Michael Bolerjack Speeches

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world which is to come: and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all. But now you must put off all these. Lie not to one another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. From the Epistles of St. Paul

He Said I Thought Youd Fold He said I thought youd fold When you heard Your word pronounced. Condemned Without hearing, Hearing Without underStanding, I went on Mistaking my Smashing and Sharding for Destined design. But out of the Splinters One signed Next to mine In unknowable Darkness. Sought for and found, I was surprised At the undoing. Then, with half a mind, I slanted the lines And heard the hidden Word undisturbed, Reigning heartWards, UpTurned in time.

She Withdraws She withdraws, And in truncated Reality I wait, Hoping for return. Her love is, But at times There is a caesura, A pause, a Skipped beat, That reminds me of the End, When the Awaited Arrives.

The Fate of Fire The fate of fire is to burn, The soul of the knife is to cut. Speech follows thought, as Action flows from the beginning. Wait in the withdrawal And she will come nigh, Her, the one you wanted, Whose word is Wisdom, Whose touch is Joy.

They Climb They climb The building, They climb and They climb, Until the relevant Wind takes them, Each singly, Then all, Together, Up, Into the storm and Beyond, To the place where God rains his Salvationwind, Which falls where Once they climbed. Destruction is the Saving place, And the storm Gods calm Eye.

Marked By Hubris Marked by hubris, Attenuated by time, A path was given me, Chosen for healing. On the way I have felt all the Hopes and fears Common to mortality. Some imperishable thing Rises up in me and says Stand and make, Stand and do, Not knowing where Poetic compulsion Comes from, Which forever stands Amid the fall of the world, The placement of these words, As particular and fine, As obscure and free, As dust.

I, Having Given Myself I, having given myself To words, Hang suspended In the stupendous And turn, Far, Perhaps, From him, though Dreams seem so Real; Yet, I am told His hand supports me, Like light toward, Like breath escapes.

The Net Was Not Torn The net was not torn, Not yet, And the molecular chains and Enzymes, The chemical balance Maintains, And I, Believing, Live twenty-four hours At a time.

We Live In Aftertimes We live in aftertimes, As we have forgotten. What burden or destiny, What silence could Un-speech us, Keep us from testimony and Impeach us, In aftertimes, That is, Keep us from each Other; Yet we fall Apart, For the price of a soul In aftertimes is next to Nothing.

False Sorrow False sorrow Is the unnecessary Manipulation of Feeling To produce a tear in the Eye Where one should already Stand.

A Decade of Revolution A decade of revolution Awaits us, we Stamped indelibly with The invisible ink of The sign, The invisible light of The book, The indivisible bond, Beyond breaking, The ties of mine and Thine.

Overawed By the Simplicity Overawed by the simplicity Of you and do, Of make and take, I approached the altar Heedless, Bringing my gift, Beyond all hope, Between the moment you left me And the moment you returned. That gift, How heartless it now seems, Having missed You, In your absence, Surviving An hour, LoneLieR.

If I Missed You If I missed you in Circumstances Unavoidable, How would time Hold? If we were to miss Each other even once, All presence Would be lost In the missing, Jumbled music, With no one, No one, To scatter symphonies Or spell the binding song.

If He Crowned You If he crowned you, If he made you an everLasting, imperishable Sign, I would still Read to you and Need you as I do, Speaking poverty to Holiness, Artless, Poetic.

In the Benumbed In the benumbed Numberless Fragments Of time I seek you out, Call your Name, Reach over against You, Again and Again, Until all Thats left.

To Feel You To feel you, Firm and cool, Beneath my hands, And to know we have done this Thing, Irrevocable, To carry us on, Calms my restlessness For a moment, Touching you, Whom heaven, To forget the world, By promise, In its oath, Is taking up And making Real.

The Delicate Strength The delicate strength Of your fingernails, To one side and The tingle of Your hair, Tells me you are coming again And I uncover.

Ten Thousand Times Ten thousand times I have loved you In your presence, In your comings and goings, And found refuge In your gaze; Where others glance and Look away, You see me.

You Lie Naked You lie naked on The bed, Sheets slipping Away, and In the curve Of your hip I see what moves The world.

Mirror Sequence Mirror sequence still, Open to life, Long you wait, Long you want, With fearful smile, To ward off, Contain Possibility, Feeling the approach Of the different In waters rising, Labile, The moment of life Breaking in and Sweeping you, Still smiling, Away.

No Dearth, No Death No dearth, no death, The time of fulfillment Around us, We lay on Our bed, Indissoluble Against The rushing Tide.

Before the Anvils Before the anvils Disappear, Before the hammers Sound On us again, We, Replete with armor, Resonate. Before the iron Purifies, Let my dross Ignite, Awakening you. Let your fire Catch.

In Your Fierce Eyes In your fierce eyes And smiling shadowed brow Let this one question Turn: If we wring out The caverns of romance, Where will we go?

After Summer After summer, After sweat and After song, What remains For us, In scattered airs And accented syllables, Of near touches Of light, And the sensitivity To it?

I Saw Myself I saw myself For a few Seconds Today, Until you came between The sun and I, And we blended Paler Into the gravel Of the walk.

If Events If events cluster in time, Then truth is, and is as Much in their patterns As in things themselves. These are the plans for The house of instruction, In which the relations of poetry Are the windows and doors.

If Pain If pain, Which I seldom feel, Is the thing to be feared, Then why fall in love? If love, Which abounds, Yet falls apart so easily, Is the prize, Why is the competition not Keener? Why do we not Out do each other In love? If truth Can only be underStood By believing, Why does the factual flood Not support our faith? If the stars Are out of Reach, Why do they Shine so Incessantly? They shed no Light, Yet, we make them out, in The bible-blackness of Heaven.

If God Comes If God comes at The close of time, What will He say to The clockwatchers Who missed Him In the pulsebeat Not measured But living?

Only One Thing Stands Only one thing stands Between God and I, And this one thing is so Enormous, Yet, God closes his eyes, Once in a while.

The Ever Present The ever present Is the thing In which you stand singly, And you think, All cannot be thought, But can be felt. For speech, In this limit, Need.

Halting Words Halting words And shaking trees, The wind catching us, Throwing us about, I chased you in The echoing air. You, The one who had sung, While I talked. We, Now almost mute, Except for my intellect and Your forgiveness.

You, Having Gone Gray You, Having gone gray, Looked older and Almost anonymous, Unlike the one you were To me. You, Focused, Had the presence of mind to Speak my name, As you once had, before Walking away.

Returning to the Place Returning to The place of my shame, Standing there with More than a trace of regret, Still feeling shame, Is, And will be, The emotion of the certainty of The path Delineated; It was truth, Despite revisions Of the event By all involved. Now, We are older And harder still, Perhaps, And the issues have changed. Where once need was, Stands compassion, Where once fear and philosophy Were stands thinking now, And poetry and prayer. Out of infinite heaviness Comes something unpredicted, And this, too, Forgiveness.

If Infinity If Infinity Is, Then there is Nothing Discrete in nature, Except thoughts, Flickering Off and on, Crystalline patterns Taken up and Down.

If the Space Between If the space between Us is silent, Why does song Rise up? Why do words Persist in saying? Why do lovers Rhyme? There is an accord That remains, Announcing itself When they meet; They mark out With careful silences The words and limits.

Beyond Beyond the gaze Of the old man in his bed She saw something No one could name, For only moments, But still impressed in her, As if he had seen the gift, And she, in his look, A blessing, A glance of The glory.

Immutable Immutable His breathing, His passing, His song; Departure Had its Reasons; Making greater Himself, He did those who stood there.

If the Consequences If the consequences Of truth are, Then all Will be revealed; The founder Would have it so; To impart song, Beyond the framework, Was the intention, But ears made deaf have sealed mouths Made dumb, the way to the origin, The place where movement, Covering herself with sheer Syllables of gladness, Divorces language From idea and recalls her First love, Chanted cry and The mouth unstopped In vocal air.

If Goodness If goodness Could be bought, It would be made Inexpensive, For it is not much In demand.

It is Wise It is wise and good For the overpowering God To remain hidden in eternity, For He calls forth toward The mystery our best And does not make us afraid To protest or To question The order of things, Our situation, Blind, But open to song.

If Listening If listening is being open, As Jesus said, Why not make more space, More distance? Must we hold on so tightly? Is reality that hard to grasp? Or do our words fail us In ways our hands and eyes Do not?

If You Had Trusted If you had trusted Yourself Not to impose Demonic infinity, Rather the ever Dreamed, But dead, In electrical discharge. Chemistry condemned you To an eternity You denied But became, Without which No poet is.

Inconsolable Inconsolable In our disappearing, We seek to understand, Yet find only life And those speaking; Instead, We grasp givens. In hope declined, Without progeny, A ceaseless track of Celebrant presence Binding; But was it sufficient? When the wine? Where our new world? The word Ever Cuts both ways And we, Not without piety, Look and miss The heart of things, The reign, Ever. In the time To come, Will this ever Be?

He Has No Grave He has no grave. Let dusks wind Carry his ashes, A little more than we feel In our hands, Past the gales of remembrance; His ashes scattered, His grave is in the air. Even in death He was denied The dirt he desired. Lacking ground, He fits this way and that, Filling lungs, Clinging, Graying the grass; Someday, When that land is no more, He may lie more peacefully, But where I live, Incineration continues Unabated, Death and love Lingering.

I Offered I offered my face to the blow And embraced the heart Of conflagration, The grip of ashen Consummation; Stars, too, Explode; All collapse, Pure in their swallowing the light, Such as we, bound By the sacrifice of release, From brilliance, To end a cloud of gems, Heavy, Flung out, Generating other worlds, Floating, Without night, Without light.

Out of the Stillness Out of the stillness Of your breasts, The place I pressed My face To feel a stay In the night, Not alone, I looked up to You, Smiling, And the sadness mingled With your smile, As if you said, When you look here, You fail the stillness, Yet I know you must.

If You Found If you found yourself Lost in a moment of time, Not reckoning, How could you come to it? How much time would have to pass Before faiths moment Restored you? Where could the encounter take place? What would you do? Avoid creating time? Or, would you be, as always, Oblivious to everything but The framework.

Was Your Look Meant Was your look meant to beckon Or dissuade? To send me gently back to your breasts Or to call me up higher, To your mouth, The place of speech and song and The beginnings of love? In the kiss, The mouth, past speech, past song, Finds another, And in the touch, an healing sacrament, In paradox here, an opening, Love in the void, a space almost pure, But for the passage of bodies, Our duality and more, Which God transforms From waste to glory, So we too may initiate with Tongues the speech of kisses, Where once were only The rudiments Of pleasure and Solitary cries.

If All We Ever If all we ever have Is this, I am satisfied, Yet you still look to the horizon, While I center in you. Confusion past, The cup pours her Two dice Into our waiting hands, As we turn with the roar Of the spinning, Precession angle, Just before conflagration, Finding equipoise In the other, Another name For what we Become.

If We Let It If we let it rest, Would it be of its own Accord? Or should we give a Caress, Or a more savage Movement, To let us know, In lifes interest, A concentration of feeling, In hands and eyes, Concerning the first, Our principal we say, Our love seen apart, Our limitation.

Life is Easy Life is easy When I release myself And bridge us, Coming to a more findable You, In familial solitude And expectancy, Addressed in bare Necessity.

Tissue Tissue, deep life, moonrise, Mountains insurgent. We enter, Again and again, In cries and bursts, The swinging of The scepter. You let go, Ever nearer, Taunting me with The abandonment Of innocence.

Youd Better Youd better say it, God is near, And knows us In deeper ways Than we depend, Raising us to Plateaus, Reaching, As do you and I, For the graspable, For remembrance, For saying yes and no, Separated now in the worlds Night, though Once inseparable. Such he took, Such he gave, Indivisible, Dark light, Before anyone knew Difference.

The Words The words Themselves, Their lack or Beauty, Mean nothing, If beneath There is not Depth, Else all is sheen, Slick surface. Under them, A pain unutterable, Even unidentifiable, The unknown need, The strife of hearts and Heartless ones.

Words Say Words say it, but we, Sealed in crypts, Lacking life, cant feel What could penetrate Everything we are not. Yet, At a depth unknowable, Not a yes, Not a word, But the dwelling of The life sentence, The death sentence. These things we seek And cannot find, For the heartless Sooner trample them. They play on to our beating. In triumph they batten. Death, At the hands of the heartless, Substitutes, Transubstantiates, Turning mortality itself into Recovery song, Biding, Having given all, Becoming one, Consolation as yet unknown, The mystery and the mercy Of the self-afflicted Wound.

When I Look Into Your Eyes When I look Into your eyes, I see glaciers falling, Light sparring, Momentum gathered, Earth at her zenith, No dejection. The fire in you rises, Your clothes loose in the wind, A Breath of God On your hair, And stars around To abet your Half-smiling lips, Now serious, Now laughing. In your transitions is Abiding, A certainty next to durable Unknowns, Making the thorns of the heart Easier to bleed, The tears not awkward To drop.

At Summers End At summers end, With a storm on the horizon, The vacationers are packing Up and going home. Weve decided to stay. Our love was late In coming, so We will stay, Despite the storm. And if the wind blows rain Against us in the threatened gale, He will not neglect to lead us To the higher ground. If memorys map fails and Imagination, too, yet He will ever be.

Michael Bolerjack The Complete Apocalypse End of the Church, The Thirty Years War, Volume 27 An Icon from an Evening in Glas and Apocalyptic Writings Abysses 1: Two Witnesses Covers The Catholic Apocalypse The Post Pontiff Church Israel Ate Manna Christchurch Destroyed If He Crowned You Praise Timeline of the Antichrist When I Look into Your Eyes The Other Witness The Four Last Things Apostle is One Sent The Treatise on Logic Paradise Throne Therese in Theory An Icon for the Critics on Glas An Icon from an Evening in Glas Say that Jerusalem is The Words of Joyce Heidegger and Levinas Preface to the Apocalypse Keys of the Abyss Faith Creates Being Search for the Absolute An Icon for the Church on the Mercy of God A Limit on Infinity Salted with Fire All Saints Day PP The Long Commentary The Middle Commentary

The Epitome God Church World The 72 The Sovereignties Vocabulary of God The Recrucifixion of Christ in the Modern World Symbols Yes Yet You Yen Two Column Work Continued March 23, 2012 The Advent Meaning and Experience, Part 1 Stanzas for Marinela and The One Hundred Stanzas The Virgin She Was the Whitest Winter The Letter A Michael Bolerjack: Bibliography of the Works of Michael Bolerjack Meaning and Experience, Part 2 Marginality: Fiction without Fiction, Part 1 Marginality: Fiction without Fiction, Part 2 Meaning and Experience, Part 3 To Gather Conclusion to the Arrival Speeches Love and Death Emmanuels Fiction A Jacques Derrida Eschatology Meaning and Experience, Part 4 The Gift The Philosophers Grammatology The Nietzschean Marriage Dialectic and Deconstruction Athens and Jerusalem Alchemy The Two Ways Light Qui Etre