Joey Virgo: A Narrative Epic and a Collection of Empathy Poems

By Ron L. Hegner

Each occasional poem within this volume attains a density of imagery and a ravishing poignancy so that one is truly transported into them.like the event horizon of a chrysanthemum. The author of a prior collection entitled Communing with the Uncommon, Ron Hegner possesses a voice of careful facet, exquisite and deliberate; it is a voice which engenders trust.
The long foundation poem, from which this book claims its title, is a remarkable work of meter that elevates the familiar tribeca temptation of Jesus, the first miracle of his ministry, and the formation of the twelve disciples, into a revelatory epic with the power to transform previously held perspectives. It is a radical invigoration of light meant to rejuvenate the familiar. Joey Virgo is a pleasurable, illuminating journey

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 22, 2008
• ISBN: 9781462830701

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Copyright © 2008 by Ron L. Hegner.

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Contents

JOEY VIRGO

RED LETTER URANIUM

MANIFOLD

A TRANSPLANTED PEAR TREE

REGRET

OPPORTUNITY

AWARE OF BEING HAPPY

SEA OF INSPIRION

FAREWELL TO OUR CENTAUR

MIXED METAPHOR

IT COULD BE ME

JONAH IN THE AZORES

ISOSCELES

SOBRIETY BADGE, PLUS TWO

THERE ARE STILL COAL MINES

MY FOUR YEAR OLD DANCES

BUDDHA IN A BIRTHDAY SUIT

WHEN COLUMBUS IS WRONG

YOU ARE THE PREY WHEN PURSUED

ASCENDED PRISONER

CLOUDS

OVERLONG IN PUBERTY’S CROSSING

CONFEDERATE PAPER AND DIPLOMAS

THE RUIN BY PAST TENSE

GOOSE FLESH

The narrative poem Joey Virgo is dedicated to those, like Pastor Carlton Pearson, who dare to wrestle the obstructing logs out of the river rather than abandon the waterway. And this collection is dedicated to those, like Aaron Rotsinger, who relish the will of the oar and teach by example how to row.

JOEY VIRGO

CHAPTER ONE

Into a wilderness of wind-worn want

Where the conflictions of rock plunge and protrude

Like the bones of a horizon-long beast,

Strides a man. Without the excuse of youth

He walks into this red stone carcass to test

The tensile of philosophies forged and

To bite the coin of a self image proffered.

It is a Time when sacrifice of flesh

On the horned altar in Jerusalem’s heart

Is becoming a meaningless expense.

One Temple for a population made it

Impractical—at least improbable—

To maintain a sensory connection with

The intended introspection severe.

Proxies are paid to endure arduous queues

For grain offerings; animals are bought

On site—instead of brought from the heart of one’s flock—

Tagged with the purchaser’s chit, then penned.

The represented are rarely present when

Priests at last drag a blade across carotid

Of sacrifices meant as reminder.

Cause and Effect to blood’s cost is occluded;

Law’s letter obeyed while spurning spirit of.

When he was enfolded into male status

At age thirteen he was drenched already

With ambition and he was convinced that

With a legal voice finally attained

He was meant to promptly begin pushing

The world with the supple muscle of his words.

His two older brothers had preceded him

Into the respect of rabbinical robes;

So, elbowing into a mature debate

He exerted an interpretation

Of a Midrash with brazen authority.

His mother, unwilling to see her son

Disappear as her husband’s sons had into

The separation well of the Rabbi,

Sent word into the huddle commanding him

To desist. He became impudent, then

Chastising hands thrust him out of the circle.

A beginning chosen, expulsion gained.

He yielded to tutorledge in his father’s sect,

Earning sponsorship to the Brahma conclave

Which resulted in another expulsion

When he refused the prejudice of caste.

Rather than flee the Indus he chose to

Immerse himself within the Bhudist Sutras.

The pursuit of additional tiers caused

Him to seek the Eye at Heliopolis.

Now, upon return to his Essene roots

John has denied to him the ritual bath

Of anticipated confirmation.

For the third time in the man’s diligent life

A burgeoning commencement has collapsed.

John’s emprise drew with potent appeal those

Disgruntled with the oligarchy of

Religion heaped up as Convenience Machine.

His emprise drew as well those who still longed

To touch anew contrition’s knee-barking stairs.

John’s baptism rite was subversive since

It demonstrated immersion’s velvet-rope pool

Need not be sacrosanct within Temple bounds,

Nor perplexed by Levite’s open-palm oversight

Inorder to fulfill purity’s sense.

The illegitimacy of John’s reform

Was a rogue root widening a fissure.

Yesu has petulantly plunged without guide

Into a self-appointed crucible

Of both deprivation and immolation;

Determined to smelt himself down to prove

That self-substantiation is possible.

A life spent resisting the atropine

Of conformity, complacency, and cairn

Has harried him onto a plateau composed

Of disillusionment with his power to

Halt the trudging around useless capstans.

Dawn’s bristling of light scours away the

Sheen of chirps and trills that had sweated from

The pores of this red desert’s nocturnal skin.

Am I here from Nudging intended, he asks,

Or from the Baptist’s brusque, verbal shoving?"

But condemned soil clenches against portent;

Lest involuntary shift or shadow shape

Reflect significance unintended.

Though desert breath oft’ connives with either/or

Its exhalation seems held for moments.

Without an answer immediate he squints

Ahead into the crumpled wilderness.

The furnace he stares at looks back. He scowls.

His mind retrieves and is prickled anew by

The bristling words of John the Baptist.

"Water is the symbol granting me renown.

You, Yesu, are known to me, I to you.

What do you desire water to give you?

Are you a repentant? If so, of what?

Yet you seek, publicly, my wet ritual."

"If I seek privately your ritual

Would you then, Baptizer, initiate me?

No crowds: just you, me, and Breath of God?"

John had snorted derisively. "Acts that seek

Secrecy in darkness, he’d warned, are crimes.

Make straight the circumventing path, do I preach.

A public demonstration of pivot

Away from prior embranglement with sin

Is the power in my submersion rite.

Symbolism