Job Sits in His Chair

Job sits in his chair of molten lead
Walks on a beach of burning sand

speaks words that blister the air
sings a soft song that his

heart can hear

Finds his closest companion just
a jugular vein away

Holds onto that conversation as its
whirlwind hurls its lights

through the entire rattletrap cosmos
returning again as earth-shattering music

whose gong is himself
going over Niagara in the

barrel of his ribcage
holding on as it crashes through the

waves in spattering sprays of
silver and gold sparks

against a flashing blue sky that flies from
Hell to Paradise in a single arc

on which Job rides as if on a stallion
loosed from its pen its tail aflame

with everything in the world he’s
known and loved

whipping the air itself into
screens of fire

onto which his whole life plays
from moment to moment from his first birth

to the time he now finds himself in
aswelter in pure being

facing God’s Face like breath
blown on a windowpane

clearing to a transparency
where Job and windowpane both

vanish completely away
and only God stays

6/2/12 (from Down at the Deep End)

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