United States, (b. 1966)
The Martyrdom of Saint Porcine
- The saint is always depicted, like Saints
- Catherine or John, with the machinery
- of his martyrdom: splayed across an old
- box-spring, astride a bed of glowing hickory
- embers. His dark eyes, though piggy and small,
- glisten with kindness.
- His pale pink skin is unwrinkled and clean
- and hasn’t yet found a brown enough hue
- to match his humility; although the inevitable
- is evident in the neatly stacked billets of cordwood,
- the proximity of the damp mop and bucket of sanguine
- sauce, the beads of moisture that freckle his small face,
- indistinguishable from his tears.
- The hills in the background are vaguely Italianate
- and shimmer lightly in the distance. The air is illuminated
- by curlicues of scented smoke and the jubilant forms
- of tiny cherubs, announcing to the heavens, over and over,
- the transfiguration of mere mortal flesh
- into something approaching the divine.
About the Poet:
Doug Van Gundy, United States, (1966), is a poet, musician and educator. His first book of poems, A Life Above Water, was published by Red Hen Press in 2007.
Van Gundy directs the Low-Residency MFA Program in Writing at West Virginia Wesleyan College. He is coeditor of the anthology Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia (2017).
Van Gundy’s poems and essays have appeared in many journals, including The Oxford American, Ecotone, The Louisville Review, The Fretboard JournalGoldenseal.
He also plays fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and banjo in the old-time string band, “Born Old”. In August 1999, Van Gundy was a contestant of ABC’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and became the first contestant to win $250,000 on the show. [DES-01/22]
Additional information:
- Doug Van Gundy @ https://twitter.com/dougvangundy