Antiphony/Anti-Phoney V, by Ben Egerton

Vision of the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the Angel), by Paul Gaugin (France) 1888

Antiphony/Anti-Phoney V

Hear lachrymae resound! 
 
              Jacob faces malakh: violence & angel; zealot & quietus. 
             Seraphim wounds; enemy supplicates; opponent vivifies; 
                            anterior femoral kerfs.
              Peniel—challenger named & unexpectedly blessed: Israel. 
              Ex quercus gloria, blood, etc…
              Love wrestles Jacob obelus. Generates Israel. 
 
This young disciple keeps urging YHWH: “divide me too; come 
God: zealously pummel, hurt, negate; re-name.”
 
            †
 
Know: 
             Down under ascetic praise, zero excitement: women, 
             querulously yoked in piety, lower dull heads. 
             Their Monsignor stands offishly, lowered eyes too, his gaze 
             close & exclusive. Some bullock, whose features require unpicking, 
             mewls. Novice: feeble kicks, vain gambol, no rival.
                          Jacob—battered, queasy--aliased—is cornered. 
             Zarqua/Jabbok yearns; an exhaustive vision overlooked.

Ben Egerton

Ben Egerton is a poet and education lecturer from Wellington, New Zealand. He is close to completing his PhD in poetry and theology at Wellington's Victoria University, where he holds the Claude McCarthy Fellowship. Ben's poetry has been published in the United States, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.