Inconveniences Rightly Considered Read online

Poetry, sweet poet's vain abusing of the form

  comes from our first language

   

  For there are three, no more, no less

  Three ways we speak in space-time:

   

  Third motivates, pushes, irrigates thoughts

  Reaping where others sowed.

  How? Why?

   

  Second informs, describes, fills minds with sounds

  Giving us names for things

  When? Where? What?

   

  But the first comes from our ancient womb

  Our mother's amniotic tomb

  Where we grew for Whom?

   

  That cry when doctor spanked to awake

  For him, for her, for pity's sake

   

  That sigh when mother held us close

  We suckled, cuddled, dandled there

   

  Our coos, her caws, grandma's high-pitch wail

  Grandson rides forth in his onesie mail

  Other Granny smirks

   

  Sweet giggles, gurgles, baby faces

  Groaning moans of sorrow's bedside

   

  Dad wept loud, mother sighed, holding close

  We suckled, cuddled, dandled there

   

  Yes, the first isn't unlike

  names nothing, claims nothing for itself

   

  No, the first is not like the others

  She has no name or claim for herself

   

  She's a tie tween you and I

  A mother's sigh when all else whelps

   

  She's the speech of poetry, a YAWP, a prayer,

  A knowing grunt at failure or triumph.

  A nod hello.

  To Jack Across the Sea

  We two met in the one Irish

  New York pub known and still run

  by Eires like you. Our talking it

  turned up tragic: tuition, writers from

  the thirties rotting. These thoughts comic, these

  Interrupted oral momentums:

  translucent roofs true to Spiderman,

  blurred and iron // blank and fragile--

  clichés are the things clinging life to

  life and we make light of phrases

  but are aesthetics made for easy friends?

  When I say "Oh that's cliché"

  I forget it undergirds life,

  How "Don't Murder" deems being

  Beats non-being. Be cliché, Jack,

  And mend the maxims. Maximize the facts

  For truism acts. Trace the shapes

  Of truer beings -- tissue and pencil

  -- Until their manner tunes you right

  And let light come to loves you keep

  Back in the brackish breezes of Ireland.

  Braille

  When night sex--lips to lips--

  When wind hits open hands--

  When whitecaps wash right over feet

  that stand on laundered sands.

  When chocolate after fasts--

  When noodles for the poor--

  When children who have found their meal

  will beg summore, summore.

  Mere inches from the lawn

  my nose--on what's been mowed--

  Or bottled wines and siloed grains

  when smell of what's been sowed.

  When symphonies unsung

  before the present time.

  When sudden lyrics overheard

  disclose a metric rhyme.

  Listory

  My current shuffled mix

  of songs tells stories:

  Alabama, I won't let you down.

  Buffalo soldier falling off the face of the earth.

  Alberta, be not silent.

  Hold on closer to the sun.

  Life before aesthetics sparks late bloomer.

  Not enough eyes on the prize.

  Brooklyn with your highest wall towards the sun.

  Harvest moon. Sister falling... parachutes.

  You and me shiver.

  Every passing day, Steven, we never change.

  Mirianne miracle-cursing Pope Killdragon.

  I live in your ghost before you accuse me.

  Thunderbird--wade through the night, unknown legend.

  Leave it all behind; carry the weight.

  Such a woman out on the weekend one of these days.

  Wise Old Owl kill Dragon.

  Saint Cecilia, hold me near. Sharpest blade? Crash into me.

  Broken hospital like minded fool: right on time.

  Matinee bound to this world from Hank to Hendrix.

  Layla, this and that open my hands.

  Curbside--isn't it poetry?

  Grandma Mary, head home.

  Words? Fears? Beautiful boys and girls? A man needs a maid--let it go.

  If you are the writer, that's how strong my love is.

  Some mixtapes ring truer than others.

  Mearcstapa in Emmerson's River of Man

  find me in the river of thought and event

  carried by the current of contemporary men

  see me stack their pebbles higher into my modern wall

  damming up their river into my waterfall

  genius ain't meaningless

  its genus is in genes from us

  we can't be me

  till me ain't we

  original hearts make original starts

  so take art, take heart

  take it from from me:

  you be you be you be

  not me

  mankind's eyes look onward unto my journey's end

  church-reared, war-bearded, floured by what two states can give one another

  between them strike my railroad, armistice reinstall

  turn all their wood and iron into my shared prayer shawl:

  come and pray together

  come and play together

  The human race went out before me

  sunk the hills and bridged the rivers

  men and nations, poets, sinners.

  Women, slaves, kings and skinners

  raise our wave, our tide of winners

  from the cave of new beginners:

  Anne Franks from Jewed Berliners,

  Skywalked Lukes from Rancor dinners,

  Jonah from the Lochness innards,

  raucous bars bring Cohen, Leonards,

  Shakespeares from the novel skimmers,

  Beowulf from channel swimmers.

  Our reception stacks the tinders,

  starts the spark, and stokes the cinders –

  worlds inspire us when they hinder

  (Spring: it marinates in Winter).

  All the pain and baggage triggers

  of the world's eventful river--

  let it pass to you from mirrors

  through your mind and let it linger,

  dim the lights, oh dimmer, dimmer...

  Find one thought and let it simmer,

  sifting through the world's litter:

  when it hits it sends a shiver

  up the spine and in the liver.

  From mankind, the you considers

  what your soul alone delivers.

  Stack your pebbles in their river.

  find me in the river of thought and event

  carried by the current of contemporary men

  see me stack their pebbles higher into my modern wall

  damming up their river into my waterfall

  Mystery of Seeing

  When works of men have culminated in our ruddy sky,

  When widows lay there destitute, abused in public eye

  When we renew a simple call, a vain "hello, goodbye"

  We all will trace it to our gaze. It is our evil eye.

  At once translucent, sore confessions break from the blackened soil

  Our Mystery will slowly see the root of Conan Doyle.

  His whisper
s dimpled in our cheeks, his plots: tin torn from foil

  And he is me, and we are he: all born from murder's toil.

  But what if once our warbles silenced in the sounding sea?

  What would become of ichor scents, of blinded potpourri?

  If we would kill the vain suspense to turn from shade to trees,

  Would ever any average man accept our bourgeoisie?

  For if the middle class was next, and upper feigned the last

  If poverty was possibly the first so quick and fast

  Would tipsy-turvy works of men turn blue the ruddy sky?

  Would widows change from destitutes to what we glorify?

  But we can't see translucent pleas of guilt, of true avowals

  It soils our brows with blister grime, and soaks our monogrammed towels

  We drain it in the sight of sinners swimming in our bowels

  To find we are the same as they: we consonants, no vowels

  Yet once I heard of summer lads and lassies born of light

  And once I saw a dimpled grin from renewed fallen knight

  He took upon the bowels of earth, removed a vacant blight

  And with it spawned the sons of God, and gave this blind man sight.

  Inflammation

  I wept to see the autumn

  I cried to see the sun

  It rose beneath a clouded sky when you and I were young

  I felt our slow subtraction

  in every missing post

  we knew we ached for every mention of The Poet's ghost

  in that profound distinction

  we bled the blood of youth

  before our insides flushed out dry we heard a cry of truth:

  A sound, a growl of sovereign

  The six-string strums again

  His ballad flew down from the heavens, filling us within

  Our blood changed into nectar

  our guts reformed to glass

  and every gold prospector found his treasure cove at last.

  In that junkyard

  In that junkyard,

  Snow covered debris

  Like a soggy blanket

  On a screaming child's face

   

  Winter spit in oilpans

  stark, gelatin contrast

  Plastic tarp

  Covering yesteryear's lies

  He's the owner

  The loner

  The scoffing man shown for what he is in his filth

  We're no different.

  But we do hide it quite well under the lip gloss.

  Locusts

  How did it happen? How did the most

  Important point and poem of sound

  In our day indict dapper slices

  Of itself and shrink slowly to the noise

  Of phones buzzing? Petty to trade

  The cuckoo clock or the bells

  Of the belfry tower at the best hours

  Of vigils and vespers or the violin my Great

  Grandfather grabbed in the grey of dawn

  To wake the women and the wider-eyed

  Girls who had gone to the gossamer dreamlands

  After they aimed amber shooters

  At their mother's marbles and maybe she lost

  Them as in later years when lights went off

  In her mind's eye or the mixing swishes

  Of the winter walk through wet snow

  At an asinine hour to the outhouse door

  Or the cheering crowds with their cheap beer

  Showers shining at the shipping of balls

  over the green outfield wall

  To infinity from the finite. Find in me and drill

  To the remnant of my ringings and require the miners

  Of culture to core my cardiac sack

  And my soul's one for the sake of the singing of old

  Songs and their sounds. Seek this or, Dust,

  Settle for the buzz and scuttle of locusts

  That claim the culture's clanging moments.

  Cold Fusion

  At high enough speeds

  rain on glass

  jolts

  lightening

  itself to lightning.

  The phrase "electrical

  storm" means more

  when

  you've lived through

  the deadliest twister.

  Imagine: cyclones

  inside one.

  Now:

  swap wind with

  electricity.

  I bet if you asked

  him nicely

  old

  Pecos Bill

  would rope'n ride it.

  Planes are so funny.

  Penance in Eastertide

  The Rings of Venus

  The Platonists pilfered impossible thoughts

  From the tiniest things. How the thinkers

  Mind a mouse or a mellon and dream

  Distillate dreams that drink of the fountain

  Of joy and justice that enjambs a row

  Boat into debates beautiful and sailing

  Or infers the fern from the foundry's smelt

  Singed gold leaf. See me hold

  The metal handle of a mace whose

  Head is the heaven of this hard earth

  Some call a subway. Its scratches belie

  Stories of summers when sudden lovers

  Engaged in the glory of good intent

  And the premarital moves like moons in orbit

  Will vow a voyage that varies only by starting

  Again at the gate of good intent

  After straying and staying and striving to fight

  To keep their flight coming home

  To their virgin vows and the rings of Venus

  Who reminds the man he's married and tames

  The maiden's makeshift men whose pretend

  Strength and statehood would shift them to a seduction

  Of meaningless "manly." Manful bands

  And engagement rings go around

  And around the rigid rod on their commutes

  And scar it with star searing and the heat

  Of homeward bound. Or the hapless and loveless

  Rust that chooses to rest itself at the top

  And hope that Heaven has homes for the lone

  Celibates and their silent study of the

  Music Of The Spheres and their many rings.

  Communes

  The phone flings beeps, fingers respond

  By typing tamely, or the thumbs clanking

  I love you in laminated

  Golden age .gifs or emojis

  Like knot-tying nubs that fumble

  Half-hitches the harbor uses

  In the nightly fog. We never meant

  To replace our prose with power cords

  Or whisper with widgets. Where did the letters

  Get sold like slaves shamed and whose faces

  Masquerade mainly became

  For the overconnected empire of event

  Notifications and newer likes

  And videos viral? Verily I say

  That he who hardens harolds into song

  Samplers is sunk. Surely I tell you

  That texts take time and tinkering like all

  Ancient tomes -- oh, honey, did you

  Think I was talking of texting on the phone

  Instead of study? Standards will change

  But Canon keeps and communes and abbeys

  Communicated mainly in manful and better

  Ways like wonder and wayward sleeps

  That end in dreams. Even the vow

  Of silence ensures sanctifying

  Exchanges of meaning whereas checking the red

  Number of notifs does nothing much

  for the major minds. Remember how Antony

  Said of the Pope: "If my silence doesn't

  Edify him, oh how will my speech?"

  Caged Verse

  The free verse leaves out the back of the line, aim
lessly grieves until we hear it whining, wailing, singing for more, more, MORE. It has never paid nor gone without--a babe, a brat, a brawling rich twit.

  But a verse that stalks

  down her narrow lines

  would never walk

  through a crowd to dine

  with her verses bared, unclothed.

  Behind locked doors,

  she opens her chest and sings.

  The caged verse sings

  downtrodden trills

  of the hammerfells

  on the windowsills

  and her tune is heard

  on the First-World hills, for the caged verse

  sings through freedom.

  The free verse floats, breezy, queezed by ethereal motion-sickness, a sickness that leads to his vomit on pages, he vomits and sees that all his might and all his dreams achieved no more than a dawn-bright antimeter in a world measured by metrics. And returning to his vomit, eats.

  But a caged verse stands on the graves of pages

  shadowed still by unsaid rages

  her reservations mirror the actress:

  smiling, though distressed.

  The caged verse sings

  downtrodden trills

  of the hammerfells

  on the windowsills

  and her tune is heard

  on a First-World hill for the caged verse

  sings her freedom.

  Dear Ozark Freshman Boy

  You'll set out to save this sullied world

  But the world it won't want the saving.

  You'll choose to charter a change on the earth

  But the earth it earned the old abyss

  And its pain of unpleasure of purposeless clicks

  Like clockworks corrupted. Cling to the other

  clockworks' chimes: clean saving and

  badder days blaming the rising

  up of the earth on all of you.

  If you want to weather the world and its stasis

  You take time and tinker it up:

  Broken cogs and brittle springs

  Upward and inward on angel wings

  Melting black marks to white

  But the parson's grey pigeon feathers

  Like a naked Franciscan -- are not we all

  as nude as Francis? Nevertheless

  Redemptive clockwork drains your winder

  But it's worth the wait. When can the cool

  Air of Elysium enter our stage

  And dramaturge endure? Depends on the other

  Actors and the aim of their aimless clock.

  Making and mending. Maybe redemptive

  Clockwork cleans not the cogs but the old

  Watchmaker's heart, withering roots

  Can bloom again and blackened logs

  Tock to the tinker's time and value.

  Saint Francis saw the church in

  Ruins and reformed not the rites but himself.

  The Righteous and Unrighteous Alike

  Three hawks I saw & a crow on a day when the rain drizzled down from the shroud overcast on our hills, wings in spray, wings (brown tops, white bottoms, farmers's tans) weighed with water or now dripping, then dripping inken-black, now flinging ringlets of brackish wet as they dove into blades of the green or sopping crops (that needed those sky-slops) catching mouse-like-things-soggy in their mouths (beaks) and rising again to dead oak trees, truncated by light and fire or human hands in storms or for the "necessary evil" of power lines and waiting, waiting (three in the tree and the crow across the way) for the presence of life (life or lack thereof respectively) for a dive-dive-dive or a slow-flap after the remnants of overcast.

  And I drive on past on the wet WW highway, double-yellow roadway upanddownandleftandright over runnels with far off woodlots pressing near and breaking out, flocking and parting and lighting (like I always envisioned a drive through The Shire might be) until crests the hill a red brick chapel with white-framed stained-glass and a white-box belfry capped in grey shingles indistinguishable from the asphalt heavens, grey gaps of God that break apart its peak into seen-unseen-seen-unseen and again seen until the cross tops veiled somewheres in them grey clouds, grey rain resetting the saturation scale of the world full to its factory setting.

  Behind it, the cemetery of a small Missouri township of thirty-three homes.

  Hawks and crow in the rain, thriving off of life and death and life again.

  ...wait, I'm sorry...

  Rather, thriving off of

  rain.

  For Grandpa Schaubert, On His Eightieth

  Like the time we made eight dozen swords

  from scraps of short-term fences

  like gardens grown in backyard troughs

  require all five senses

  like smells of Summerfest behind,

  of corn dogs, sweets, Budweiser

  like sounds of Glory up ahead,

  of laughter, song, advisers

  like sights of Gateway Arches,

  woods, a Florida beach in winter

  like tastes of dandelion wine,

  of sawdust, sweat, the splinter

  like feelings unrelated prior

  to the time remembered

  like stories told by fireside,

  the zappers, s'mores and embers

  are eighty thousand moments forged

  of laughter, zeal and fable.

  We're here to lap it up with you

  as long as you are able.

  Shrackle Seeds

  "Sit down you Cack!"

  The young Tish said

  And tossled on the skrey

  "I'll sit you hack!

  When e're I please"

  Said Mozzle to the prey

  "You're blockin' view

  of Glureon -

  my source of tynsoday"

  "I'll block and blind

  and show you mozz

  If you keep in my way!"

  "My bag of shrackles

  ranneth out

  And not a splidget more!"

  "Fill it with cackles

  Dumb young rit!

  Caprussule to the shore!"

  So off went Tish

  To Glureon,

  A marnlin' in the reeds

  And soon he came

  Upon a qest

  Of shrackle-spreading seeds.

  "Oh sheer delight!"

  The young tish said

  "The shrackles will resume!"

  And off he went

  Back to the skrey

  To end the old cack's gloom

  When he arrived

  The cack had died

  A-shlouging in his chair.

  He bowed and sighed

  Tish Bowed and cried

  to settle in despair.

  As Tish's tears

  Fell from his face

  And settled in the Bag

  A miracle soon

  Took its place

  To wave a hopeful flag

  Light pouring down

  From somewhere up

  In cloud and sky above

  Hit in the bag

  To shrintle there

  Out sprung a shrackle grove!

  Soon then, it rained

  with tynsoday

  Upon the lifeless Hack

  His fingers twitched

  In joy Tish yelled

  "Get up you lively cack!"

  ランスロットの探求 (a heroic haiku)

  Lance yawns

  bed of leaves

  nuzzling

  dreams:

  Go. (cold air

  waking)

  enters in

  foreign woods

  blooming

  blooms too:

  hot, high, hardy.

  takes light.

  gets "Go,"

  harvest of Goes

  brimming

  costs cuts:

  cold air comes,

  steals Goes.

  back again:

  bed of blooms


  waking

  no more dead;

  growing Man.

  changed.

  Inheritance: Part 1

  Window in this darkened house

  Three-feet by two-feet

  Eight panes above their front door

  Morning grey, images of

  Wintered trees wander

  in, framed by rules of thirds

  But Phi also holds this light

  Two-thirds in their lounge

  Over entry way's one-third

  It's not as simple as that

  Math got left behind

  But I am taunted to climb out the panes

  Into worlds out there beyond glass

  I've missed them in my work, writing of what the five-year-old

  deep inside barely remembers...

  Years passed

  bare feet connected to my limber legs

  wandered into the worlds lying just off

  well-beaten trails (that

  familiar meek feel of

  inheriting the earth:

  tender grass blades

  underfoot).

  In the Thirty-Third Year

  Plants bearing seeds according to their kinds and trees with fruit with seed according to it and (GOOD!) evening and goooooooooooooooood morning Vietnam and

  Third day.

  Third river's Tigris.

  Three sons: Shem, Ham Japeth.

  This is how you build it build it build it: three-hundy [insert colloquial measurements] long.

  Wife and three sons enter,

  three sons from whom all earth is center.

  Then a...

  heifer and a goat, each three years old.

  Three visitors

  (three men)

  who didn't want to get [radio edit]

  by other men.

  Three [insert colloquial measurements] of flour.

  Third day: in the distance saw the place.

  Three flocks of sheep.

  Maybe her husband would love her some more since she bore him a live third son.

  Third day they tell him Deceiver escapes.

  Three-day lead between he and Deceiver.

  Told the third servant forewarn his brother the presents came from Deceiver.

  Three days later, all in pain slaughtered with pants around ankles.

  Three months later the Lion finds out his sister's (the hooker's) preggers.

  ...and on the vine were three branches.

  Three branches, three days.

  Three days and the king will lift up your head and restore you.

  ...and three baskets of bread.

  Three baskets, three days.

  Three days and the king will lift up your head on a pole.

  ...and they all went to jail for three days.

  ...and he said, "Do this, that, and the other (3) and you'll live."

  Three hundred [insert colloquial measurements] of silver in Ben's bag.

  The poor woman by the end had bore their daddy thirty-three kids in all...

  ...and Jo saw the third generation of his boy's kids.

  Preggers again, different gal, gave birth to a boy – "a fine child" – and hid him for three months.

  Let us take a three-day journey into the woods to–

  Let us take a three-day journey into the woods to–

  He was eighty, his brother eighty-three when they went to the King again.

  Let us take a three-day journey into the woods to–

  After getting interrupted three times the "fine child" no longer a child stretched his hand toward the sky and the world as they knew it went dark for three days.

  No one could see or move for three days.

  The kid (not a kid) then took all the slaves on a three-day journey into the woods to–

  dang, no water.

  First day of the third month, they came to the desert.

  And they were supposed to be prepared by the third day because the provider of provisions would come down from the mountain to provide.

  That meant no sex for three days,

  totally weren't ready.

  On the morning of the third day, thunder and lightning. Gooooooooooooood morning Vietnam!

  "Screw up and it'll affect your family to the third generation."

  So...

  if Him don't provide Her with them three things, he gotta just let her go free.

  Three times a year: party.

  Seven branches on the lampstand: three on one side, three on t'other.

  buds on the stand: third bud under the third pair

  three cups like almond flowers buds and blossoms on one branch, three on the next

  ...of acacia wood three [insert colloquial measurements] high

  curtains fifteen [insert colloquial measurements] long on one side of the entrance with three posts & three bases

  third row'll be jacinth, agate, amethyst

  Dudes in Levi's family followed the orders of The Fine-Looking Kid and three-thousand died anyway.

  Three times a year ALL YOUR MEN show up. On time.

  No one'll be jealous of your land when you do this three times a year.

  (three branches one side, three on t'other)

  curtains fifteen [insert colloquial measurements] long (that's a three-by-fiver)

  burn the meat on the third day

  but don't eat the meat on the third day

  but eat it on the day you give it

  but don't eat it after the third day

  woman, wait thirty-three days to be pure from bleeding

  and bring three-tenths of an [insert colloquial measurements] of flour

  three years before you eat from trees

  then on the sixth, three years worth'll bloom all at once

  three [insert colloquial measurements] of silver for a wo-man, lad-y or other term for fe-male

  Ephraim sets out third.

  Eleb brought the goods on the third day,

  traveled for three days,

  golden angels before them three days,

  "Come out you three!" Aaron, Moses, Miram come.

  clean men make unclean men clean by sprinkling water on the third day

  Three times a jackass talks to Balaam.

  On the third time, he gets the picture.

  Three days in the Desert again.

  Aaron dies at 133.

  Third generation can enter the temple.

  all produce set aside in the third year

  three cities east of Jordan,

  three cities of refuge for falsely accused murderers

  three witness? death penalty

  set aside three more cities, while you're at it

  Third day, they crossed east of Jordan and came down to their cities

  (none of the three refuge cities that day)

  third lot falls to Zebulun, they get some of the conquered land

  they hid for three days

  after three days, officers went through the camp

  three thousand men took it

  three thousand went up

  three days... a treaty? A treaty.

  three men from each tribe for the survey

  three towns

  three towns

  three towns

  three sons

  Three hundred on knees who lapped like dogs

  three hundred, no more, who would fight the hoard

  three hundred, three companies

  three with their trumpets

  three with their pots

  three with their lamps

  Abimelek, 3 yrs

  Tola was 23

  300 years to occupy settlements

  3 days without answer and

  300 flaming foxes, tail-tied in the crops

  third time he made a fool of her, then she of him

  (1) tied him to the kitchen chair

  (2) broke his word -- cut his hair

  (3) from his lips she drew the hallelujah

  3,000 to the cave afraid
of the enemy

  3,000 in Dagon's balcony

  One man, two pillars

  ashes

  ashes

  all fall down

  2/3 of a [insert colloquial measurements] of silver to sharpen

  3-year old bull when Samuel was weaned

  three-pronged fork into the meat

  three sons, two daughters

  lost donkeys three days ago

  THREE MEN WILL GO UP TO WORSHIP THE lord

  One with three goats

  One with three loaves

  One with the wine

  three thousand divided in three divisions

  an infinite foe with three thousand chariots

  three detachments -- raids

  Jesse's three oldest

  Shammah, the third son, but not him, no not him...

  David the youngest, three oldest met Saul

  Saul sent a third prophet, all of them saying what he didn't want

  three arrows to the side

  Dave bowed three times before Jon

  and ran

  three thousand men to search again

  (dave hid with the man with three-thousand sheep

  he's hungry -- no food, water for three days, three nights

  Egyptian shows up, left his master three days ago

  Dave and his men reach Ziglag -- 3rd day)

  The Three sons of Saul and Saul's armor-guy, Saul all died

  Dave's thirty, becomes king

  Dave's third son: Absalom...

  every three lengths of rope, a man can live -- the rest die

  Dave's men kill three hundred (and sixty) Benjaminites

  Dave's reigning in the midst of 33 years

  ark rest for 3 months in Obed-Edom's house

  Absalom flees for the best of three years

  Had three sons, a daughter named Tamar

  tried to take over the throne

  oh no

  Absalom (third son) tries to take throne,

  gets blonde locks stuck in a tree, and dies at Joab's hand -- three spears in the heart

  Dave's words:

  "Absalom!

  Absalom, my son!

  My son!

  Absalom, my son!"

  3-year famine, kills off Saul's grandchildren

  300  [insert colloquial measurements] heavy spearhead tries to kill Dave

  saved by chief of the Three which were over the thirty-three

  three mighty broke the Philistines

  risked their lives, fought lions in a cave on a snowy day, these were the three's exploits

  "Hey Dave? You screwed up bad. Three options:

  Three years of famine.

  Three months on the run.

  Three days of plague."

  "I'll take number three, the plague." 70,000 die

  His boy came, spoke 3,000 proverbs.

  Lots of other sons-the-3rd

  Third day's Esther with life on line in royal robes petitioning her king for her people

  Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego.

  Three men in the fire unhurt

  because there was a fourth in there...

  But it got so bad that Zeke found out that the place wouldn't get saved even if these three:

  Noah

  Daniel

  Job

  were in the city.

  three against two and two against three

  then

  prepare the way

  make it straight

  pave the roads

  "three" kings.

  kid comes and at 3×4 years is teaching teachers

  third day, a jewish wedding in Galilee

  twice 3000 demons in a guy, sends them into pigs, off the cliff, in a graveyard, in the land ruled by the equivalent of "white trash"

  inner three on the third mountain in the story

  Peter

  James

  John

  three men in the lightning storm unhurt

  because of a fourth,

  One man standing in between

  (2) Moses and

  (3) Elijah

  "Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Oh Jerusalem!"

  Then they flee.

  "I woulda gathered you into my arms.

  Under my wings!"

  Denied him how many times?

  Yes, three.

  Flogged thirty-nine times.

  Two in the hands, one in the feet.

  Three kings again, but different now.

  False trials from three slanderous witnesses -- remember the murder verdict?

  Far away from three cities of refuge

  One man

  between two thieves

  dying outside this city-of-the-third-temple's gates

  three in the afternoon

  destroy this temple, I'll raise it in three days

  three days

  "must be delivered, crucified, third day raised"

  at only thirty-three.