Like this Auschwitz barbed-wire rosary”
clipped with teeth and finger twisted,
black-blood-stained, rain-encrusted,
thorny, skin-pricking, motherly-misery-
pregnant, passed from hand to bone-ripped
ashen hand, brand of traitors
to the empire, fire in chokehold chambers
sparking visions of seraphic coal-tipped
tongs, rag-hidden prayer
ridden pearl
pruned from Israel’s bondage, now a
sign of our ingrafted bough, the
mangled laughingstock of the world”
Like this, dear son, is the whole of the blessed
and jubilant faith that we confess.
The Sinew of Diplomacy
The primal scene of A. Wess Mitchell’s formidable Great Power Diplomacy is a crisis meeting in Sparta…
When Rhetoric Becomes Reckless
Though it seemed to be an opening bid in a negotiation that, mercifully, ended in a provisional…
What the Wall Street Journal Didn’t Print
On March 21, the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy profile of the pope as its “Saturday…