TAKE IT by JOSHUA BECKMAN

CRAG HILL Engages

Take It by Joshua Beckman
(Wave Books, Seattle, 2009)

1. I weigh the flour and water, which I recommend, because depending on your measuring cups (and/or measuring skill) poems can vary wildly.

2. 1st, That the grace of God shines gloriously in the justifying of a sinner through the righteousness of Christ. 2dly, That it is a dreadful sin to frustrate the grace of God. 3dly, That all who seek righteousness by the law, they do frustrate the grace of God. 4thly, That no true sound believer can be guilty of this sin. Frustrating the grace of God is a sin that no poem can commit.

3. If you're extremely tuned in to your poem's rhythms, you may begin to suspect you're pregnant soon after conception.

4. But the small, dull weight continued to drag and nag.

5. The night opens her lap.

6. I have not relinquished and will not relinquish poetry.

7. What the hell is antimatter?

8. Other poems was wooden, but was burnt down or was fell under people's weight.

9. Before you start trying to hook up Reason to Poem, please make sure that Reason is working normally.

10. The court is not persuaded that if the poem is allowed to stay that the injury would be negligible.

11. He was warming up his vehicle, going around the back to put his dog in the bed of the truck, when he was struck on the side of the head by something or someone.

12. After the poem, I felt much better.

13. The tricky part is acquiring the right gear; there is a lot of rubbish sold to unsuspecting novices.

14. The painful post-divorce aftermath, characterized by getting unhorsed as an authority figure in your children's lives by a vindictive woman in cahoots with the State,* taught me why some non-custodial poems just walk away after a divorce and do not see their children.

15. Your precepts abound; You reveal to me the wonders and secret mysteries of Your Poem.

16. Be sober when you proclaim your love.

17. It's DIY folks like you that inspires the rest of us to think.

18. Beckman’s genuine sorrow and grim perception create an impassioned dialogue between the values the Romantics held dear (love of truth, beauty, Nature) and a modern world that could care less.

19. No luminous vision, still a passion point.

20. It asserts the indivisibility of humans and poetry – the mutual interdependence of one upon the other.

21. I felt as if I were lost, not in Tokyo, but in a particular kind of pulp fiction.

22. I want to smoke Cuban cigars the size of Cincinnati in the nonsmoking poem.

23. Thus, it is very difficult to objectively quantify their characteristics in terms of intensity, magnitude, duration and spatial extent.

24. Nowadays, there are a lot of poems whose content only promotes sin.

25. Vampires do this in the sunlight.

26. Chic vintage 70's pink kitten bow poem. Front fastening. Darts at the bust.

27. It wasn't like a poem; it was like some damned Juggernaut.

28. God intends and desires for this poem and strategy to rise above all other marketplace endeavors and become the preeminent priority in all your leadership opportunities.

29. Then I graduated to even nastier conflicts.

30. They wanted a perpetual poem and they got it.

31. What poem hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?

32. His lawyer is not known to have been notified of a scheduled execution as is required by law, although in some poems executions have taken place without this notification being issued.

33. This book is bitter-sweet, just like life.

34. I find it useful when I have a very big expanse of flat wash to do, which will not have much added to it, but my work tends to be emptier of content than yours (probably because I am lazy...), so you probably wouldn't have a use for it.

35. Just remember that you don’t need to show your chest to accumulate massive amounts of poetry, nor to gain any amount of self-confidence.

36. To discuss this with complete and unguarded frankness -- and I should not insult you by being otherwise than completely honest, however indiscreet -- it will be necessary for me to be a little impolite regarding certain institutions and persons of my own greatly beloved land.

37. We are going swiped out foot forward, toe tap and back to place.

38. All that from tree bark.

39. People remember when music existed as an art that motivated social movements.

40. And few are aware that, in the US, no tax law based on that illegal amendment was ever passed. ... like the great Hawaiian volcanoes on Earth, the Great Red Spot on Jupiter ... I am afraid we have run out of poems.

41. Solar activity changes the structure of Earth's outer atmosphere.

42. Us on the ground didn't know what was going on at the time but when we were told to move now to get to this position, we went down to that position.

43. You have this lingering hope that there will be a miracle.

44. The poem of might erodes international relations like a cancer.

45. The taste is much better than the appearance and aroma.

46. The poems can show up around your upper lip, nose, cheekbones, and forehead, sometimes in the shape of a mask (think Lone Ranger).

47. I have seen nothing more beautiful than the sunrise on a cold poem.

48. I'm a cashier and I find it to be really rude of putting the money of the counter instead of putting it in my poem.

49. With this explanation, the hot water freezes first.

50. I am always one who strives to gild the lily and there was bacon in my fridge.

51. It's the same poem: It's just kids who can't play, pissing about.

*****

Crg Hill until recently edited SCORE, one of only two journals dedicated exclusively to concrete/visual poetry. In the last three decades his work has appeared in over 100 journals and anthologies, including several available on-line. His creative and critical works in progress can be found at http://scorecard.typepad.com. He teaches English Education at Washington State University.