The Book of Daniel
You wouldn’t think the Book of Daniel would
leave Daniel out, but tell me, you who’ve read
the book, how many flowers Daniel could
identify by name, what Daniel said
when asked what was his favorite color, food,
his favorite place to pause from life and think
about the future or just sit and brood,
which hand he cupped when he would take a drink.
You see? Of course, the lion’s den, the feast,
but Daniel? Could he tell a joke, laugh at
himself, get out of his own way, at least?
Which kind of person was he, dog or cat?
We might say cat, as lions were his friends,
but, honestly, Dan’s mystery never ends.
Cogito
As for me[,] Daniel, my cogitations much troubled me, my
countenance changed in me: but I kept the matter in my heart.
Daniel 7:28 KJV
The kings of Babylon, the Persian king,
the burning fiery furnace, lions, all
just made me ill. My visions would appall
much sterner minds than mine. My reckoning
was not reliable, but here’s the thing:
I was rewarded for it. Kings would call
me in to read the writing on the wall,
to parse their dreams. What more could misrule bring?
It’s obvious the worlds aligned askew,
unobvious to what. Inscrutable
to me. In prudence, I too wore a mask.
My made-up tales were taken to be true,
prophetic, regnant, irrefutable.
How strange, since I yearned, not to tell, but ask.
Dan Campion is the author of Calypso (1981), The Mirror Test (2024), A Playbill for Sunset (2022), and Peter De Vries and Surrealism (1995) and is a co-editor of Walt Whitman: The Measure of His Song (1981, 2nd ed. 1998, 3rd ed. 2019). Dan’s poetry has appeared previously in Amethyst Review and in Able Muse, Light, Poetry, Rolling Stone, THINK, and many other magazines.
Amethyst Review 