Lament in the Tempo of Blue

Lament in the Tempo of Blue

Josiah A.R. Cox

Where there is a kind of light without heat…that knowledge is no true spiritual knowledge of divine things. —Jonathan Edwards

Now mute mood
Now slow sense
Now drag emotion down

Somewhere somehow
I thought I was
Better off without

Now numb pains
Now numb joys
Now dumb nothing to say

Somewhere somehow
I thought I was
Better off without

Control control
Stoic soul I tied
Tourniquet tight
Then rush red blush
Plum now only blue

Somehow somewhere
The lie I bought
Was true I thought
O but how I am
Worse off without you

---

Josiah A.R. Cox
Poet & Editor

Josiah A.R. Cox is from Kansas City, Missouri. He is Lead Assistant Editor for The Hopkins Review and a member of the Scholars of Literature and Religion (SOLAR) Network and the Christian Poetics Initiative (CPI). His poems have appeared in Ekstasis Magazine, Christianity and Literature, and elsewhere. He currently lives in Baltimore.

Photography by Jack Cohen