THE HORN BEEPETH BUT NOT FOR ME by Jim Daniels

Can I please fucketh you on a stack of Bibles?

Let us goeth forth and seeketh that stack of Bibles.

Let us proceedeth to various bases. Let us eraseth

chalk lines and dismisseth umpires and groundskeepers.

Each base, a Bible—thick anchor of holiness.

I have never gone forth or fifth into the desert or dessert.

Though I have licked the whippéd cream.

Though I have cringed and wept at mirages.

The Bible provideth a limited range

of motion, stacked or unstacked. As we stand

warming each other with unperfuméd breath

on the bumpy leather cover, on the gilt

HOLY BIBLE letters, I must ask, hath thine eyes

seen the glory? Let us loseth something in translation.

Jim Daniels’ recent collections include Having a Little Talk with Capital P Poetry, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2011, and From Milltown to Malltown, a collaborative book with photographs, Marick Press, 2010. Forthcoming books include All of the Above, Adastra Press, and Trigger Man, a new collection of short fiction, Michigan State University Press, and Birth Marks, BOA Editions. He wrote and produced the independent film Mr. Pleasant in 2010.