1991
Di vorce
January 1991
Cold bodies
Frigid air.
Separa tions.
Shoulder | blade | discussions.
Mute and deaf inquiries.
Stiff spines,
And lost causes.
Anguish, and shrieking, howling loneliness.
Whoever She Is I'll Know
January 1, 1991
Whoever she is I'll know I'll know I'll know
Whenever together we'll flow we'll flow
Wherever she wants we'll go
Creative Crumbs
January 2, 1991
Creative crumbs
Stick to my mouth
Like crags among a cliff:
I lick my lips....
Why Did You Lead Me on So Long?
January 2, 1991
Why did you lead me on so long...?
Why, now I feel a fool!
For love I labored, and now it's gone,
And gone's my lover too.
So now I have to shoulder life,
Once more upon my own;
No shelter as I carry strife,
No confidence (confidantes?), no home.
I'll rest my weary head
Alone on this big empty bed
I Must Let Flow
January 5, 1991
I must let flow; I must let go;
I must walk sure; I must think pure.
A Good Way to Write Poetry
January 8, 1991
A good way to write poetry is to ask yourself questions that fix your mind; then, in succession, attempt to answer those questions as thoroughly and clearly as possible. A self-scripture, where the answers already wait, buried deep in your heart. Tap those answers.
So Many Ideas
January 11, 1991
So many ideas
Wash up on the shore;
So many ideas
Grow from one small spore;
So many ideas
Pummel my skull (walls) and burst forth a path;
So many ideas
Brainstorm in filth, demand Editor's bath.
(Educational) Slaughter
January 17, 1991
The bell rings.
All animals leave their pens,
All animals enter the chutes,
And are channeled
To their next destination.
At each pen they are fed;
Fattened;
Bloated;
Then hurriedly taken to market.
Willingly, they lay their limbs on the slab;
Willingly, the butcher starts to stab.
The animals willingly submitted themselves to their own killing.
Such fine animals;
But with animal minds.
Why Then You Turned to Stone
January 22, 1991
If we, together, reconciled
Why then you turned to stone,
I'd soon begin to heal.
But unexplained, and love defiled,
And lovelogic unshown,
My vacancy is real.
Not Lost in Thought
January 24, 1991
Not lost in thought, but found;
For in deep thought solutions abound.
A Flood of Information
January 31, 1991
A flood of information
Pours out and on the floor;
A dam of inspiration
Has broke and drowns the shore;
It uproots all and rumbles forth,
To overcome my life ---
Renovating thoughts decayed;
Cauterizing ends once frayed;
Subsidizing sins unpaid.
The anarchy of strife
Brings calmness of another sort.
Many Times I've Loved
February 17, 1991
The first time that I dared to love, my face was all too pink;
I rinsed away sunshine in bliss,
(And now I shrink to picture this)
Imbibed your liquid love by moistened kiss.
But mildewy memories
Leave their rancid odors in my mind.
The second time I loved, my face was sort of flushed;
I cultivated room for growth,
But soon the rose was crushed.
The third time that I looked at love
It glimmered in the night;
Though distanced by a sky above,
We shared the stars by sight.
A thousand times I've loved (or more),
But rarely ever true;
For love's a glove, it hardly stays,
It only warms a while;
And when love's bored,
Without a word,
Removes itself and strays.
From now on out, no love seems new,
I'm wary when I think;
No matter what I pray or (think or) do
I fear my earthquaked love will sink:
Sink into infinity,
And meet oblivion;
And prove my love a vanity,
Or thwarted dominion.
Face in the Mirror
March 1991
Merely a mirror, the mirror so queer,
Reflections of the now;
Within the mirror a me appears,
Or so me likes to think;
Reflection-glass, of scars from past,
Tears drip in the sink.
Tear smears on mirror,
Reflections run,
Drip down upon the sink ---
Pitter-patter, drip-drip, shave-nick!
Mirror image, mere mirror
Left-right, there-here,
Reflecting in the mirror;
Sink, hair, blood, drip drip drip;
I'm back again: I cut my lip!
A Woman, This Man, Another Man
March 10, 1991
There was a woman,
She cried so hard,
But I loved her anyway.
There was this man,
He tried so hard,
Brought his bread home everyday,
Believed in love,
Recognized his God above (even though he never saw Him),
Had peace in his heart (and God recognized him because he did his part),
And a chain of Hope about his waist;
And in his soul temptation saw no place.
There was another man,
And far away he lived;
His heart was hardened tar,
His veins crisp and brittle;
He lived in a shell which he built himself.
His confidence was wax;
Vain, and pristine.
O Renascimento
March 21, 1991
I gently embrace a castle wall,
A battlement brick crumbles in my hand;
My eyes gaze a sigh over the quiet vale,
But my heart pines within for epochs past;
I shall see this old world no more.
Alone;
I leave the turret,
Descent of millennial stepstones,
Smooth and worn from time beneath my leather sole.
I spiral along endlessly, slithering, descending, undetected, palpating 'round ancient walls of graven rune: maybe scripture, maybe history, maybe stories of fallen people; blague details.
An earthen chamber awaits me,
Welcomes my weary clay;
My hand is dust, and I recline back slowly into my casket,
Heavy arms crossed over my hollow breast,
Head of brittle hair; body laid to rest.
The years of experience weigh me down into the ground, leaving me with wisdom and scars.
Motionlessly I slumber.
A thousand years or maybe more, until...
The silver trumpet sounds;
A whirlwind force pounds my heart again;
The Earth rumbles;
Tempests rage an upheaval of the elements, in the vengeance of recompense;
A brilliant Light emerges in the heavens;
A thousand tombs around me rise to attention;
A thousand tombs,
Mother Earth's new wombs,
Surrender bodies to the sky.
I too awake in the commotion,
Clothe myself immortally, and
Ascend to meet Adonai.
(“O Renascimento” is Portuguese for “rebirth”. “Adonai” is Hebrew for “My Lord.”)
One Thought
March 25, 1991
One Thought
Begins to grow,
It broke the earth that held it low;
Some sought
A way to make
The seed be sown for humans' sake.
I brought
To life my seed
And watered it daily by deed;
God fought
To help each one
Develop under His warm Sun.
(Christ, missionaries, me, Heavenly Father.)
If the Gratitude We Once Possessed
April 2, 1991
If the gratitude we once possessed
Weren't thrust out in the wind,
And
If every sick, in faith, were blessed
(An outward state of those who've sinned),
And
If God, hands down, received receipt
Of our grateful recognition,
Would a miracle be such a feat
By the Omnipotent Physician?
Thought on Poetry
April 13, 1991
You can't just write poetry, you must embody emotion, channel your passions through to acceptable means (paper), and sleep for long draughts of blissful, rejuvenating time. You must daily struggle to cross the bridge between you and God. You must be somewhat intemperate, moody, and harness / harbor great emotional fervor, great faith. You must be able to speak through your heart to the masses.
Life must be a fight where you are happy.
You must be full of great draughts of passion; frenzies of ideas followed by eye-of-the-storm calm organization, followed by more frenzies, then more organization, and so forth. So help me to die, I'll never stop writing.
You must love; you must communicate. You must improvise.
So
So what
So sleep.
On Rising to an Occasion
April 20, 1991
Let us not rise to an occasion; instead, let us be consistently and progressively prepared for that occasion.
The World Makes No Sense
April 28, 1991
The world makes no sense
God makes pure sense
He is the wise Father
We are blind babies
And He knows us intimately
And He knows what I need, and you.
In a World of Disorganization
May 11, 1991
In a world of disorganization, let us watch with care
That which seeps in under our hair.
To rise up and out of the slop, the filth, the brine:
Clean as a newborn baby, as mother's milk, as running waters that gather no grime.
I do not worry when my hidden burdens are sent to God.
Rhythms, Rivers
May 19, 1991
Rhythms
Rivers
Flowing, soaking, continuous, pounding, saturating.
Let the poem write itself.
Let the river, which flows inside of you, flow out of you.
Let the rhythm be released; show rivers.
What Are Words
May 29, 1991
What are words but mere dancers,
Darting on my cerebral stage,
With accuracy, agility prescribed.
Not for those of age,
But those of stride.
Explode Your Heart on Wood
May 29, 1991
Explode your heart on wood,
Or parchment deed,
And let your ink
Be what you think;
Your soul be what you bleed.
Bleed inky soul on paper,
Bleed blood of ink,
Bleed words,
Bleed emotion;
Get it out by getting in,
Through to people
Through their veins.
I Was Blessed With a Wielding Tongue
May 30, 1991
I was blessed with a wielding tongue
And forkéd mind,
And desire to beat double time.
I make the rounds of life so quick,
Electrifying magnets till they stick,
Finding hope in unthinkable holes,
And embracing my religion for this ride called life,
A trip worth the taking,
Quite valuable in making,
A vault over hot coals.
A garden awaits us after the strife.
I've a Stone Deep Within My Bosom
May 31, 1991
I've a stone deep
Within my bosom;
Impermeable granite,
The roughest on this planet,
Polished without, enough to see reflection;
Jelly within, the sweetest in confection.
Sugar stone, caked dry mud,
Scabs upon bone conceal my blood;
Spirit-flowing through my core,
Emotions gleaned, the rest ignore;
If a heart not imparted, then what for?
Christ's Resurrecting Force
June 2, 1991
Christ's resurrecting force
Is like the power of a horse;
Unbroken steed, yet broken bands,
No power of hell, no demon hands
Could throw His will off course.
Treasure Guard
June 23, 1991
In Evenstorm, six miles from here,
Midst preparation, I grabbed my gear,
And headed for the mountains.
Six miles more I tread alone,
Up pathways marked by stone,
Past forest springs and fountains.
Ancient pillars led the way,
Stone pillars, white, smooth in decay,
To where the cavern in the heart was dug
To where I met Sir Kindenstrug.
With spear embraced he held the gate,
And had done so for centuries --- eight.
His beard hung down around his armor,
And age was in his eyes,
And, like the phoenix, his time-bound fervor
Burned to escape through ashen skies.
In clothes of war he held the cave,
His youth preserved by potion;
Eight hundred years he held the treasure safe
In medieval-knight devotion.
But now the time had come, we knew,
To change the treasure guard;
And that is what I'd been called to:
Replacement for this Bard.
Sky Destiny
Approximately July 1991
The young man in a windowless room; mirrors on the ceiling, on the walls, on the door, on the floor; eternity in every direction, endless duplicated images of his here and now, the room expanded out into forever.
This mad boy wearily arose from off his bed, where he had lain, staring at the ceiling for hours --- and went to the door. Opening it, he stepped one foot out onto a spongy cloud. Hesitation. Then he pulled the other leg onto the cloud, as if to test its buoyancy, which securely supported him. Looking back into the empty mirrored room, his eyes scanned its contents one last time. Out in the clouds an eagle screamed. He felt the moment of life within. In his heart he felt that he would never enter that room again. At his front hung the real eternities. A city in the sky that he would build filled his mind. He looked at the barren, padded clouds, and leapt.
The One Who Bled
July 28, 1991
Then the One who bled,
The One who said,
"Let this burden be erased from off my head,"
Was then made dead.
But up He soared with healing in His wings,
And showed us what at-one-ment brings.
Eyes-Closed Writing
August 19, 1991
A pen for a walking stick
Writing through to the light
If more people wrote with their eyes closed
If we just tapped into the flowing instead of the interruptions (self-editor!),
We could be guided
Drinking Escape
August 19, 1991
Many times the young boy arrived home late, tipsily drunk,
Stumbling quietly into his room;
He locks the door and surrenders to his bed
The liquid stench of alcohol
This fleeting drunken pastime
This desire to be alive elsewhere
It controls him and he's not himself
Hates his home
Hates his parents, they don't even know
Hates the future like a low-ceilinged room.
Looking through the bottle as if it were a telescope,
He sees a future he's designed;
It's in his mind ---
Or in the wine?
The God Within as Physician
November 8, 1991
The God within you sees without,
Through soul windows of stained glass.
Dimly glimpsed, except through reflection,
He knows the panes to remedy (correction),
And where they tend to shatter.
What appears broken on the outside is fixed within;
He must carry "Doctor" as His title,
And we, Patience.
The Less I Think
December 13, 1991
The less I think
The more I drink
Sweet thoughts to liquid words;
My quiet side,
When not denied,
Will perch like untamed birds.
Ó Meu Amor, Divino e do Céu
December 14, 1991
Ó meu amor, divino e do céu!
Quando nasceste sabia sim que sempre eras meu.
Deste-me confiança, deste-me sã razão,
Ensinaste-me depender da minha oração.
(Oh my love, divine and from Heaven!
When you were born knew for sure that you were always mine.
You gave me confidence, you gave me sound thinking,
You taught me how to depend on prayer.)
The Sweet Beauty of Soft Reason
December 16, 1991
The sweet beauty of soft reason
Has set my love a’ tapping,
Denouncing stifled love as treason,
And wild love as trapping;
The same soft reason indicated
That love alone's not love,
But a one-oared ship, navigated
Uselessly in an exitless cove.
O give me inspiration, empty heart!
Let me draw from vacant bowels!
Stay the wicked barrel that at my temple scowls
And vows to see potential vows apart.
My heart, if I'm not careful,
Will soon swoon with a twitch
At the first to cede an eyeful
To this core veneered in pitch;
But, happily, deep within the core,
Beneath the pitch veneer,
A wise, tender Sage of yore
Awaits a perfect match to appear.
So I will wait,
And imagine,
And deem my Fate
A fashion.
No comments:
Post a Comment