O:JA&L Poetry: All forms & styles
Zac Gosney
GENESIS 1:27
I kept having strange dreams about myself as Ezekiel,
the venerated prophet,
crying, for reasons I know
I know, but I could never define,
and Mother Mary, her mission always to soothe, carries me through
The Gates of New Jerusalem. And I look at it, I examine the overwhelmingly ordered
magnificence that eclipses
even the most robust poets’ language with its pulchritude,
and it does
console me. It does.
I assume this to mean that I am probably the next
prophet, here to bring something to a company
of anointed Somebodies. Somewhere.
So, as soon as I awoke, bathed in glory and
ready to service Him, I stripped
to inspect my vessel, to make sure it can achieve
The inalienable mandate I now must bear. And as
I look upon it, as I drag my fingers across each rib
which expose themselves through my chestplate
as they expand and shrink, like a pufferfish,
with each delicate inhale-exhale,
and I look upon my recessed, concave eyes, that used to shine
a brilliant briney blue
If the Lord’s light allow’d
and which have, as of late, curdled to a tedious pewter
My simple joints, equally announced as my ribs,
which link the thin
Nay — the atrophied
muscles of my body, that desperately
cling to bone.
Despite my best efforts to be like You
The totality of my frail and unremarkable self
becomes so apparent.
and I think about the verse, the terrifying verse,
So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
And I fall upon my withered kneecaps in invocation,
“Please, O’ Lord, if any of it isn’t true,
let it be this. Let You be more.”
Last night, I dreamt again
of Mary, taking me, alive, to glimpse Paradise
And, nearly at the gates, I see a mirror
on the horizon
and I awoke shivering
in the coldest sweat
This form can muster
About the writer:
Zac Gosney is a writer from North Carolina.
Image: Eden Tree (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2025. Public domain via MidJourney AI.
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O:JA&L’S BUTTONHOOK PRESS MASTERS SERIES
Click on the titles below to explore or download the free PDF chapbooks in the O:JA&L Masters Series.
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Brian Clements on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Mark Budman on Flash Discourse
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Ray Gonzalez on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Michael Martone on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Roberta Allen on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Master Series: Peter Conners on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Maxine Chernoff on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Pedro Ponce on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Tom Hazuka on Flash Fiction
With an interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
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