| JUST ONCE |
This Stigmata
None of them had this stigmata—
not one of those doe-eyed darlings
who cooed their pious love and swayed
into violent ecstasy like beautiful mystical
Camilles.
They were content with their bloody shows—
putting even the slaughterhouse sows
to shame, who went complacently to
their triduums even when their bellies
were sliced open and their watery juices
gushed out.
This stigmata—
restrained and uncertain—
is so much cleaner. The juices
are clear, the heat of passion
quiet and…reserved in a Protestant
sort of way.
And so much closer to those actual pains,
that extreme anxiety that brought on not
the nails and thorns, but sweat—
ugly and like blood, but not blood
or any other sort of gore. It was
instead the passion of stung eyes,
of a face not hidden by a turned-away back,
as Moses strained after, but revealed
in a clear glistening sheen, brighter
than any celestial glow.
This stigmata is not secretive, hidden
behind fingerless gloves or a visored nun’s
veil.
This stigmata is the divine likeness
revealed and glorified—
unashamedly faced and gloried in.
None of them had this stigmata—
not one of those doe-eyed darlings
who cooed their pious love and swayed
into violent ecstasy like beautiful mystical
Camilles.
They were content with their bloody shows—
putting even the slaughterhouse sows
to shame, who went complacently to
their triduums even when their bellies
were sliced open and their watery juices
gushed out.
This stigmata—
restrained and uncertain—
is so much cleaner. The juices
are clear, the heat of passion
quiet and…reserved in a Protestant
sort of way.
And so much closer to those actual pains,
that extreme anxiety that brought on not
the nails and thorns, but sweat—
ugly and like blood, but not blood
or any other sort of gore. It was
instead the passion of stung eyes,
of a face not hidden by a turned-away back,
as Moses strained after, but revealed
in a clear glistening sheen, brighter
than any celestial glow.
This stigmata is not secretive, hidden
behind fingerless gloves or a visored nun’s
veil.
This stigmata is the divine likeness
revealed and glorified—
unashamedly faced and gloried in.
Just Once can be found at LoonfeatherPress.com, B&N.com, Amazon.com and in your local bookstore. Purchase Info: Title – JUST ONCE Paperback- 91 pages List Price- $ 12.95 + $2.00 s&h Publisher- Loonfeather Press ISBN- 0926147-49-8 LOONFEATHER PRESS P.O. Box 1212 Bemidji, Minnesota 56619 www.loonfeatherpress.com |
Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent
With the hormone balance of a
pregnant woman comes
the nausea, the metallic tastes
haunting the mouth, the repulsion
to food, to lingering scents.
For years I sympathized with the
pregnant. I sorrowed for their pale
faces, their squeezed expressions. The
body changed. It grew, forming
something hard and rotund, then failed.
It was left exhausted and elastic. Then
it begin again with a vigor I could not
at the time comprehend. Now more
than empathy. A shared experience—
like stigmata, only bloodless
and with nothing to
culminate into except a
perpetually uncertain recovery.
With the hormone balance of a
pregnant woman comes
the nausea, the metallic tastes
haunting the mouth, the repulsion
to food, to lingering scents.
For years I sympathized with the
pregnant. I sorrowed for their pale
faces, their squeezed expressions. The
body changed. It grew, forming
something hard and rotund, then failed.
It was left exhausted and elastic. Then
it begin again with a vigor I could not
at the time comprehend. Now more
than empathy. A shared experience—
like stigmata, only bloodless
and with nothing to
culminate into except a
perpetually uncertain recovery.
“Just Once is Jamie Parsley’s odyssey through illness—cancer—recorded blow by
emotional blow. The lucky thing is he makes it to shore safely and can share his
experience with others. His is a remarkable recovery told in a remarkable way,
covering the ‘agonizing exodus’ from health into cancer’s ‘counterfeit art,’ through
mornings which “crack to pieces” until, at the end, the poet can say, ‘Look how the
dusk--//full of clouds and gloom--//has dissolved into// multitudes of stars.’ His
new- found love and joy in being alive carries hope for us all.”
Sharon Chmielarz, author of The Rhubarb King
“Just Once is a deeply moving, sacred journey through the layers of an illness so
many of us dread—cancer. The poems move deftly and painfully through the
recognition, the denial, the numbness, the scraping away, the reorganizing of the
flesh one calls one's self, and the ultimate surrender of this self when one realizes to
whom and what one's body really belongs. Or, as Jamie Parsley would say it: ‘the
guttymuck of humanity washed away to pure brilliance.’”
Phyllis Barber, author of How I Got Cultured
“The lyric gift in Just Once is so abundantly apparent it seems a betrayal to mention
subject matter. Jamie Parsley has a wonderful ear for the sounds of poetry and an
unerring sense of a poem's arc. These poems have life and breath, and an urgency
that transcends even their subject—a year in the life of a young man and the
diagnosis and treatment of his cancer.”
Natasha Sajé, author of Red Under the Skin
emotional blow. The lucky thing is he makes it to shore safely and can share his
experience with others. His is a remarkable recovery told in a remarkable way,
covering the ‘agonizing exodus’ from health into cancer’s ‘counterfeit art,’ through
mornings which “crack to pieces” until, at the end, the poet can say, ‘Look how the
dusk--//full of clouds and gloom--//has dissolved into// multitudes of stars.’ His
new- found love and joy in being alive carries hope for us all.”
Sharon Chmielarz, author of The Rhubarb King
“Just Once is a deeply moving, sacred journey through the layers of an illness so
many of us dread—cancer. The poems move deftly and painfully through the
recognition, the denial, the numbness, the scraping away, the reorganizing of the
flesh one calls one's self, and the ultimate surrender of this self when one realizes to
whom and what one's body really belongs. Or, as Jamie Parsley would say it: ‘the
guttymuck of humanity washed away to pure brilliance.’”
Phyllis Barber, author of How I Got Cultured
“The lyric gift in Just Once is so abundantly apparent it seems a betrayal to mention
subject matter. Jamie Parsley has a wonderful ear for the sounds of poetry and an
unerring sense of a poem's arc. These poems have life and breath, and an urgency
that transcends even their subject—a year in the life of a young man and the
diagnosis and treatment of his cancer.”
Natasha Sajé, author of Red Under the Skin
Praise for Just Once
This daring book of poems, written in chronological order over
the period of a year, chronicles Parsley’s diagnosis, treatment
and ultimate recovery from cancer at age 32. These poems are
not in any way self-pitying; they are honest and straightforward
attempts at making sense of one’s illness.
the period of a year, chronicles Parsley’s diagnosis, treatment
and ultimate recovery from cancer at age 32. These poems are
not in any way self-pitying; they are honest and straightforward
attempts at making sense of one’s illness.