98 Psaltery & Lyre: Jonathon Penny, “Ex Machina”

 dunes

 

 

Ex machina

 

For He is the God                     of last gasps and swan songs
                                                                          of sullen, grasping groans
                                                                          of once and righted wrongs
                                                                          and mournful, solemn moans

For He is God of                         rescue at the longing last
                                                                unveiled in fiery, fearsome place
                                                            tongue-tied to the mizzen-mast
                                                                  and full of given Grace

For He is God, and,             hidden in our plaintive sight
                                                          hears every plaintive song and sigh
                                                      knows every must from every might
                                                  hears every crow and cry

For He is, God, of               Heaven and of earth
                                                                        of wastrel and of worth
                                                      of mourning and of mirth
                                                            of burial and birth

 

 

Jonathon Penny is a poet, a scholar, a husband, a father, a cruncher of data, and, in relative poverty of spirit and blindness of mind, as much a disciple as he can manage. He has been published in Tyler Chadwick’s Fire in the Pasture, Dialogue, Victorian Violet Press, Mormon Midrashim, Sunstone, Everyday Mormon Writer, Gangway Magazine, Lowly Seraphim, and at Wilderness Interface Zone. He has several chapbooks in development, and will soon be publishing literary prose and poetry for children and youths of Percival P. Pennywhistle, PhD, and other fortunate souls under Pease Porridge Press.

To read more of Penny’s poetry, see here, here, here, and here.

To submit your poetry to P&L, please see our submissions guidelines.