Triptych of a Cynic—Tyler Rogness

"Trust me, I wish for nothing more..."

Triptych of a Cynic

by Tyler Rogness

Part I. Holes

An accidental cynic encounters Christ.

So Christ comes
At the iron senseless time, comes
To force the glory into frozen veins:
His warmth wakes
Green life glazed in the pool, wakes
All calm and crystal trance with the living pains.

— Anne Ridler, from “Christmas and the Common Birth”

It’s supposed to be painless, bloodsharing.
Warmth exits, but life returns —
holiness forced back in.

But what if the veins reject the glory?
The needle of return is misplaced,
and instead of life, what comes

is black
and blue
and the deep rust-iron rud of death.

Trust me, I wish for nothing more
than to waken, but here I sleep: thrilled,
but in the old way.

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Postscript

Holy (adj.): Old English halig — “sacred, consecrated”; with a likely pre-Christian meaning of “whole” (which shares the OE root hal), “healthy” (also from hal), “not tainted.”

Thrill (v.): “to pierce, penetrate,” a metathesis of Old English þyrlian — “to perforate, pierce”; from þyrel — “hole.”

Part II. Crux

Behold the

holey God:

nothing to stanch or stem the messy flow,

no needle force-returns the holy spill.

Watch him

sink down

lifeless —

as stone;

Part III. Aroma

An accidental cynic addresses Christ over whiskey.

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

Your wake is the aroma of death
to those who are dying. I attest,
and I can feel it strong — sting sharp
on the air.

But the nose hints a sweetness
beneath the shock. The palate
is wood-rich; caramel and earth — deep
as you are deep.

I wonder, amber spirit, if the dying’s
but transfiguring. Amber — yes,
for the resin dies, but leaves the friction
charged.

Yours may be the aroma of death to the dying
and to me, but sipping is sweet
and the death a door. And you, yourself once passed
this way.

Life-water of mine, and thicket-fire, you can surely
burn as bright in hearts of stone. Perhaps there’s hope
of wholeness yet. Perhaps I am not so dead
after all.

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Postscript

Whiskey (n.): from Gaelic uisge beatha — “whisky” — a loan-translation of Medieval Latin aqua vitae, literally “water of life.” In the poet’s humble opinion, one can’t go wrong with a dram of a deep amber color.

Amber (n.): fossilized resin known for its remarkable ability to attract other substances to it when rubbed. Its Latin name electrum, preceding Modern English words and concepts for electricity, ultimately comes from a Greek root meaning “shining sun,” conceptually akin to its German name Bernstein: literally, “burning stone.”

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Tyler Rogness is learning to sink into the small moments that fill a life. He loves deep words, old books, good stories, and his wonderful family who put up with his nonsense. His writing has appeared in Ekstasis Magazine, the Rabbit Room, the Habit Portfolio, and the Amethyst Review among other publications. More of his work can be found at awakingdragons.com.

Photo by Maximilian Müller on Unsplash