2 Poems by Tim Gavin

 DIVINE PROPERTY LXXXVII: PIGEON

I am nothing more than a fat pigeon

Living in the waste of my own luxury

Not having earned or worked

For any crumb or nickel

As I move from one curb

To another. I am no longer my own

Advocate – just a scavenger of spoils.

My wings, silent and pale,

The things that make me

Me, are useless as I try

To lift but only suspend for a moment

And drop like a grey thing

Heavy and graceless to the ridicule

Of the sparrow and wren, dishonorable

To both humans and my rich heritage

As I scurry to pick up bread pieces

And corn kernels thrown toward me

in Harrowgate Park from aging men,

Flapping away the squirrels

for me and my welfare.



DIVINE PROPERTY LXXX: CHAOS AND CHANCE


I left order and the ideal of certainty

And stepped into chaos and chance,

Chance being an imagination all its own

 

And there is static and interference

From one valley to another but no

Conceit because there is consent

 

For redemption, vulnerability –

Like a divine fiat of some sort – while

I embrace an archangel who encouraged

 

Me to uproot a mulberry tree and

Plant it in a place of my own choosing

And with authority I did while waves

Crested and fell, crested and fell.

 

Bionote 

Tim Gavin is an Episcopal priest, serving as head chaplain at The Episcopal Academy. Prolific Press Released his chapbook, Lyrics from the Central Plateau, in November 2018. He is currently developing a manuscript: Divine Property. His poems have appeared in The Anglican Theological Review, Blue Heron Review, Blue Mountain Review, Cape Rock, Cardinal Sins, Chiron Review, The Cresset, Digital Papercut, Evening Street Review, Magma, Poetry Quarterly, Poetry South and Spectrum. He lives with his wife in Newtown Square.