Some Mad

Some Mad 

     To this rock, god binds me, plagued

with sores unhealed by any nurse. Divine

madness tempered by the piss he takes

on my forehead when he visits, avoids

my fixed gaze, drops hogs, zebras, hippos,

or tigers on my legs that break then heal.

          He dances in circles around me,

lights straw beneath me, lights incense

to cloud my mind. He grants me visions,

pastoral, valleys where fathers and sons

labor to feed their herds, to guard grain,

to roof kine, to mend sickles, flail, scythe,

to keep dung for the hearth where flames

          flash and crackle in my honor.

[sonnet]