Monday, March 2, 2015


Lent 2 B Year of St. Mark

cleansing
Harvey S. Mozolak

no intruder 
but the Son
in his Father’s house
he seeks 
the temple shops
stalls where confession
ends in the penance of pigeons
contrition in the attrition of herds of cattle
and sheep heard bleating payment blood
the coins stacked in columns
silver thin and vineless
will make change
not in those who enter
to burn and bow
to pray with pretense
muttering of mercy and ablutions
but in God’s wealth
become a poverty which consumes
the riches of worship whipped
after fluttering and fleeing animals
across the back of his anointed body
the thorn-stemmed templed 
roped and dragged 
toward destruction

and then beyond 
toward the home of heaven
where nothing is sold
for all has already been bought
for the Father by his Son



Exodus 20. 1-17

written before stone
Harvey S. Mozolak

law of the land
and pull of the tide
so the sun might swirl
palm fronds their green
swaying in the wet wind
a ripe fruit 
that drops decays
and seeds a new stem
ten words 
of gravity
growth and light
touching God’s ordering
of creation’s reach
never beyond
where the breath within
has been the living
ever tablet of the heart



John 2. 13-22

cleansing body
Harvey S. Mozolak

a body not for sale
his near Passover
on the way up to Jerusalem
God’s civic thumbprint
in the flesh of earth
connecting heaven’s pulse
to the human hemorrhage
he the lamb
the ox for slaughter
wealth exchanging
turning the tables 
of all treasured economies
dove that flutters alights
and signs of abated wrath
draining gone
as he walks among the colonnades
rebuilding how we awe



John 2. 13-22

speaking of his body
Harvey S.Mozolak

qodes haqqodasim

the stain
not of cattle blood
tracked sheep dung
pigeon-whitened feathers
coins passed from greasy hands
palms barely wiped 
of infant back sides
but the mar and mark
of scuffling feet 
dragging the lamb
deeper into the temple
with whips 
that scourge heaven 
and scour an earth
under construction 
splinted by fracture
and limbed by severance
as the holiest healing place

sanctum sanctorum 



John 2. 13-22 

spring cleaning 
Harvey S. Mozolak

the attraction of the city 
Jerusalem the marketplace 
of a piece of God 
selling where there is meant 
only the giving and receiving 
making money 
templed where love is the great exchange 
here the smell of rising prayer 
was to attract and alter 
at the navel of the unseen 
sacred scar of the once connected 

his own body 
destroyed by the God-hawking 
of cattle 
sheep and doves 
the caged for sacrifice 
are borne to the air 
no longer needed 
Christ so consumed 
for the Father's altar 
that no other table will do 
but to begin the three day 
destruction 
in the cleansing peace of God 

sold 
the broken bag of silver coins 
spilt on the floor 
soiled 
a bloody whip driving him out 
beyond the holy curtain and protecting wall 
overturned we flutter free 
to rest and nest 
on the housing wood 
branches that burn in the Friday sun 
new center of the universe
less than a minute ago

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