your thoughts,
But be as a mime and cheer people
With your love.
Just be quiet.
I am like Jerusalem. 

4. Holy Bias

I read, in 2004 even,
That Athanasius did not
Write the creed.
Yet, in St. Gregory's writing,
There is mention of him writing
Down such confession,
And giving it to an emperor.
Thus we can conclude,
That French monks
Wrote down the creed
By direction of the extant document,
And then canonized it.
Many things go unnoticed by scholars
Just like this: But that is the division needed,
And it is a Holy Bias.
For a little faith is necessary to hold all things.

5. They

I take my notes in verse, understand:
Creatively reflecting upon the hearts of man:
Spenser is barred from the canon
By angry children and college mammon.
"They" is not a conspiracy of the left;
It is what the markets want, and cleft
They do a trailblazed path...
All so all forget the past.

6. The Preacher

The preacher preached a sermon
On Marcus Aurelius. The Impasse
Is the way... you move it, you go over it
You climb under it, you go around it.
Then, he said, "With God there is a way,"
And, "The brethren say, but God says differently." 
Then he said there was work to be had everywhere...
The brethren say.
But God says differently. 

I walk the narrow path,
I see all things go against my favor.
Is failure sign of God's disapproval? 
I think the Thyatirans were poor
And so were the Anabaptists.
What the preacher worshipped was the economy.
His fortune, and you heard it in his voice.
I am a writer.
"The brethren say, but God says differently." 
Those were his words.

What is the true impasse?
Do I go under, over, around, through, move it?
They say, so it is,
"The brethren say, but God says differently."
They are like Lawyers, attaching burdens too thick to carry
And won't even lift it themselves.

I recall why there was a revolution fought,
In Hackcock's own words:
The British would not let commerce
Be had, for they would not suffer
A man his livelihood.
Who shall fight my revolution?
It is only mine in words.
You, preacher, can lift me up.
Or you can push me down.
I recall many martyrs who died
At the hands of idol shepherds.
"The brethren say, but God says differently."

I recall Christ crucified, 
I recall Jeremiah put in prison,
I recall John Bunyan in long imprisonment,
I recall Hans Brael whom the rats ate his food and his clothing rotted off his flesh.
I recall 3,000,000 killed by Spain,
11,000,000 killed by Rome,
And untold killed by the Orient, for records of such things aren't kept.
"The brethren say, but God says differently."

You have the power to unyoke me, and my captivity.
But, you rather strengthen it with falsehood.
"The brethren say, but God says differently."

7. 121 Martyrs a Day

Recall, during Rome, they played games with death.
It was to appease the gods, and Christians were the victims.
121 Martyrs a day, for 250 years, that is the number.
Believable, don't you think, now that you consider?
For if there were no victims, the gods got angry,
Therefore the blood must have been the oblation.
Across many territories, the games were played,
A country the size of our United States.

8. The Conversation of the Martyr

"There is no God, dude, it's all a lie." He shrieks with joy.
The martyr sits in silence,
"By the time you're finished, and the hell you create
"They'll cry out for God, and He will answer."

9. Dark Age

So few read, and it becomes 
The rite of the privileged.
They speak of demons:
I give you demons to read about.
No, not literal...
What they've always been.

10. The Daisy and Aster

The daffodil is
The first flower, in springtime;---
The aster is last:
The yellow nosed daffodil;
The aster a mauve daisy.

Springtime the yellow daffodil blooms first;
In the first days of fall, the aster, last.
The Phlox and Chicory still bloom; also
The Hardy Hibiscus. Yet I speak, so!
The wildflowers are nature's timepiece.

11. Work?

Work comes in different forms---
The bearded Country Man
Reads books, and tells his thoughts.
He gets paid. I listen to him.
But, I feel the judgmental
Glare of my Earthly sire
Over in the dining room.
"You are doing fake work."
No... I am not. I am listening
To a thousand voices
So mine can be well informed.
Someone must, or we'll all
Be ignorant.

12. We All Come to the Sacred Book

We all come to the sacred book;
Each of us carves out a sacred nook.
Wars are made, challenges accepted---
The liberal and conservative spar.
The Conservative reads his Transcendentalist;
The Liberal reads her Postmodernist;
The Doctor reads his Modernist;
The Lawyer reads his Historian;
Another lawyer her Best Seller;
The CEO reads his Philosopher;
The Economist reads his Capitalist;
The Rebel reads his Marxist;
The Philosopher reads his Logician;
The Feminist her Mythology;
The Christian his Theology;
The Muslim his Tafsir;
The Asian her Mystic;
The Hindu her Vedda;
The Atheist his Existentialist;
The Author his Sages.

This writer listens to them all
Like Mr. Whitman, able to believe.
Listen to all the different things
People say. And you shall gain
Some insight.
He thinks the smallest voice should have their say;
For all wisdom is bound in the many voices of history.
Not just the scholar, or the sage,
But the folk and the radical, too.

13. Hark!

The fool slips in through the cracks:
He repeats verbatim what you said back.
Oh! It is not in your own words, thou fool!
I know, how I know, thou art an unthinking tool!
Pry as you might, into my secret things:
Just think on them, that is all I wean.
The man said to me just the other day!
A story has truth, even though it is fay!
For hidden in the untruths of life
Hidden in its inexactitudes,
Is a fortune of gold, if you like:
You shall see all wisdom that is true
If you search for it, hidden in their clues.
Listen for the truth that wends their life;
What is it, let wisdom be thy wife.
Know, Jesus of Sirach said,
Business continued shall one day be made black from red.
For that is the secret to my wisdom it's true:
I listen to all, and even you.

14. Circular Logic

In straight lines we go,
Infinite chains of infinite causes.
No effect having being,
For to have being is circular.
Thus, no one knows.

15. White-breasted Nuthatch

I am small, don't you know?
Like a White-breasted Nuthatch.
I climb the tree, and eat the grub.
The oaks are dropping leaves and acorns
The currants are falling off the branch.
The walnuts are seen in the bare trees
Like green testicles.
I consider life---
How I go, to be free like the bird
In the wild, to meander here and there.
Free to eat, and do my work
For life is labor to eat,
But it doesn't have to consume every minute.
There is time for mating,
There is time for marrying,
There is time for games,
There is time for books,
There is time to simply fly
Hither and to, and to perch
Upon the tree, and pick my grub.
Strange how we make all things labor
When the bird is as free as I want to be:
Moving, and plucking the substance
When I feel I need it. Not being told when and how to move.

16. Consider

A careful naturalist knows
When something ultra rare happens.
Usually imperceptible to the novice.
The squirrel seen once a day
The Heron seen once a week,
The Bald Eagle is a once a year sight
But the White-breasted Nuthatch noticed once
In this author's lifetime, until now.
“It is either a wood thrush or woodpecker.”
Neither, yet we can say, “It is a thrush or nuthatch”.
If it is a nuthatch, then it is not a thrush.
If it is a baneberry, then it is not a currant.

17. Politics

Spain, England, Japan, Mexico or New Jersey
War there could erupt even after our 
Sacred Civil War.
And men spoke openly about it
Without fear.
Today, you may only whisper
For offense makes all silent.
Spies liten, and take notes,
Women are prisoner for a word.
Dangerous times: dangerous times.

18. No Consolations

The writer, with no wealth, sat
To read Philosophy's dark
Consolations. Yet, no word
On virtue appeared in the
Pages. The Writer was vexed
And cried a bitter, mournful
Curse, against the gods of the
Age, those heathen, vile men.
For no consolation was
Had. What is philosophy
Without virtue? It is words.

Thus, he sat again at night
And read his book, seeing it
All changed back to what it said
Before: he was pacified.
Yet, how he realized that all
Philosophy now, was like
It, stripped of all virtue, so
It 'twere just poetic words.
As painful as hell. Torture
Of a kind that very few
Will ever understand.
For if the library will
Forget virtue, every page
Might as well burn and nothing
Would be lost. Why read? Without
Virtue?

19. Pitbulls

Oh, Christians, you are like pitbulls.
Sweetest temperament of all dogs.
Full of life, and vivaciousness,
Yet, falsely given a proud name.
Yet, we have the strongest bite
And when we latch onto Satan
We do not let go, and shake
Our Jowls. Yet, weaker
We get kicked, though we 
Will not let go.

©2026 B. K. Neifert
All Rights Reserved