Another poem from my new book, The Currency of His Light

by Roy Beckemeyer

Here is another example poem from The Currency of His Light (Turning Plow Press, 2023), which will be available around March 24, 2023. Again, I chose a poem inspired by a quote from another poet’s work. In this case, that of Pat Daneman, Lenexa, Kansas poet whose 2018 book After All (FutureCycle Press) was a runner-up for the 2018 Hefner-Heitz Kansas Book Award and first runner-up for the 2019 Thorpe-Menn award for literary excellence.

There are actually three poems in my book that contain, as epigraphs, quotes from the book After All. The one I chose for today is:

Multicellular

“Your body is a science
experiment—all hypotheses,
no promises.”—Pat Daneman
from “Time Remaining”

You grow from single cell
to what you are the day you die
in stages poorly understood,
cells dividing according to
instructions coiled onto
strings of proteins mankind
struggles still to read,
signaled by potions,
by stringent codes of here
not there by logic devices
illogical in execution,
by mistake, by precise
adjudication, by what
you can only see as evil
intent or loving beneficence,
debilitating symptom or heirloom
of succulent grace.

By Roy Beckemeyer, from The Currency of His Light, (Turning Plow Press, 2023, p. 76).

As noted, the epigraph is from Pat Daneman’s poem “Time Remaining,” which appears on p. 54 in After All (FutureCycle Press, 2018).

I hope this poem will inspire someone to pick up a copy of either of these books or at least to look online for more poetry from me or from Pat Daneman, whose writing I find quite inspiring. I expect that you will, as well.

Roy Beckemeyer, 16 March, 2023.