Keith Tornheim

Keith Tornheim is a biochemistry professor at Boston University School of Medicine.  He was a co-winner of a Great Lakes College Association poetry contest in 1967 and is now a relapsed poet, especially for the last eleven years.  Some poems have recently been published in Ibbetson Street,Poetica, and Spare Change News, as well as previously in Lyrical Somerville. His poems have been a part of High Holiday and other services of his congregation (see www.shirhadash-ma.org/poetry.html).

Big Bang Theory

God grabbed atoms, packed them into balls

and threw them out to dot the firmament.

Some blazed with light, and around a lesser one

He placed smaller, darker orbs.

And on one of these, of middle size,

neither gas nor ice, but mostly dirt,

He molded trees and animals

and a chorus of sentient beings

whom He taught to sing sweet praises

of Him.

Then from elsewhere came a voice:

This eon ends; it is time to come up.

So He retrieved His balls, compressed them back

into a box that was not a box,

and left.

Time that was not time passed,

and Godlet reappeared,

opened the box that was not a box,

flung out the stars again.

– Keith Tornheim        

_________________________________________________

To have your work considered for the LYRICAL send it to:
Doug Holder  25 School St. Somerville, Mass. 02143
dougholder@post.harvard.edu