Resurrection iBodies
By Mark D. Stucky
I laundered my iPhone the other day,
left in a pants pocket bound for washer glory.
After all the agitation and spin ceased,
below the damp graveclothes,
I found its corpse, cold and dead,
circuitry and battery drowned.
Ashes to ashes, suds to suds.
How our lives seem to rely on our phones.
How anxious we feel about sudden loss!
But fear not,
iCloud carried a backup.
After purchasing and registering a newer model,
restoring from the heavenly Cloud began.
Soon, all my old apps, photos, and music
miraculously appeared on my new phone.
My old phone’s configuration,
its personality, its spirit, its soul,
resurrected in the new model.
The same soul in an upgraded body,
newer, sleeker, faster, better,
more glorious.
A promise to us all.
(First published in Time of Singing, 48:1 (Spring 2021), p. 30. See also my poem "Bringing Heaven to Earth" and my visual poem “Haiga for the Heavenbound.”)
the chocolate egg broken
its yolk yellow with sin
the serpentine tongue bites
and screams
“suffer the fools”
but at the sash painted red
broken bread
chalice of wine
terror on stoop
can’t step
inside
the living room
the firstborn dies
the firstfruit thrives
graveclothes neatly folded
4/14/2020
Brian Strand’s STRAND PICK 12 Poetry Contest
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
I have come that they may have life,
and have it to the full. (Jesus’ words)
John 10:10 NIV
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead,
the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For
since death came through a man, the resurrection
of the dead comes also through a man.
1 Corinthians 15:20-21 NIV
Write their names in better than the dark mud
Where they died; their life like the wasted sud
Of washed out things; they were the soldiers of the village
The warriors of a hidden war
They saved us from plunder and pillage
And wore with honor their stigma and scar
We had the worst address in the world paling Nazareth too
But we had love, cared for each other
Minotaur saw the weak and knew our brother
Wrap their names in flags of honor too.
Teddy, the short one, Galdys' son
Lascelles, the handsome one,
And Big Ben with muscles to lift a ton
The athletes were Little wicked, and Sonny
The fell like leaves one by one
And no flag flew at half mast in Canterbury
But look at the place, how each find its rank
And without order besieged the bank.
O Canterbury, I remember your sons
Your daughters, and the runs
Of formal power without justice to the rooms
Disshevelled like graveclothes in empty tombs.
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