David Plantinga Poems

King Agamemnon raised a wind
When the whole fleet had lain becalmed.
He'd sacrificed, and hadn't qualmed.
From horror he could not rescind.
...

Although that shadow's tread was light
And its cold presence absence massed,
A darker darkness to contrast,
A hole in the black cloak of night,
...

You're crying out against your sin
Because you're standing on the shore
Aware your guilt is so much more
Than your acknowledged ramekin.
...

Not everyone who suffers sins,
Yet blessed with a long life, I've strayed
An ingrate and a renegade,
And condign punishment begins.
...

The scaup is searching for a shore
To build her nest, a lonely beach,
Or rocky cliff no fox can reach.
Egg-gobblers and roosting mothers war.
...

The ancients put tremendous matters
On oracles and auguries.
When godhood speaks, the priest agrees.
Glib cunning fails when trouble batters.
...

He's cruel and stupid, and ignores
His omened doom, pronounced, decreed,
And mine with his, no ranted screed.
Though I must speak, I pray it bores.
...

According to astrology,
The stars arrange themselves to bind
The destinies of humankind
Born under their hegemony.
...

My heart is sinking down like lead
Within my chest, and recent grief
Is poisoning my past belief,
Fading, if not discredited.
...

A sinner cannot test his weight
By stepping on God's awful scale.
However light, however frail,
His body can't equilibrate
...