Passages of Heart - Poetry of the Unification Movement - Edited by Kevin Convery and Eric Bobrycki - November 29, 1989 pdf
• H •:>Awtmli M M $ ISM W i l l i ;
P a s s a g e s
of H e a r t Fbetry of the Unification Movement
P a s s a g e s
o f H e a r t
P o e t r y o f t h e LTnifieation M o v e m e n t
Edited by Kevin Convery and Eric Bobrycki Unification Theological Seminary • Barrytown, N e w York
First Edition Copyright © 1990 Unification Theological Seminary Barrytown, N e w York
All rights reserved. N o part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in United States of America Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89-052168 I S B N 0-932894-21-6
Dedicated to Heung Jin-nim, our dear brother and good friend. His life was an endearing example of love and piety, and abides with us today as a “light unto our path”.
Introductory Remarks xv Anonymous Winter Meditation, Barrytown, 1975 1 Nigel Barrett IN A P O O R B L A C K A R E A O F M I A M I 3 Eric Bobrycki I See 4 Resentment 5 “Deep into deep and deeper still” 6 The Harbinger 7 The Spider 8 Kevin Brabizon I will not weep 9 Life’s Cruel Jest 10 William Brunhofer matchless 11 on Shakespeare’s sonnets 12 “ W e shall go laughing soon into the rain” 13 The Balanced Builder 14 White Swans 15 Children’s Day 16 David Brunner a new suit 17 the winter from rocky mountains 18 tall timber 19 Robert Jules Chaumont the philosopher pyun hae soo 20 Anthony Clarke The Chasm N o w Between Us 22 Alex Colvin School at Barrytown 24 Kevin Convery Indian Photograph 27 Autumn Madonna (to Marybeth) 29 Remembrance—Testimony of St. Joan 30 The Time Before 32 Poem for Ireland (to my father Francis Convery) 34 Rite of Passage 36 Night Mission 38
Jean Cummings M A K I N G IT 39 Christopher V. Davies O R A N G E S O N G 40 T H E PERFECT CHILD 41 angela douglas REPENTENCE 42 SUNSET 43 FOR P O L A N D : D E C E M B E R 1981 44 LET T H E W O R D 45 J A N U A R Y SPRING 46 N O C T U R N E 47 IS T H E D R E A M WITHIN 48 for the dissidents 49 P A L M T R E E S 50 N I G H T O F T E A R S 52 B E A U T I F U L IS T H E H E A R T 53 T E A R 54 Tribulation 55 Mary Jo Downey Prayer R o o m 56 “These Clouds” 57 Summer’s leaving 58 1533 No. Third Street, Harrisburg 59 Flags at city hall, Philadelphia 60 Though in the end we are alone 61 In m y quieted voice 62 Process 63 Sounding lines 64 Pat: pouring water 65 Diana Muxworthy Feige F O R S Y T H I A 67 Brian Goldstein I wandered lonely as the empire state building 68 Deep D o w n the Corridors of Love 69 Metaphysics on Exhibit 70 Jonathan Gullery What do you write 71 R U N RIVER 72
Kate Gwin M O R N I N G 74 W A R R I O R S OF T H E SUN 75 BROTHER OF M Y FRIEND: VERSION I 76 T O BE Y O U R SISTER 78 SANDWICHES 79 RETURNING RESURRECTION 80 R E M E M B E R I N G JUNE 81 FINDING A FRIEND 82 DIDN’T Y O U SAY Y O U W E R E ITALIAN, TOO? 84 FINDING T H E W A Y H O M E 85 RUNNING 87 ADMISSION TO T H E TEMPLE 89 BLACK A N D WHITE 91 OH, JERUSALEM! 92 Debbie Hall To All My Little Brothers 93 Andrew Hamilton Sunshower 94 Felice W. Hart T H E E N D 95 John Haydon with the first slip of m y pen 96 P O E M 97 Simon Herbert poverty 98 Kurt Holmquist The Great Deceiver 99 Little by Little 100 Lloyd Howell C O M I N G O U T OF T H E ICE 101 Bob Huneycutt N E W CITY 103 Leslie Holliday Edge of Spring 104
Michael Huntington Zen Stone Into the Silences 106 Invitation 107 To Get a Dream 108 The Passing of Lao Tzu 109 “yesterday, snow fell” 110 Waiting 111 Nightbird 112 “lone crow befogged in the distance” 113 Forest Sorrow 114 Sad Songs 115 Smoking Storm 116 M F T - M I A 118 “and what of the disappearance” 120 Mountain Storm 121 Leaves of Meaning 122 “colors of the sun” 124 Barnyard Moonrise 125 True…in the dark, too 126 “between the books and m y eyes” 127 Mike Inglis “Such a yearning deep inside” 128 Leslie James The Mother of Nature 129 Wind soft sighs 130 M y Question 131 Dianne Jenkins Father 132 “accomplishment is value” 133 Jonatha A. Johnson Reeling in the East 134 Dragon White and Dragon Blue 135 A T R I B U T E T O J O H N K E N N E D Y 136 M a x Lambert “I call and call” 138 “ W h y is it” 139 “Hard times, baby” 140
Curtis Martin “Theologers rage and” 141 Nuts! 142 Melinda Boonville 144 Lisa Mitchell Ode to Parting with Love and from God 145 Renaissance 146 Workshop 147 Simplicity 148 Larry Moffitt Child of Oklahoma 149 A Time to Refrain 150 Farmer Brown 151 Rain Prayer 152 Post Word Processor Comedown 153 Eyewitness News 154 The M a n W h o Froze 155 West 35th and Others 156 M. Morris (Fought) “fleeting in morning mists” 157 “it is now” 158 “in the autumn fullness of things” 159 “there are many sides of m e “ 160 “i can hardly find the lines” 161 “the edges cut sharp” 162 “i love you with an aching” 163 “outside the snows come gently” 164 “night” 165 “how our lives slip by and away” 166 “late at night” 168 “bittersweet waters” 169 “i know you” 170 “who can tell when winter ends” 171 “i don’t feel as if i need” 172 “annie always looked for the biscuit box” 173 “ m y heart is an empty gaping room” 174 I Ching consolation 175 the healing 176
“ m y father’s office” 177 “from the ashes of fire” 178 “tremulous calls like the whip-poor-will” 179 “i’m not quite sure” 180 For a friend of a friend 181 (litany call) (and response) by Karen Judd Smith 182
STATION SITTING 183 BRIDGE TOLL 184 Elizabeth Parker Rouen 185 T O T H E SISTERS 186 E X O D U S 187 B U T T E R F L Y 188 Jane Salter If Ever I Forget You 190 Forest 191 Something, Somewhere 192 Robert Selle Plump Summer M o o n 193 Fundraising 194 Harbor-dirge 195 Chris Semansky Poem for Beginners 196 Abraham’s Failure 197 O n Dealing With Communists 198 Craig Smith R E F L E C T U S 199 Karen Judd Smith “Oh m y soul” 200 (litany call) by Marilyn Morris (and response) 182 Larry Smith The Fullness of Time 201 Paul Stearns The Hen 202 Destroy All Monsters 203
Bruce Sutchar “Three mallards whisper together” 204 Laura Taylor Troika 205 Mary Townsend “Great fish of mysterious waters” 206 A River of Birds 207
Illustrations Children’s Day 16 School at Barrytown 25 Orange Song 40 Palm Trees 51 Flags at City Hall, Philadelphia 60 R U N RIVER 73 F I N D I N G A F R I E N D 83 Edge of Spring 105 Leaves of Meaning 123 Nuts 143 “how our lives slip by and away” 167 Butterfly 189
Introduction
Passages of Heart is an anthology of poems by some members of the Unification movement. Its expressions of love and life offer us a composite sketch of a dedicated peo- ple pursuing their relationship with God. This collection is delightfully unique in that it repeatedly knocks d o w n the sacred/secular wall which then allows us to find G o d in new and wondrous places. It is a work born out of our love and gratitude for our spiritual Father, Sun M y u n g M o o n . The foundation of Passages lies with the first U T S anthology of poems entitled Signs of Presence, Love and More. Signs was developed on a thematic or topic construct; Passages delves into particular poets of the Unification movement and represents a new level of growth. The editors of this edition would hope that a third work, something more comprehensive and inclusive of our worldwide movement, would be undertaken—such a work would be a wonderful offering. Passages of Heart has taken m a n y years to unfold. It first began with Susan Reno in 1981. She became inspired to undertake such a task, and then, she passed it on to m e upon her graduation from the Unification Theological Seminary. I a m indebted to her en- thusiastic support and concern. Special thanks go to our President David S.C. Kim. It has been his dedication to the arts, both spiritually and financially, that actually allowed for the beginning and completion of this work. Thanks go to our friends Arthur Herstein and Nina Magnin w h o contributed their time and talents in typesetting, layout and design. The wonderful illustrations were done by Angela Eisenbart. The editors and reviewers truly stand out in m y heart—looking back to days w e spent together in Barrytown creates a deep longing inside. I hope they continue with new discoveries and creative expressions worthy of their God-given talents: Bill Brunhofer, Robert Chaumont, Kate Clarke, Mary Jo Downey, Brian Goldstein, Michael Huntington and Marilyn Morris. Each helped in making Passages of Heart come true for us all. I must especially thank our senior editor, Kevin Convery. His insight, humor, and en- couragement uplifted us all above the seriousness of our task—enough so that w e could see it through to the joy of its completion.
It has long been m y dream to live in a world peopled with men and women, sons and daughters of true love and great creativity. The making of this anthology has strengthened that dream. To all who offered their poems, to all who read and are enriched, may God bless you and keep your heart and dream full of hope, for His kingdom draws ever near.
Eric Bobrycki Oklahoma City November 29, 1989
It has n o w been nearly a decade since myself and a few students at the Unification Seminary began compiling the material for “Passages of Heart,” specifically the decade of the eighties, soon to c o m e to a close. I’m sure that I echo the sentiments of m a n y in observing that it has been a dramatic and often bewildering ten years. It has also been a period marked by a veritable avalanche of expression from every cause and faction im- aginable. O n e might well ask, “Does the world really need one more poetry b o o k ? “ The answer to that question, for m e , has come in unexpected ways from m y surroun- dings over the past five years. M y present h o m e , the state of Tennessee, is an area rich in natural beauty, existing, in m a n y places, in strange contrast to the reminders of an intense and tragic era. The ghosts of the past seem ever present here; standing alongside the mute rows of cannon at Shiloh or Missionary Ridge, looking out from grainy photographs or from the somber eyes of countless bronze soldiers. In the soft clarity of an autumn after- noon it is easy to find oneself wondering about the hearts and minds that once moved behind these relics of the violent transition k n o w n as the American Civil W a r . In m y m a n y walks through the Tennessee battlefields I have come to feel a sense of kinship with these souls, these m e n and w o m e n w h o , not unlike ourselves, faced a time when the social order and psychic frame of reference for their world was changing forever. The questions they lived, and died with, about h u m a n dignity, freedom, the meaning of suffering; questions for them inescapably real, were also m y questions. Today, as then, w e find ourselves confronted on every side with painful issues over basic values. Battered by the winds of change w e grope for vision. Everywhere there is revolution, both political and spiritual. W h a t forces underlie this compelling state of restlessness? It is our hope that here, through the words of the Unificationists, individuals in- timately and passionately concerned with the destiny of humankind, w e can offer far more that a collection of feelings finely expressed. W e hope these “passages” will shed light in a unique way on our o w n historical m o m e n t , and the implications it holds for all of us. I believe that this small group of tempered idealists, far from being an isolated “special interest group,” does reflect the deepest concerns and currents of late twentieth century America. It is also m y personal hope that this anthology will be a memorial to the courage and sacrifice that underlies the words within it. M a y it be a tribute to m e n and w o m e n everywhere w h o , in the face of engulfing nihilism, uphold the essential dignity of the free h u m a n heart and the divine love that guides it.
Kevin Convery Chattanooga, Tennessee November 29, 1989
Winter Meditation, Barrytown, 1975
In the swift time between then and now a chest of gems is set between m y hands. Winter silver sunlight crackling through a white and golden pane shatters on the cobblestone of chapel archways, freezing the moment in misty breath — The lead is scratched retracing every on notebook pages, constellation of the Word is etched time in patterns in a tender flame of snowflakes on sunsets. upon the Heart, rekindled; in auras glowing coral a rose of light begins to bloom, still covered with the sodden, splintered chips of absent night but growing…
Myriad of brilliant blocks of light shed onto the flagstones of a cool floor… floating colors flourish there in thick bouquet and fragrances of violet and amber incense the spirit into songs as sweet,
Early like a precious in the morning pebble-bottom the rose sun turns underneath a bronze then gold then silver-white, clear and swirling sparkling the diamond snow, burning coldly on the surface mountain stream: until the chill refreshes. the day goes d o w n under the heavy black coal of night… But then —
the stars sing — and the taste of crystal scintillates u p o n the tongue.
The play of light upon the waters never ends!
Nigel Barrett
IN A P O O R B L A C K A R E A O F M I A M I ; A Little Black Girl Rushed U p and T o o k M y H a n d . M y Heart Almost Couldn’t Take It.
Something fleeting caught m y eye I looked down A big smile so far from shy And a little girl The trusting way she took M y hand caused such pangs As to make m e understand The rift between my ideal And m e And so making m e more free In a second she came Smiled And went Just a little girl But heaven sent
And like clouds Sunsets Rains and tears that So fleetingly have filled u p years O f experiences Thoughts Captured Lost Yet s o m e h o w taught T h e invisible m e That life’s essence Is indeed Felt in purity
Eric Bobrycki
I see I see Old people, Myself, Full of memory. Fearing the mob. Beggar-like, eyeless, toothless The barbed wire and R O W . look They look with their forgotten feelings Frightens me. And find no taste in today, no hope tomorrow The wire is now rusty, weak and broken Passed, sleeping,filledwith yesterday. But they are like starved hounds They do not break and r u n — I see They only know to feed now or die. Middle-aged people, Full of worry. I see faces faded darkly in the mirror Midas-like, seeking eternity M y God. In riches, motions and lotions, Burning eyes tell this story Muchly concerned about History, the future, days distant. Nothing—and straight are fearful As ever the call comes To feel. Already I a m moved and being moved Strangely, in heroic manner I see Young people, Not really a hero, but among them. Full of energy. If, when, I stop and look at the m o b Train-like, never wanting Alone… Grateful for the tide. To stop and commit Seeing the m o o n Only willing to refuel, to travel M y heart Not ready to arrive. Full.
I see People. Women, men Children all Calling out in endless motion, Commotion. Mostly feeling for themselves Mute, dying, desperate For a fix—angry for Something missing.
Eric Bobrycki
Heart. Tight-fisted, tough. Readiness is all Let the blows fall. Those who try Will find these windows dry T o the bone.
Razor-sharp coiled-tight Serpent’s tooth Strike.
Tight-fisted, tough, T o the bone. Oh heart!
Eric Bobrycki
Deep into deep and deeper still Years away from light and warmth Nothing but I am. Cold and naked like these winter trees W h o once paraded proudly N o w scrambling for a covering leaf. Naked and cold like Lear, Unable though to rant and rage Going gently toward the black night. I a m told that the deep woods have their Comforting silence—they now resonate A dull harmony with m y cold bones and noisy teeth. This winter will kill me. That, I always say. H o w deep, how cold can I go And be, and still know?
Eric Bobrycki
T h e Harbinger
Beyond yesterday lies passion. Only m y shadow knows now… Sun-sugared hope falling Manna-like from the heavens Glistens m y days, squints eyes Forcing a cloud to die. Baroness of chance, why does your Shimmer of near brightness rest upon me? You know eve shades all with her Reach and only alone a summer’s song Must break to face fall. Always, always the cat-like Countess courting with swans, Dreams of flights and distant kingdoms. Or was it freedom? Ah, but feathers is art of higher times. Oh, haunt on high fairy Glitter m e with your tomorrow. But nemesis you shall not be For through you ganders lay eggs. Vex not my ghost Helen; You shall not be called my own: The box was left open For each m a n to close.
Eric Bobrycki
T h e Spider
There is a spider in m y mind W h o races through the thought-tangled abyss Making hollow vibrations Stirring whispers of skins and skeletons Finding only echoes of life long sung silent. Picking over shriveled dry words H e turns them over,touches,pokes t h e m — Waiting for some sign of resurrection. Hope buzzes, passion squirms, Like little children caught by cotton candy Get stuck on the merry-go-round The carnival ends in bundled webs of despair. There is a spider in m y mind W h e nfirstwe do conceive Which breeds many-legged dreams to trick m e Past despair and tells m e there is patience With the d e a d — T h e dead fear not death And the living weep no more the darkness. The spider sucks deep Searching out souls to sup on.
Kevin Brabizon
I will not weep
Father Life ain’t easy I wonder H o w was it for you? The ocean is smiling The ocean is deep M y soul is crying But I will not weep.
Kevin Brabizon
Life’s Cruel Jest
Love is written in the sand If it is written by the hand Of jealousy or doubt. Scathing lies, weary eyes Hopeful mind that saw the best. Looking now for peaceful ways That tease and scorn — Life’s cruel jest.
William Brunhofer
life suggests its own sound (round and unround) rhyme, rhythm, time distance; each has its own universe, part to play, day unbound, word to say: unique, antique or otherwise ways unwise when set beside others—and, what’s so, ain’t necessarily.
William Brunhofer
on Shakespeare’s sonnets
old friend, read once again these tunes sofinelywrought remembering the certain m a n they taught; not him to w h o m was made the frank appeal, but he who by dear payment, dearly bought the gentle wisdom of the balanced wheel. and let your new attention, though it will upon its own direction steer, yet still, find in old phrases, old friends something new for future green is hid in quiet hill and evolution does bare corners fill. so, new perceptions split one into two; and thesetogetherturn new worlds to view.
William Brunhofer
W e shall go laughing soon into the rain in twos and threes and families newly made. Never again alone down through the glade shall we in solitude feel the sharp pain that distance brings. For now a new hope hastens to be heard above the aimless din of these our days as from the sun new stream more living rays than ever m a n has known. Listen: the word of love loud sings.
William Brunhofer
T h e B a l a n c e d Builder
Now boasting to the earth in its mid-day the sun sends its c o m m a n d to all below flinging swift striving rays to surely sow change, and new forms take shape upon the way, the uncut block and frame work in the soil, that w o m b of elements sun’s rays excite. A n d in this birthplace blending does ignite the fire of life, to catch, to hold, to toil upon its task. A n d grand complexity unfolds. True influence of form on form deed on deed, reveals the deeper norm. A n d man’s unveiled cast in perplexity; stalwart opponent of the inner voice, dogging each step his certain mind might make. Thus, waste and failure follow in his wake. A n d all the flotsom tells the poorest choice. Ah, man, thou inspiration of the earth and sun; thou breath of all the teeming universe! D o not destroy yourself with ignorance. Taste of the living good and quickly shun full homage that is paid the heartless will, and all the duty given to desire. The earth reels in the throes of waste you sire. It profits none to drink beyond his fill. Incontinence infects the too-worked land and m a y defower all the waiting stock upturning every value. Every rock carelessly disturbed, disturbs what’s planned. Only the balanced builder can revive w h o husbands every corner in himself, forsaking interest in mere w h i m and pelf the age is wont to praise. M a n m a y survive to foster change just as the fiery sun whose greatest strength lies mid-way in the run.
William Brunhofer
White swans paired by the new sun climb above the tall triumphant trees and these green resplendent hills out of the long and sorrowful night of waiting, and sail together into the welcoming day. How many long years have the great wings beat alone in the empty sky endlessly seeking refuge on dry land, the dry and desolate and brokenhearted land? Yes, there have been visions of a new world a wet and wonderful land of hope where scattered seedlingsfindpeace. Consolation can be found, too, and winds of love, showers of love finally fall upon hands that heal, hands that know life’s meaning, man’s destiny and begin to work the wornout clay. “Let us remake them in our image, the likeness of a True m a n and True woman. Let us breathe into them the breath of our life, and let us make the white swans fly.”
William Brunhofer
Children’s Day
What is a Children’s Day without a child Awakened in our hearts; and in our eyes The happiness of life and quick surprise Painting anew our face in colors wild As May-flowers bouncing on a windy hill? Could we but know the hand that made them well. Let’s view their shapes and colors as they run Their course beneath the holy, truthful trees. First, blush the tenderest offerings, then these Bold in their reds under the dashing sun. So does our child’s heart peek slowly round, Then shatter silence with a merry sound.
David B r u n n e r
A n e w suit
Jesus never had a suit wore sandals a robe If that I was fitted for a suit today sky blue in plaid thin beams of blazing sun measured fine designed sublime Sandals and a robe I’ve known some perhaps enough Mother Ruth bestowed this blessing Mother Mary never could N O T T H A T S H E DIDN’T W A N T T O She did She cried What heart comes with this I ask The heart of generations Such endless foundation The Heart of God Jesus never had a suit Pray he does now
David Brunner
the winter from rocky mountains
i recall once in a dream lit past a scene yet i must have been there look i must have been there a thousand times a hundred times a hilltop crest view unending i have a post card crisp see that view cool white agonizing sensory abuse undistilled air of razor purity look i’ve been there sugar-snow drifted sparkled trees of pine green once i remember needled majesty like no ceremony do you know what i’d give to return soldiers poised to march below i’d probably cry to the hazed valley floor probably for purposed meeting of glib stream now crystal ice look at this pretty card what celebration of compliment i know i must have been there many times what now the price to return just once more many times i returned just once more not valued enough in appreciation not knowing the last once more wish would come from a prison of concrete jungled cacophony bound intrusion and soulless disharmony
David Brunner
I saw a tree adorned with light it was a tree in a forest stalwart sculptures it was a tree betwixt for m a n to many others take note of yet glowing to smile at from a central point the beauty of and wonder what and as I looked around makes them just others stand there more trees year after countless year were beginning to shed in but one place that darkish cast a few know and come to life some have seen the light dancing some have been there in the forest dancing in the night in the night when not a soul was around for they do ya know dance their needles held high they embrace each other ‘till morning comes nigh and they must once again be
Robert Jules C h a u m o n t
the philosopher pyun hae soo
impish playful proud a bee battling academic ants and spiders stinging to life pipsqueaks and bookbags High I.Q. idiots throw their technical treatises at him H e dodges and dances out among the fresh flowers… shortstop stopped short slave for 27 years at the feet of teachers Parroting their every inane obfuscation A Triumphant Jacob he now has Aristotle on the mat “Perseverance furthers. Complete the cycle. Be humble. Imitate the water.” dersu uzala he is a guide in the forest Ecological, different, independent, incongruous where new york rich buy $70 perfume for their dogs, where howard hughes, paranoid, lives only on Campbell soup, where boredom can be the motivation for murder. “There is a Big Aspect to be considered, The superior man’s obsession to kindle within… Can you keep your mountain of ego under the earth? Can you carry your parents on your back? Can you walk lightly on thin ice in spring?” once ultimately cynical cautiously now he asks: “Can these Moonies not yet Sunnies, Kingies, Can they convert Earth’s fate to destiny? Can they truly play the role of host? Can rudderless America be put on course?”
diviner, he picks u p the I Ching and Tao Teh Ching books that shut their mouths for lesser m e n and swimming through their rich suggestiveness fathoms deep into heart recesses. H e knows Truth lurks behind a hundred walls. “How do you know what’s fortunate and unfortunate w h e n the Tao’s a paradox and two boys climbed u p a chimney and the one remaining clean ran and washed himself first? A n d the fat boy on the poster proclaims ‘God don’t m a k e no junk!’? “It’s Mitsui vs. Mitsubishi Passionate ocean vs. raindrops of reason Children’s tales vs. learned dissertations Bargaining Life for a penny, or bargaining Life for Everything. Invest yourself, for after 40 you’re responsible for your face.”
A n t h o n y Clarke
T h e C h a s m N o w Between U s
In a distant time you were the farmer, who watched his son become a man, as the lights of the wild city lured him the loving son left the loving Fatherland. But three green fields grow on the farm, you rule one, I live in three, and should I choose to plow a different field than you plough, are we not still of one family? In another age, I’d write a letter, pack my bag and quickly leave, and our fighting sides would rage on ever fiercer. W h o could then have the strength tofightfor peace? So I hurl m y gauntlet now before you, but lay my sword before your feet, and see your eyes beam the same loving passion, and feel your heart crave the same burning needs. So as brothers let us search our hearts, know your value comes not from me, and if m y lamb lies starving on your altar, would you give it to another—set it free? I will go on, but with your blessing, for I live to win the right to advance with your hope and prayers behind me, to aspire to ever-beckoning heights. In another age I might have killed you. In another time you’d have chained m y hands. But my blood is the blood that flows within you, and the chasm now between us that swallowed history’s armies, M y God could this restore us? is the chasm that we cross to understand.
And as the chorus sings on so happy, where are the voices that used to be? And why did thirty thousand proud young men betray us? Did they betray, or was it we who made them leave? And we spoke of love for our great nations, and we preached of one world harmony, but as we spoke did we know that they were sobbing ever softly on the laps of you and me? In another age I might have killed you. In another time you’d have chained my hands. But the love or hate that flows now between us, is the love or hate that flows throughout our land.
School at Barrytown
Are we little minds Blinking in the darkness Like Gollum in Plato’s Cave Wrestling with a thought Until our thigh goes out of joint And we wonder What’s the point? Or have we understood That points do not exist? But people do exist— Within you Without you Hovering all about you Knocking on the door Anxious to share To raise and to be raised. This is the time and place To cease to be and to become. Are we little minds Blinking in the darkness Like Gollum in Plato’s cave Memorizing names that have no faces Pass through the night and leave no traces? It takes the child so very long To learn that do re mi, But how dem folks do love to dance W h e n the thumb hits middle C. And we can raise the roof And we can raise the dead Sing a little chorus: O dem bones, dem dry bones O dem bones, d e m dry bones
It’s about time Some living water flowed Through Rat’s alley Where dead m e n lost their bones O dem bones, dem dry bones Are we little minds Blinking in the darkness Like Gollum in Plato’s cave Spitting spit wads at the wall? Or have we begun to put teeth in our thought Like Peter Comestor, Peter the Eater, Chewing up books into great wit wads And trajecting them down through time? And others have done the same Maimonides, Avicenna, Bhaktighosa, Confucius From the four corners of the Earth The culture wads converge and merge With the N e w White Stone At Barrytown. Are we little minds Blinking in the darkness Like Gollum in Plato’s cave? Or Are we open To creating something new?
Kevin Convery
Indian Photograph
Cry the shrunken plains ravaged, staked, confined. W h e n Paha Sappas’ yellow heart was found, ten thousand centuries of silence were shattered with its pines. Long Knives defiled the mountain church, weighed out her price in golden sand. N o w a longer silence covers them. Gold dust cannot buy what dust reclaims. But you, American Horse, from the grained grey past, still look as the eagle looks from its wind lashed throne. Old one, turn away these obsidian eyes. You are no more than a paper relic, the worn reflection of brutal legends long outgrown. Unbeliever, ask your brothers, Joseph, Crazy Horse or Gall, Osceola betrayed from the steaming swamp, Satanta sagging in his chains. They will tell you it is done. And the eagle flees to its craggy dome. Saved, American Horse, into grave and book, only the land has kept your names. The wind forgets in the buffalo grass waving on the hills that hide your bones, where once a red salvation burned to set the sun with plagues and guns, forgets the dream that died in a howitzer’s shriek, as the eagle shrieks in a dying tongue.
Mute image, from picture lips no words return. Wind sculpted cheeks, long since, have softened into clay again. Only the eyes speak still, “For nation follows nation…” I close the book with a closing mind, but your presence presses through every page, insistent as birth, as the surge of spring under frozen seas- “You shall never be alone…” And still you look, sad and strange as prophets look, unchanged, as the eagle looks, into our own changed time.
Kevin Convery
A u t u m n M a d o n n a (to M a r y b e t h )
A u t u m n madonna, clear-eyed mother of the iris, of the orphaned kitten bristling under midnight rain, as the dropped stone sinks in the green pool, as the ripe m o o n drops into dusk, veil by violet veil, her shade descends to touch the barren backbones of ancient Tuscan hills, to cloak the ragged shoulders of weathered mountains. I have heard her faint, grieving cry in the hoarse throats of distant gees have seen her windswept dance in the small blue flame of bellflowers. She knows the w o u n d e d sparrow fluttering somewhere in the snow, and the quivering knot of the soldier’s heart. She plunges down, a reckless maeneid, in the sinew of panther dark hair. In vast and silent ecstasy, the Milky W a y unfolds behind her eyes. I have felt her drifting d o w n with apple blossoms in the vaporous hush of cricket Junes, or rising on the d a m p scent of trampled dogwood, floating upward like choir voices in April evenings. I have abandoned her to arrogant, thickening years, to the stony chill of cities lost in the shadows of rotting ages, shivered beneath street lights, n u m b to the touch of her delicate breath, have sensed her faint whispering return in thin winter sunlight, k n o w n her mercuric smile in the scattering of startled fish, and stood in shattered dawns watching dead dreams pass like rusted leaves on webs of rivers, to the sea’s embrace.
And here, somehow, beyond another cycle of prideborn pain, as if despairing m e m o r y grew dull and lost itself to innocence again, to the sound and smell of h o m e regained, she smiles in m y sister’s face.
Kevin Convery
Remembrance — Testimony of St. Joan
M y name is mixed with words unwished for. Saint and soldier seemed never meant for me. My hand never learned to love the touch of plated glove, nor warmed itself on the broadsword’s hilt. These eyes were bruised, and sick of young men’s blood. Under wool and mail this bosom chafed. By evening watchfires, in October’s chill, I listened for Angelus bel flooding autumn dusks, in skies where English arrows never flew. and dreamed of secret streams breaking black skinned earth, of whispered vespers lost for rattling dawns on fields of dust and steel. In earth-stained clothes and sun-bleached hood, my flocks abandoned with childhood for the sake of a vision’s stoic word, I searched the halls of doubting lords tofindthe king the Father chose. My young heart shrank from burning war. Soldiers jokes scraped raw m y ears. In defiant smiles I hid m y tears, and tender limbs in sleeves of mail. The fertile ground a hundred seasons had sprouted only rows of pikes, a barren crop of iron sheaves. The sickle rusted with the scythe. France was reaped with wounds and tears. By wounds and tears m y spirit learned, until Goliath staggered before a girl. Beneath the scorched embattlements and battered walls of Orleans, I gave a boy his promised throne and a land its king. In distant Lorraine the furrows froze. Pale flakes fell where m y mother stood, waiting and aging in her peasant door, where the sparrow begged beside the wren. And m y ears longed for familiar tongues, but turned themselves to harder tones.
B y heaven called and earth betrayed, judge and jailer kept m y final hours. Far from Charles or Orleans, no saving cry escaped that prison stone or rose to split the sullen air. For the heretic-witch they raised a pyre and soberly planned a witch’s end. With a “God have pity on your soul…”, m y flesh was stripped with rasps of flame. A few eyes misted in the streets of Rouen. A shiver passed through the Saxon guards. Beyond crackling veils, a churchman droned. I never heard. But somewhere from the bronze throats of bells, the Father cried and called again.
Kevin Convery
T h e T i m e Before
“These are but shadows of the things that have been…” Charles Dickens — A Christmas Carol
4:12,4:13 The table clock, with glowing face, marks its place in the breathing dark. Minutes, years melt in and out of sleep. The stilled mindfindsall pasts present here, all loves regained. The trappings of habit, inanimate vague shapes, hang limp upon a chair. Threads of grey, familiar to the factual daylight, in aging hair, are seen by no one here. Eyes, awake, search the black screen for specks of light, waiting for merciful fatigue to take its hold again, until called to duty like m y belt and coat, to the hungry moment’s pressing claims. Through quiet hours the clock face burns, a watchfire in the hidden countries of the night. The buried pulses of the house seem to hum and beat, and rolling into dreams they beat to rhythms of a time now gone; another house, a long past winter, a furnace rumbles in its depths, where we, young squirrels, run black smudged and breathless through shadowed passageways to huddle by the warm secret glow. Outside, the skies moved down to stir the earth with expectation of early snow. What power sent it to the world that I once knew? 4:23,4:24 Spring, in a later time… The scent of crocuses floats upon an evening mist. W e ride the season and its blessings, dolphins in a perfumed wave, never guessing the breaking swell will dash us cruelly on the shore. Eyes bulging in pained surprise, throats seared raw by the alien air, a black tide roars around the wreckage, recedes, and we grow whole again, but changed.
4:32 Roads swerve back from stars too far. Old pains are dulled in summer’s sober routine, Slowly, the broken seed unfolds her roots to struggle d o w n through moulding layers, to feed the w o u n d where the green shoot springs. Years pass. Faces appear and go their way again, in laughter formed, in loss and tears, transformed by insight hard gained in m o m e n t s few remember, but all’s remembered here.
4:44 A u t u m n , and evening rain falls softly on bronze and decaying stone. Statues of soldiers and statesmen keep their patient places in the park, bathed, through ragged leaves, in yellow streetlight splashes, With fixed gaze, beneath knotted metal brows, they guard the posts they’ve kept since I was young. In unflinching silence they stand and look where your living eyes looked once…
5:09 T h efirstheel click echoes in the street below. Dark walls are touched with match-flame blue. Pale light spreads across sheeted plains to call m e to the day’s concerns. In the misty park the bronze guardians watch dawn’s advance, but their hour does not return.
Kevin Convery
P o e m for Ireland — (to m y father Francis Convery)
A m o n g travelers I stood today, before a stone memorial, in a land enmeshed with stone where stark, rich green, too green almost to be believed, bursts, m a d for life, between ribs of granite grey; …and strained to hear with spirit ears the spirit tones of chiselled words, once razor edged, softened n o w by rain and time.
“Murmers passed along the valleys like the banshee’s lonelv croon A n d a thousand blades were flashin’ at the risin’ of the moon.” I flinched, surprised to find the song still cut into m y o w n smooth slate, touching m o r e than I have k n o w n and m o r e than I alone could feel, freedom’s hunger, sharp beneath the slaver’s heel, and, sad to say, the barbed remains of undigested hate. W h o remembers now; O r cares to learn the secret of the wild goose’s rasping cry? — t h e starved and crying centuries, the battered dreams of dignity— flinty hills and quick-limbed boys plunging to the cobalt sea; the hills to stay, the boys not to return. W h o hears the echo in these lush glens, hurried through by tourists on the bed and breakfast plan, of long silenced strains of rebel tunes, the muffled clatter of farm tools honed for battle in desperate hands, moon-bathed faces, death-grimed, having so m a n y times already died w h e n life was forfeit for a song?
Land of fairies, leprechaun’s haunt, these enchanted springs and veiled skys, alive with light in ever-changing shafts and waves, have charmed our foreign eyes; But look again. Another land lies here, it seems, behind the tapestries of legend’s mist, a soil shocked to stricken calm by brothers locked and drained in Ares’ fist. Here, once, a fair haired Abel came with Lord and law to Gaelic Cain. Here Providence froze in lethal pride as lord himself the younger became. A n d through the scarred and plundered ages, this verdant ground cried with the blood that p u m p e d too proud in English hearts— too unforgiving in Irish veins. W h e n souls are iron, w h o knows or cares anymore whose G o d will rule or which child raisedfirstthe killing stone? Who lays to rest this stained inheritance that has lain, too young, too m a n y brothers down? W h a t healing wisdom, born of history’s pain, can smooth, like the rain, these grief-gouged slabs, can cover, as the grass, in living shrouds, this worn green isle again?
Kevin Convery
Rite of Passage
W h e r e are they; all the passing forest places, the pine carpeted chambers falling back off the trail, unmarked save by shredded streams of sunlight fading now. Places, visited once, like Florentine piazzas polished silver blue in cool a u t u m n moonlight, where the soft purr of pigeon chords entwines with reckless laughter and the bubbling mantra of a fountain; places, more than far away. With eyes, grown heavier, tempered, wise guardians of the slow unfolding of children’s lives, w e talk and pass colored slides, fragments of a time outgrown. W e claim to remember, but no one can, not really- the lost, wild hours, the beat of questioning souls and hands on aged unanswering ruins, unanswered pains; thefireinside that would not die on endless driven walks in endless, endless rains; yet was dying, as w e were, even then.
Do they run today, the trains that flung us through dark and unmapped valleys in the night? What of the waxen candle pools that scattered the illuminated pages of our dreams on parchment colored walls, to be opaque and dense again at dawn? Where are the doors, that closed with blank finality upon so many passings, now? Back far behind our public smiles, in sanctuaries before sunrise, unobserved, still searching eyes, once clear and young, recall where old roads wind though we walk here.
Kevin Convery
Night Mission
I have k n o w n beauty, far from the gaze of sensible eyes, far from deliberate, smiling photographs in fashionable places, young faces, drained by unseen battle, exhausted, in rumbling vans, a m o n g d a m p coats and sloshing buckets. Droplets sparkle on boyish cheeks and roses, passing under constellations of cool blue lights, blossoms drinking and eyelids, closed, drinking in precious sleep. One cannot find such images easily, or finding, easily comprehend these w h o dare dream in a time that buries dreams alive. D o w n stained and glaring ages of fear-polluted nights, through the fractured miles of never-ending streets, they carry bouquets, prayers, and relentless hope.
Jean C u m m i n g s
M A K I N G IT
Scared and Frightened I Take Hold and Move Forward Like a Child in Darkness M y Nerves are Right and Ready to Spring But M y Darkness is People And the Strange Encounters Are Those Things I Don’t understand I D o Reach Out for Help… But A m Just Learning Where to Reach.
Christopher V . Davies
Have you ever been loved by an orange? Have you ever been proposed to by a pear? Had a banana bare its heart saying hurry up and start, Please eat m e and show you really care? Has a cup ever asked you won’t you wash me? Or a book said please cover m e with ink? Or a song said once again won’t you sing m y last refrain? Or a puzzle teased you let’s see how you think? Or a flower shyly opened as it felt the warmth of love? Or the grass urged you excitedly to dance? Or a bird sung of its life and introduced you to his wife? Or a chocolate ice-cream melted at your glance? Or a well shown you the depth of history’s sorrow? Or a stone said please hold m e in your hand? Please never let m e go for we need you don’t you know? As the lily murmurs try and understand. Listen to the breeze as it whispers in the trees, Put your ear to the earth, Behind the superficial signs of the confusion of our times, These are the days of Man’s rebirth.
-AAiCia-AELSENBART 81
Christopher V. Davies
T H E PERFECT CHILD
N o more will I down primrose paths wander, As in days gone by, But the track of the white trefoil I will follow, Till the day I die. Though the serpent tries to effect disguise, At m y three questions he will quiver and cower, As he’s reminded once again that he’s very near the end, W h e n he’ll be blinded in the morning’s dawning hour. As the pool round the trees becomes a lake Of the clearest deepest blue, The branches will change from brown to green, And the bark will appear as new, And the murmuring wind will rise and sing, And the stars will dance on the water, And a mighty shout will be heard all about, From God’s true sons and daughters. And the black bloated raven will croak no more, N o more will hefindhe can fly, H e will beat his wings but the bones will be snapped, And no more will he darken the sky. Then the song of the birds will again be heard, But their notes will be different than before, For no sadness or sorrow will spoil their song, And they’ll sing for ever more. And the pipes will play on that glorious day, A-weaving a pattern of silk, Their gentle notes will stroke the air, And the skies will rain with milk. The possessor will embrace the breath of life, And the arrogant be made so meek and mild, And everything will they freely bring To the feet of the Perfect Child.
angela douglas
Words are not tears and yet these words- if they could dream- would dream to be tears beneath your hands that touch this page, flowing toward you: Tears of the mountain, Tears of the sea, Tears of the desert night, Tears of the heart-stricken day. Words are not tears and yet— these are.
angela douglas
tenuous, almost breaking, i put the words in their place with indrawn soul. it is like, m y friend, the last frail line of fire on the horizon before the sun is gone
angela douglas
F O R P O L A N D : D E C E M B E R 1981
Those are m y brothers, fighting on the edge; thefiresof ruin burning
all around do not distill the fire of their faith. Those are my brothers: setting their souls against the final sorrow. It does no good to tell them they will die. They have already shown themselves to be immortal.
angela douglas
LET T H E WORD
let the word between us go, unspoken; let it break, soundless, on the shore of your heart in waves of hidden music only perceived by love. oh, God, there have been many words: futile and loveless in all ages. let this one live forever— like the moon come silently to rest (like my heart within Your Heart) in the proud darkness. with the long days of wilderness behind us.
angela douglas
J A N U A R Y SPRING
this is a January spring. i believe in roots that underground are green. I believe the same roots are in m y heart, oh God, even though the night is long-and the world does not cherish dreams and even though the leafless trees stand crucified against blank skies— this winter i will cry aloud for love that is unchanging
angela douglas
i love the night when it is quiet and the m o o n seems to be a friend who cannot sleep. in the night m y heart flowers mysteriously like stars that suddenly appear. like your tears may appear so unexpectedly when your heart- overflows
angela douglas
IS T H E D R E A M WITHIN
is the dream within your own heart—is the love you feel is it real, is it what shines from your eyes, from your soul. i want to know! is it alive— or something you only borrowed? is the dream within you?
angela douglas
for the dissidents
spring comes to your prison cell and weeps. the courtyard opens her heart to you, insistently through your sufferings. there are m a n y flowers here whose color means nothing to them a n y m o r e — w h o have forgotten their o w n fragrance because they see you like this. solicitous of you, whose beauty cries in such sweet ineffectual rage? while the rain seems merely never ceasing, causing both leaves and pain to grow.
angela douglas
palm trees, what is there about you that hurts m e like a dream that can’t be remembered? especially in moonlight, waving by the waters, you are sincerely beautiful, so unlike any other. I say goodbye to you again and again but i can never leave you
angela douglas
NIGHT OF TEARS
night of tears, most precious one, more than the stars you are uplifting m y soul. night of tears. have you ever cried because the heart of God shining in another wounded you beyond belief? because, like Jacob, you beheld the face of God in your brother? it is not grief that makes you weep this night of tears, but love
angela douglas
B E A U T I F U L IS T H E HEART
Beautiful is the heart that does not alter; that quietly bears the wounds of changeless love. Not in the heart of kings or any power can honor like your honor be revealed. I would sell all I have that’s holy—to understand the motive of your grace. I would sell all of history, and only, to vindicate the sorrow in your face.
angela douglas
pure tear of m y Father’s you are shining so much you blind m e to anything but love— pure tear. from your shining His heart knows spring. Oh, pure and stronger than any word, tear of m y Father, you will change the world
angela douglas
In this time of winter which the world calls spring, I see your sorrow has an endless name, and your heartache is the garden of their ignorance. Here: where their sun only blinds your eyes with tears— and the sky, so softly blue is a closed door. Oh, Father, though the sky is bright, how can I see it anymore? Frost lies at the heart— And there is no spring. Until all hearts can bloom for You
Mary Jo D o w n e y
Prayer R o o m
In this room, the quietest of the house as if noise knows it should not enter here: in this quiet room, the lamp alight, the curtains crisp and still, a single rose in a cut glass vase, the ceiling a white sky softly glowing, the carpet clear, and smooth, afinelight cushion the color of a winter’s layer of sand: in this quiet room we kneel side by side, you and I, friends, as brother and sister, eyes closed. I feel so warm as you speak for both of us. I feel so warm I want to say I love you, the words echoing inside me, I love you, the only words I have for this moment the only words I can think of for you and for that one to w h o m we address our quiet songs and whisperings here.
Mary Jo Downey
These clouds which are they are mine their whiteness moon-glow-bright light and untouchable softness all mine
in the sky against the sky on it and in it alone and one by one these clouds which are are they not of m e clouds aloof unmoving unchanging to quick eyes but today now at least for now these highest-up clouds are mine
Mary Jo Downey
Summer’s leaving
Walking along the road at night, watching the m o o n as it follows, dodging the trees, nestled in the sky, I wonder at the wind already cool, already damp, almost tasting winter at the back of m y tongue— is it already the summer’s leaving, the end of days dreaming, no more falling falling asleep in the long deep green-grass within the certain embrace of the sun?
Mary Jo Downey
1533 N o . Third Street, Harrisburg
That this little brick-front building, the remnant of a row, now sinking into its lot of glass-bedded burdocks and frost-bitten weeds, that its two tiny storeys still stand, lonesome, the scars on the lee side the touchprints of those once-close neighbors now gone: and that someone cut the hedges along the narrow concrete walk and laid the square of light green carpet on the doorstep, and hung yellow curtains behind the four-paned windows and pulled down just one dark green shade and left the storm door open for the winter wind to play with.
Mary Jo D o w n e y
Flags at city hall, Philadelphia
Flag silk popping in the wind, glistening, wind-tightened rustle, bubble billowings of air. Flag colors, the land of the primary: dark blue, royal blue, red pure, white, yellow. T h e sun is setting and all the time lost today n o w laughs round and round into our ears. Wind, air, blow, air that I love, light blue sky, the day rolling over and over again, days like flags rolling in the air, w e watch, fascinated by the colors, blue and red, the simple and glorious colors of our inheritance.
Mary Jo Downey
T h o u g h in the end w e are alone
“Close your eyes” and in the dark you sing lullabies sweet low songs of caressing comfort as if you are taking m e up, those strong arms and putting m e to sleep at last beyond all cares of waking. You put your coat over m e and tuck the sleeves round for pillows and the bus goes on and on into night and it all does not matter except that you are here, by m y side, sometimes watching, sometimes thinking, sometimes sleeping your own dreams. I have never heard these songs before sung in this way, sung in a voice laying down the layers, one by one, of time of growing together. You could not leave, for though in the end we are alone, every time I close m y eyes I will expect the new softness inside that makes m e nest m y head on whatever can be found and know that I a m safe.
Mary Jo Downey
In m y quieted voice
In m y quieted voice, the rare one, I say nothing to you, just syllables, because if it were in m e to take your hand, I would, or reach all the way up and touch your shoulder, I would, or pretend I were a close friend and sit with you in the living room as the morning light changes, I would, or walk with you along the river, I would, still saying nothing, but simply wanting to be there in the quiet of your pain. In m y quieted voice I say nothing, just wanting to glimpse your eyes, to hear your voice, and for you to know that if it matters, I a m here even though I can say nothing.
Mary Jo D o w n e y
In these silent days a certain circumscription comes like a slow comet leaving its tail in the sky to divide and to divide this from that as w e watch and all these words we write are descriptive they are as solid as stones placed in a circle at thefirstfrosting of the ground and so indeed they shall stay but that thin ribbon’s dividing makes us anxious for w h e n w e will learn to speak them one to another, getting beyond the nightshining glitter of the separation
Mary Jo Downey
Sounding lines
Are those brown eyes flat will they show m e back the one I am, quiet pools, perfect mirrors into which you invite m e to look? or will they curve to make circuses, crawling sprawling distortions, or pull to a point so tiny I a m lost in that clear serene brown? will they be honest, harsh when they must be, kind when they can? are they soft or will they always be there, dark sounding lines, the cutting edge of the one I call you?
Mary Jo D o w n e y
Pat: pouring water
Like silent nuns wrapped in their pure cloths, their eyes the point at which w e m a y enter, at which w e m a y meet the quiet w o m e n : their hands moving noiselessly amongst the cups on the dinner-table, endlessly sorting, endlessly placing, endlessly making the distinctions of their sensibilities: Pat, you will always be there, often unseen, arranging the flowers andfillingthe glasses and touching the forks into place. Yet in your deliberate ordering, in the b o w of your head, there is unbearable stillness. H o w can I shatter, h o w deny you your delicate balances? but I have done it again and again in the coarseness of stubborn refusal. For we are alike, and see one another in that recognition. O u r conflicts of means and ends breaks through that pulled line of sympathy w e share. Your gentle lead toward what you know, what you have found, your actions begun in your careful, constant matching of them with w h o you are: these things you try to give, are yours to give, yet I cannot easily come, simply come, with you on this way that is yours.
You look up. I know you are there. Your eyes - do you not know it, but you must - pull and call across the room: across the room: Come. C o m e here. But I cannot. I a m busy, too. I am writing, don’t you see? And you do. A darkness seems to fly through your eyes. I a m not coming. Your hands still move endlessly, your back is curved. I know you sigh, a soft tuck of breath. Please, believe me, I a m there with you, Pat, by your side and sharing your impulse.
Diana M u x w o r t h y Feige
Ah…forsythia I wonder if the human spirit will ever dare awaken as did you from your sleep and hidden days.
Brian Goldstein
I wandered lonely as the Empire State Building
N e w York awash with people Waves of the world’s wise, Proud, humble & searchers of freedom- Corrupt or honest they love liberty Can’t be conned into greyness Plant their gardens full of marigolds Their windows green-leafed, Their nature reaches the darkest corners— Fierce and passionate, the New Yorker, don’t fence him in. Here we are:— Every face to see Black, white, wide, Narrow, yellow, and was That green, she wore With bright red feathers? Yes on the streets Every fashion, shape 8c form, Modelled human face Clay & putty could not make Alone. Walk, stroll, hustle, glide B u m p , this great tide From waterfront to waterfront.
Brian Goldstein
Deep D o w n the Corridors of Love
Deep down the corridors of love The canticles are calling, strings Pulling us up, up and away… To, reds, browns, orange, Bright light green tops, Fall colours on distant hills The few white skeletal figures, Bare trees of snows to come… The ever-ever green, unchanging Favourite fir, God’s colour and nature steals Our hearts away and we place it All at the center of singing. Those lusty voices in the chill air, Tree alight with bright and oh a Star, the guide from so far, to Show that love so near and Dear in our hearts, now Dormant as a winter’s Day, will be spring- Yellow, the crocus- Colour of Rebirth.
Brian Goldstein
Metaphysics on Exhibit ( N o w Y o u See T h e m , N o w Y o u Don’t)
Art exposed to the light, Love of truth and life, almost Springsongs celebrating Infinite worlds… We see calm-lilied ponds, blown Cypresses and cool winds on Hot-flowered beds. Moving the eye on to carved relief, Teak faces, whirling grain, wrapping Smooth figures in magic embrace Then, leaping, fleeting forms in Cool white, warm light, organic Shoals traverse blue waters, whilst Wax glows in ancient method, Flowing on profile and Allegoric story… Whirling on picture to picture Keeps us, Bemystified, enrapt… This then, our grasp at ethereal straws, Beauty and the beholden, equalling Joy in You.
J o n a t h a n Gullery
W h a t d o y o u write
W h a t do you write w h e n your heart flies faster than the pen across the page, w h e n you r e m e m b e r the gallop of hooves smashed into wet s a n d — Pounding surf and wet, salt taste in your m o u t h and every cell bursts. That feeling from so long ago that I can’t write d o w n because the pen doesn’t paint the scene I saw then. One eye gazing into one eye that no-one looked through till today. T h e essence of m y being rushes through that eye to m y love - and then a watering - a gathering a tear falls silently. This I have tried so often to put into print. The way - on long afternoons - that the tiger lily is ferocious and sweet the black and the orange growing from green, and the curve - the curve of the flower. So precious. O n e hour spent, just wondering h o w G o d m a d e this thing this beauty that m y words could not express.
Jonathan Gullery
River run, run river faster and swifter, tree trunk and leaf-branch past they go, white water beginning its swirling and churning storm-flood of river run riot gone wild. R o u n d the bend smashing, crashing and dancing the last of the big tree comes speeding and splashing. Under the bridge I’m standing wet with the river that flows from the grey sky, and joins with the grey ground that flows with the river run, run river faster and swifter.
Auieofc. &seoB*t&~&&$
Kate G w i n
I wake to the sound of violins, God a glad rising, a concerto of promises. Though m y body slumps tired, mouth too slack with sleep to sing, m y breath quickens, flowing cool and sweet like mountain air. I drink melodies like wine, bubbling with peace.
WARRIORS OF THE SUN
Dragon’s teeth, we are sown in the hardened earth, spring from a w o m b of stone to taste the bitter air, our armor silver streaks against the sky. We were called, taught to carry our h o m e s u p o n our backs, to fight, warriors risen in the sun. W e do not run from nightfall or feeble weapons. T h e enemy’s tinny shouts echo thru the muffling wall of dust shaken from our urgent feet. We march always forward, thru distantfieldsof flowers, a bright patchwork above the graves of millions w h o have died in fear, never knowing w e would come.
B R O T H E R O F M Y FRIEND: VERSION I T o Robert, w h o persecuted Moonies, the s u m m e r of 1981
I call for your brother, m y friend, but it is your voice I reach. “ H e is not home,” you say coldly to m e , interloper, despoiler of innocent, unthinking minds. You throw your anger at m e , and I catch it like a shiny brass plate. Slack and cynical stares are reflected in its depths. You are fourteen. You exist in the vacuum of youth. History is dusty books. Opinions, dull with repetition, are blared out in your confidence of originality.
But my love for your brother lives in you. T h e same lineage, the same promise of greatness, whisper of sentimental tenderness, resonates in you. -76-
I leap out of the box T h e tickle of n e w ideas you have c r a m m e d m e in, taunts you—tempted, seize the h a m m e r you talk and talk from your hand, to the one make you spit out nails you need to hate. one by one. Your plan of a few hurled I want you huge, long accusations to see you and a neat balloon out slam of the phone, simmers with unanswered to an unexpected challenge questions. to think. I shove you headlong Without mercy, into the next seven I rip across the promises years, pell mell no one will ever be able into a m a n h o o d to keep, that will break d o w n offer you one chance doors, thrust its way to reach out through walking for a dream. dead. I don’t fear your hate. It m a y shock you to life.
T O B E Y O U R SISTER
To be your sister means I carry you in my blood, m y bones have the same hardness as yours, m y step resilient with the promise ofjoy that rises to a shout in you.
I remember sandwiches eagerly devoured saddle oxfords sticking out arrows pointing to m y grandmother’s knees. I loved to eat at the red booths on the mezzanine, chewing as I watched the colored balls of shoppers’ heads smoothly juggled by the ceaseless escalator. Grandma ate the blue plate special teasing olives into m y puckered mouth. But I wanted roast beef on rye. At home we ate Wonder Bread. Funny that 20 year old sandwiches can still smell so fresh.
RETURNING RESURRECTION
I lose you in the groaning mountains, following your footsteps on mountain trails till days and months I will become years slide d o w n streets rain soaked on a midnight breeze, with your tears. surround her The echo of your voice with a mother’s breath rides like thunder, warmer than the arms above the lighting luminous I do not have plain. to hold her. Bellows of rage, This child is tomorrow animal pain, a woman. echo echo Our lineage shudders on the tail of the wind to meet her. call m e Let m e be there. back to the city. A child is growing there, tears cold on her pillow. I want to be with her in the panting of night, sing songs that resonate her dreams like the distant trill of a nightingale at sunset. I never want to see that soft baby hand stiffen into a fist…
REMEMBERING JUNE
I was given your picture today. Your image leaped at me, You cried tears too vivid and three dimensional in June, rocked to be mere memory. in m y arms, You were so eternal remembered in June, what it means walking, talking, breathing in to be a child. the sharp wind Six months later, of huge vistas. two thousand miles away, In the merging river your voice stretches, taut, of our minds, across a thin wire. you came awake You are alone with a sudden icy plunge and safe, determined into reality. never to feel pain. You discovered a world M y voice haunts you outside dormitory walls, books with possibilities and slide rules. There are you want people to forget. on the other side of the world (no longer a plastic globe to you). They sweat, cry, starve, lie in sickness, and worry about the survival of their children, while you, in rosy cheeked health, read about them, interesting statistics.
FINDING A FRIEND
Your laughter is soft, free of the barbs that rankle from past accusers. Face to face, hard, head on, I a m terrified giving, giving, giving when you tease me, you yet I more guts, leap into the teeth of it, I can’t stop ripping open wider speaking m y secret chambers, and you let m e tell y o u — m e — rush on. why I must speak. I hurl You receive. a million thoughts Your acceptance borne in the busy silence is a breath-warmed mirror above greasy dishpans, allowing m e to see within the surge thefirst-timecalming of city streets, of the frantic child words tumbling looking for a large warm hand in a shiver that comforts, of release. allows an insistent tug to pull a laughing face down cheek to cheek to answer the endless, endless whys?
DIDN’T Y O U SAY Y O U W E R E ITALIAN, T O O ?
I a m not afraid of you now. Your fierceness is mine. Your eyes burn like m y father’s, when he speaks passionately about the war, or the relative value of Wonder Bread. W e are screamers, you and m e (though you may not know it, m y silence, homage, to your greater intensity). O n the other side of your anger, is laughter, and tears. Like a child, you slide between emotions, ray of light slicing through clouds, shimmering the rain.
FINDING T H E W A Y HOME
It is clear I will have to fight through the suffocating fog around you, waving m y dented lantern, screaming your name. W h y do you continually run away, into the pulsing night? People lie in dark shadows, dank against slimy walls, wait to throw darkness, snuffing out your light. Every time I get close to you, phantoms, stinking with terror, rise cringing before your eyes, whispering words that drop like scales, blinding your vision. W h o do you see when you look at me? What do you hear when I speak?
D o I glare before you, You were a prince monstrous, lethal, in tattered with devouring clothing, in search teeth? of his lost D o I stand between you kingdom. and G o d ? T o the world, you were a slave, I sing a song to you, unworthy in a thin child’s voice, of attention. needing no wire I plucked you, like a to travel rose, 3000 miles from a steaming to your ear. d u n g heap, M y dreams nurtured you open all doors with clear water between us. and light, presented you I hear the echoes proudly, in your mind, cry tears in a golden to see you vase, at the edge to grace the altar of a crumbling of heaven. cliff. You have always been a god to m e , even w h e n you stood by the gutter, wailing, like a beggar child.
Over the bridge I walked you, down to the road, so young, so very bright, your step springing Where are you going, m y with life. son? You were A kiss, you said, mine, for just means everything, love, two days. a greeting, Did you know from the heart of I would have peace,secret died within you. for you? You kiss m y mouth To see that shining like a careless light baby, turn, doused jogging down the road, dappled in the murky by tree shadows, shrinking half world smaller and smaller, you slowly disappearing sink into the phantom into… world, beyond a jagged bend of highway.
I wanted to steal you away, run with you, desperate mother, clutching child, wrapped in makeshift to satisfy the tearing rags, fleeing lusts from the murdering of aging m e n , till swords that bright spirit of rampaging is tarnished soldiers. with the rust In the n a m e of of their years of love, insatiable, your brother has stealing killed you, bullied you need. back I would have died for you, mv to the streets. baby. You will sell your body I wanted to today, give you m y tomorrow—how many more life, raise you times? as tenderly as a hothouse flower, ever so gently watered, fed, exposed, step by step, to the full strength of light.
ADMISSION T O T H E TEMPLE
Little ignorant girl, you scolded m e . M y Father speaks of So tired, eyes raw forgiveness, with tears, I compassion, love hear your voice without fear. screaming Around m e there is so m u c h far in the distance. pain. Lately, your arrows Across three thousand seem always miles, across one to be shot city, whenever I pick u p w h e n the bullseye, m y the phone, someone is crying heart, in pain, unable to bear is already another m o m e n t pierced. without G o d , yet unable to Your missiles believe slice through that even w e a ready m a d e could find hole, home. whistling I want to confide on air. in you, but h o w can I let you stride Who am I connected to? into m y inner you ask. temple W h o is a parent with careless to m e ? m u d d y boots? M y Father, m y I have voluntarily Mother, are a small framed smashed picture every idol I cry over, clutched to m y one by breast, rocking, one, sweeping the debris rocking, briskly cross-legged out m y door, on thefloor,till the tearing scrubbing the stone floor sobs raw white quiet with m y tears. to somnambulent peace.
Still I a m I cannot put it afraid, to the point of crippled down. terror, m y offerings will Hot oozing pitch not be relentlessly received. drips, scorching Around me the pain m y clinging fingers. rises to a sucking Who will open the door that crescendo. leads I listen, listen, to a n e w world? till m y whole body It seems I have waited aches. I want to on a desolate scream and cloud run, yet I eons, without hope for the sit, drawing in m o r e passage of pain. time, T h e four walls of m y to k n o w the w a r m rising room Sun, dissolving all become an echoing greyness, air moist cavern, cries of children with evaporated dying, purpose tears. unknown, shudder Now, through time. back warmed in the expanding I stand before a tall light, I straighten, white door, staring inch by inch, with renewed at a handle height, released from the burden of I cannot reach or night. turn. Lifted on the T h e m u d d y red of m y backs blood of milleniums, stains those who suffered and the pristine died stairs. to bring a m o m e n t Voices sing, impossibly they would never high, dense with reap, I reach sweetness, forcing the surrender of for your extended fear. hand, cling, a m I stand pulled from a lineage of exposed, carrying m y fear, blood washed clear crime, like a burning brand. as new rain.
BLACK AND WHITE
I hold m y hand to yours, f>alm to palm, both of our ingers stretch long, lean, There is a difference tapered, soft hands, here, women. your skin a rich, dark If I turn your palm hue, mine, face up, pale ivory. the lines there This brown- will speak to m e ness about your life, is mirrored a miniature in your eyes. road map. As I look into the I can know your struggles, your scintillating light heart pain, of tears, the way you think, the probable I wonder w h y length m y eyes of your life. are blue. In so m a n y ways, B r o w n is the color of w e are the true love, and same, our height, underneath both our our basic body thin layers of shape, and the straightforward way skin, beat w e have plowed hearts, rich and red into life. with life I take these same two hands, blood, pulses that alike in size, quicken beauty, and to the c o m m a n d life predictions, of our dreams. turn them over again, back side up.
OH, JERUSALEM!
Your voice calls. Thru a green haze I stumble to meet you, “Take m e with you!” forgetting beggar’s bowl I cry, and bloody, wounded feet. and you let m e follow, Your face emerges, one of the dirty, the poor, a reborn, eclipsed sun. in a ragged trail behind you. I stumble I understand few of your words. caught I only know by warm, calloused hands, they make m y body tingle. your voice a caress. H o w can you give H o w I need y o u — and give embrace that heals when you have nothing, all the empty dark nights except the rough familiar robe when I cried and cried, you wear? longed to end this life Thousands of homeless children, leading to nothing, fishermen, laborers, never begun. beggars, whores, I a m ashamed follow the beckoning wing to stand before you, of your love, torn drinking life by the jagged shards from every tear. of m y dreams. Your eyes, You speak of Father God, red and coal bright, burn and I try to put a face with sleeplessness and tears; on a dark universe, your back, an empty vastness of stars. young and hard, bends There was a pain and madness in me like a storm-tossed sapling I could never face under the weight until thefireof your life of our broken lives. ignited centuries of choked undergrowth allowing quickened seed to be sown.
T o all M y Little Brothers
Once I have come to know your pain, I cannot forget. Forever I shall be searching for your happiness. M y heart cries to see your face of darkness. But in those moments when the light comes forth from the God being born within you, You are more beautiful than a million songs. In that tiny moment a hope is born for your eternal life, and the Mother-God within m e longs for the day when you will greet your Father m a n to man.
A n d r e w Hamilton
N o words just the sound of raindrops mingling with m y tears. Overflowing the living chalice with their kiss so springs forth a floral aurora borealis in the renewal dance of the years While winging song from every bower ‘fore dawn’sfirstlight ‘til twilight hour lilt whistling wind soft…nestle in these arms of trees and rock the cradle by breath of breeze. W h o can but sigh in wonder of cherry blossom sky Even’ thus come moon star and planet night to cartwheel before each loving eye
Felice W . Hart
the end just ahead they said the road has to end no one lives forever now m y time is here will everything just stop? and I put out so m u c h effort beating back the bushes stealing past the stalks brushing past the branches. now it has to end. this path was rough but at least passable possible but a few yards ahead a stone wall no m o r e road at all. but now I see running to the right a wedge cut through the weeds it grows into a wider trail then hops onto the highway.
of course I should have k n o w n the end is just a bend.
John H a y d o n
With the first slip of m y pen
In the shadow of the day, I saw a world which I once knew, slip away into something m y eyes could not focus on. A world which gave me football boots, a stamp collection and a fishing rod, a windy country lane, and faith. I saw it crumble behind me, out of control in a realm where freedom couldn’t penetrate, something that a pure soul could never recognize or relate to. Maybe I’d grown up all of a sudden, awoken out of a dream, or just never taken a clear look. Or did it take such a long time to realise, that a nation whose spirit was strong, where the grass was always greener, had fallen slowly into a crevasse of fabricated scenes, neon lights and aching hearts empty, hollow and weeping, dark shadows below the eyes and shoulders always with invisible loads? I hadn’t just woken, it wasn’t a dream. It began thefirstday of the slip of m y pen, when the praying ceased, and the smashed window in the church over the street was never fixed.
Yes, forget. Let those years settle. Rejoice and catch the fruit as it falls from the tree into the palms of tiny hands, Smooth, silky deserts of innocence. Be at ease and recite the words of love given on the day you wrote them. This is your land. A n d these faces around you are yours. A n d thefeelingthat is with you n o w is like gliding through the corals of a south sea island, knowing that w h e n you reach the shore a million smiles of warmth will dry and clothe your spirit, A n d gently sing with you.
It is all yours. There is nowhere it can be lost. For the garden that you stand in has no ending and begins with every day you rise.
S i m o n Herbert
like something you could have been but never were, never realized like unrisen dough, an un-hammered nail. you lay waiting, confused wondering why you existed as lichen does on a rock, or the bristle-cone pine, disfiguringly living endlessly on its nothingness. like a friend dying, your poverty is a fact, acceptable, because it’s there the tide gone out, the useless aeroplane, decorating the roof of the museum.
Kurt Holmquist
T h e Great Deceiver
So, once again you come And stare m e in the eyes While blocking m y way And darkening the sky before me. Once again, you dance O n gypsy wheels and veils Dance for w h o m and what? I know So I need never ask. I need never invite you For you arrive without my beckoning And dance You dance Though soon you will tire. Soon, when you see I’m no longer amazed Nor a m held by hellish spells So soon you will tire Grow weary and leave To dance for others But no more for m e On that soon coming day N o more N o more for m e
Kurt Holmquist
Little by Little
Little by little G o d blesses his children Little by little H e brings them all h o m e One by one They c o m e in before H i m A n d all at once Their sadness is gone Little by little H e gives them their freedom Little by little H e makes them His own.
Lloyd H o w e l l
C O M I N G O U T O F T H E ICE for Victor H e r m a n , D o n n a and G o d
bleak, barren tundra wind whipped, frozen waste the cry of a homeless wolf the forest, Siberian, silent, indifferent birds freeze, plummet, rocks explode Victor Lloyd! I said “Victor Lloyd!” can you hear m e ? it’s time to c o m e out winter has had its day SCREAM! yes, it’s OK louder, Louder, no one minds I understand, I too have been locked in the ice yes it’s painful, unbearably so but that’s to be expected, normal you are thawing out your blood warms, agonizes into your limbs slowly, slowly the feeling returns you forgot that your legs can move, your heart beat didn’t you?
now feel her hand touch yours human, hot, unreal he hesitates, is it a dream? don’t be a fool, take it touch it, squeeze it you are A L I V E laugh, laugh you idiot you know how forget, forget the ice age look into her eyes there winter whimpers, a joke, a fossil melt, in her smile it’s for you dance, dance you d u m m y swing her through the air smell, smell springtime in her hair
B o b Huneycutt
At some point, one day stops. The next day begins. Climbing on the bus, felt that new-day excitement. The driver is a professional with 360 degree vision. H e knows every car behind, ahead or beside him. Decide that I can probably trust him. But whether he will take to a calm place or a war zone Can’t say. Just know, when I get off this bus and look out at those strange. concrete slabs, Can’t go back. Going to kick that door open and suck a big breath of new city. Then, like a motorcycle gang cruising into town, Going to rev the engine and shake windows and send dogs running for cover. Ready for a city that spits. Ready for a city that kicks and this time going to shut up. Because words are a cruel switchblade in an amateur’s blood-stained hands. Might be headed for a hungry city with big shark teeth. But driver is taking there and he’s a professional. By God I trust Him.
Leslie H o l l i d a y
E d g e of Spring
Edge of spring, spring without right to be born in shadows left of the sun, W h o would believe the spring held death, dark mind animating yellow beams while winter tempest ravaged clean that drench the earth, the white b o s o m of life, rotting with decay heart-wrought revolution of ideas gone bad; of the world, n o w to bear Spring, lying the violent season against the gleaming, crystal cold of the just, of winter light n o w to tear emitting truth, apart against the steel-edged days the chthonic root which no soft, golden fruit wrenched u p of ancient poison stains by one with sweetness of deceit; swift turn and thaw Eager spring, of a spinning Heart. c o m e too soon, N e w day, the buds of winter spring of old rest yet, is born a victim sheathed in searing purity. to yourfinalrite, soon to be seized— in holy sacrifice.
Michael Huntington
Z e n Stone Into the Silences
I enter bowing and kneel in the dimness reverberating with incense and bronze, settle myself, a bird c o m e to nest, while outside rain patters o n the flags and I within sink as a stone— a fluttering stone sinking beneath, sinking d o w n into, like a gnarled leaf, a dried leaf on the evenings breeze, into the ever deeper, ever heavier waters, salt waters of life in the seas of the heart, the waters of the heart poured from between the eyes. a fluttering stone in silver flashes sinks past fishes and sea creatures in the night, in the night of the depths into the heaviness to the bottom of the heart, to that core from which the waters rise, ever deeper into the flowing spring. at the core of the waters, within the heart like sleep, like sleep in the shadows of starless night, there in the shadows an incandescence sinks to bring light, sinking as a stone fluttering into the deep places, into the waters, a bathysphere of sight, a silver sliver of stone dropped from the heights to sink into the dark places, into the waters of the soul.
Michael Huntington
castles of words one on the other intersected in curved lines each an echoe and an image in the builder’s mind strung out to reach the limit of capacity raftered in carven sentences buttressed with cunning tenses inhabited by a spectre armed with a warrior’s lance hoping to reach your heart and sever your brain inviting you to dance
Michael Huntington
T o Get a D r e a m
I go to watch the sun set and the river flow to get m e a dream before theflowersare blown, before the stream of m y days be flown into the ways of darkness and night long drawn out beyond sight where the sun sets and the river flows. I go to watch the birdsflyand the leaves fall to get m e some sky beyond the clouds and walls shrouding the days of joy and the green tall trees of hope and peace; tearing with wheels and bearing away the birdsflyingand the leaves as they fall. I go to catch the light in the river’s face to get m e a life of stars that dance their race glancingly in sets of love and crystal lace through the mist all woven into an elven peace of olden light caught in the nets of the river’s face. I go to watch the sun set and the river flow to get m e a dream.
Michael Huntington
T h e Passing of L a o T z u
wind from the silences gone into the silences beyond the western wall across the desert wastes and five thousand words brushed as the watchman’s gift water drops echoing dimly in the uncarven watchroom and a thrush’s rustling song flutters like the brush birdlike in the master’s hand sunset’s light infuses their shared eyes and a shared twilight meal steams between them in the morning gone with footprints light across the wilderness of dew
Michael Huntington
yesterday, snow fell and each branch and twig lifted itself under gentle weight while the air remained clear between the scattered crystals icy on m y face and hands today, riding the trains i watched the swaying cars amid the clatter and noise of rush hour the people swaying to the movement as rushes in winter at a frozen pond’s edge in faces i traced the curves and forms of noses and eyes, cheeks and mouths the loops and curls of warm hair flowing or knotted, bobbed or braided and the colors of skin from deepest teak to pale ivories the air clear and bright a candle burning within m e icy on m y face and hands
Michael Huntington
I stand waiting on the platform among the usual people on a usual day and catch you in m y eyes see your smile, though you are gone hear your voice in the silence your gentle breathing in the calm behind all the rattling of the trains. W h e n will I see you to hold you? W h e n reach out to touch your face? I shoehorn myself into the train thinking of you and glad that I have known you go on one more day, waiting.
Michael Huntington
I sit rocking o n the porch long after the evening meal is done, smelling the d a m p w o o d and listening in the darkness: the song of a bird sweet and light flickers from thefieldacross the way, a melody of reedy notes oboe-like from the heart of the rain d a m p e n e d night, and I sit breathing with its song, with the rain, with the night, feeling the weeping sky, feeling the wet grasses, the wet earth, feeling the w a r m feathers and the small soft heart beating behind the song. M y skin soaks u p the music of the night as the earth soaks u p the rain till itflowswithin m e to water m y heart’s roots andfillthe springs within.
Michael Huntington
lone crow befogged in the distance, morning sermon here in the w a r m room, and whatfillsthe infinite space between? that space filled with walls and trees, air and mist. whatfillsthat space between, echoing? filled but empty, propped u p with end points of voices crying in the mist or in the wilderness, myriad endpoints, each a voice calling, each propping u p the silence in its echoing like the light growing greyly in the trees, fingers reaching u p in the echoing emptiness, endpoints of vision, the preacher and the tree calling out with light and glistening with song, that gleaming space echoing between, filled with God.
Michael Huntington
Forest Sorrow
your love the home place the soft and peaceful place in the forest untamed in the wildness bare and empty your love enough your love more than castles or kingdoms here by the waters in spring where m y dusty heart longs to drink, longs to swim. But, castles beckon and a kingdom calls for m e a kingdom i cannot remember nor imagine while desert paths lie before m e to burn again these blistered feet to paint this heart again with dust
Michael Huntington
Sad S o n g s
w h y the sad songs always piercing with tears to the aching below, the suffering like starved rats taken to gnawing steel? war songs crying likefirein the sky or the echoe of m y dying father’s despair h u n g in the air— ghettoes of the heart where strangers live alone each his o w n ghetto each a gulag in Siberian winter with m e a culpa barbed wire and fretful machine guns ringing the heart’s work c a m p while frosted fingers ungloved freeze in the labor of timber cutting a lifetime sentence of wondering where sad songs always tie the pierced with tears together in the aching below.
Michael Huntington
Smoking Storm
if the storm is howling with words unclear stop and hear the song of the Jinn— caught in a bottle a message of few words washed across the storm buried in sand. waiting across the years, a Jinn of words, for release and the master’s bidding. poor faded scratches, ink on torn parchment to go up smoking in hands years hence. fixed shape offluidmeaning to go up influidsmoke, the meaning lost in doing the master’s bidding. the parchment unwrit in your hands years hence smokey rays focused in the lense of this moment- Byzantine glories and head hunter wisdom in a crystal to shine in smokey light— the wyrd sisters call MacBeth on while Cleopatra fondles the asp at her breast and A g a m e m n o n lies butchered in his bath the tragedies over and over played one moment of sound and fury soon blown away with the wind and sand a Jinn of words waiting for release and the master’s bidding
searchlights probe the hovering clouds caressed by wreathing smokes and theflickeringreds of burning London. half around the world the bleeding Yamato screams into her sea bed grave salt blood mingles with ocean tears calling the sharks o n — antique syllables from before recorded time writ on the parchment of a walking shadow devouring as only sharks can in hands years hence afixedshape of fluid meaning goes up in smoke and what of the Mongol hordes or Stalin’s wretched blood-stained hands? what of the slave holds moaning in diseased horror with fear smoking? on and on, over and over played the meaning lost in doing the master’s bidding hands years hence, will your smoking Jinn lose meaning from your manacled wrists or burn into crystal and a song, the master having fretted his hour upon the stage and gone?
Michael Huntington
I saw m y sister remove her hat and gloves— a knight pulling off sweat-and-bloodied gauntlets and setting aside the dinted helm. I have seen too, the vans rolling o n — knobbed and studded with gun turrets, strong armoured in heavy plate. * * * Antietam creek writhed through fields choked and clotted with blood, the smoke and groans rose through the sky— I still see them, dropping like scythed wheat brothers all, good soldiers all and the terror of their cry, the horror hangs yet in the air and weeps in the grasses and flowers— full more than a hundred years gone that d a y — their hearts caught in the moment’s fear deeply impressed in each clod of earth, each rock and stone. * * * H o w many have we lost in this war of ours, where Antietam fields lie in hearts and minds and battles are fought, invisible yet deadly? W efightagainst princes and powers unseen as if in a d r e a m — I have seen the courage of the midnight charge, lightning in the dark, delicate girls lugging heavy guns, pale youths asleep on theirfeetfrom lack of sleep. I’ve ridden through the dark hours before the dawn, eyes at halfmast, and the drunken van weaving like a crippled bomber flying home on a wing and a prayer. H o w many have we lost? brave soldiers all
their hearts shot away by the accuser’s shell or fragmented, trapped on the mine fields of despair. H o w many would still be here if we’d heard their call? Caught off guard, even heroes fall, their wounds unseen as they stumble and drift, trailing in the dust and wreckage. H o w many have we lost? Did you see them fall? Weeping we go on and in the day of blessing weep, missing those fallen on distant fields only a few know where or how, but their place remains as an emptiness in the heart. H o w many have we lost? brave soldiers all did you see them fall or hear them call?
Michael Huntington
and what of the disappearance of those faces long into the distance as the hardships m o u n t and confusion mounts into the sky, and the air is sun and spring colors in purple and colors in green flowers in a vase before an open window in the light of late s u m m e r sun sloping into the past tears shed one by one on the slopes of the heart little bleeding flowings in the bloody struggle at these the beginning of days a box with fur covered lid and soft leathern hinges clasped with a w o o d e n pin to hold feathers and tears and other such sorrows in against the day of days hopes going on crutches with blistered feet to bathe in Jordan by the shores of the sea.
Michael Huntington
Mountain Storm
fingertips torn and raw with scraped white knuckles slowly bleeding m y hand cramped into place welded into place by blind stubbornness all the world roars around m e and I toss suspended in a storm fire and lava stirred with acid in breakers of wind dissolving all but m y hand no sight but confusion no sound but all sound shrieking nothing but an ironfistgrasping clinging at an unknown barely remembered stone support on the cliffs edge of madness the iron more sure the less I know the stone all I know and now breathing again as rage passes into calm I wait and prepare to go on to climb once more
Michael Huntington
Leaves of Meaning
rooted, the trees converse in hushed tones urged on to excitement by the clouds rushing raggedfleetsbefore the sky’s blue face. blind old men, they stand by twos and ones, reaching out in surging voices, arguing meaning, flowing song-like place to place, and publish their findings in new leaves added each year to winter’s memories in coded volumes red and gold.
Michael Huntington
colors of the sun splashed against the rainbow snow catch the feathered throat of winter in bird-song morning wherein are the bells of God and the incense of His temple
Michael Huntington
Barnyard Moonrise
winter moonrise, cold in the northeast, palest silver gold through windy bare trees, and leaves, one or two, dry in the dusk, embrace the ragged barn. I shovel, frozen fingered, frozen horse dung and straw, earth to earth in living decaying odors hovering brown in the air momentarily, only to be torn out across the horse trodden yard. the wind, smelling raw copper and steel ingot cold wrapped its arms around everything to pass on smiling across the clouded face of the hammered iron moon. left behind, I stand manure fork leaning, glowing as a bright glede in thefiredreaming.
Michael Huntington
True…in the dark, too
and what if IfindYou in horse droppings too? are You always in flowers seen by the few? in the things of earth as well I sense You in the natural smells and in the rain as well as in stars in the c o m m o n and the near more than the far in all You are true bright bell in the dark, You!
Michael Huntington
between the books and m y eyes between shelf and ceiling, cup and wall unnumbered spaces like water filling the empty places and somewhere between eyes and there Ifindjust out of sight, you an almost ghost. I breathe you in the rain almost see you through a window in the pane of night almost embrace you as you slip between the waters falling and smile tofindyou breathing in m y ears kisses soft on m y eyes and gentle in m y tears.
M i k e Inglis
Such a yearning deep inside I want to go G o where the caravans of old have gone Cross dusty deserts where only the few have walked. See minarets climbing to the blue and hear the call to prayer as the sun lifts its golden orb ever so gently into the sky. We’re wrapped warm against the night wind To smell sweet meats, Our faces glowing in the fire Tea and see Safe for now flocks of goats and sheep and never wanting now to go in markets near the eastern sea. It does though Hot, hot days on the plains but journeys never really end and cool nights in Dreams and hopes live on mountains girdled in pines and carry us into new days yet capped with snow; N e w places to see, new ways to know Blue white in noon day light and on and on we go. and hidden in clouds come dusk. At last sitting on the sand I know love and have love to give like the oceans waves reaching up to m e and then running back to the sea. A gentle wind tousles my hair m y loves soft touch for m e The sunset draws m e on out over the waves and glittering sea and on into eternity.
Leslie J a m e s
T h e Mother of Nature
The Mother of Nature inspires the tiniest flower to blossom. And the growing thing finds no way to express its thankful love except simply to be.
Leslie James
W i n d soft sighs
W i n d soft sighs across the wet velvet brown of rounded hills, A n d the whispered winging of a bird dissolves in fluting. Rain-dappled leaves tap tap their questions to the earth. A n d mist arises like thoughts from the earth’s wise counsel. My dreams are as vibrant, rushing, sparkling as rivers. M y thoughts as rambling tumbling, billowing as clouds in a breathing sky. And you are the warmth in m y world. Your sunlit soul decries the chill in gold-illumined streaks like gentle fingers imperceptible warming embracing the earth and m e .
Leslie James
M y Question
Amidst clouded fantasies I seek you racing through meadows tofindyour eyes one burning question on m y lips. Will you let me be a child forever? Unhesitating, tenderly you answer Yes. And now I know: not youth we seek but innocence inviolable eternal purity of heart.
D i a n n e Jenkins
M y father from your eyes the sun rises and sets. Your laughter rings out like the laughter of the carp leaping in morning frolic. Your stomach is solid and I wonder, while you are speaking, if my arms would reach all the way around… You thrust your hands into your pockets but your thumbs stick out and reassure me. I concentrate on changing the world and other wonderful cosmic events. I crinkle m y brow in consternation but in the next moment my eyesfillwith tears. I am your daughter and, somehow, I will take care of you, m y father.
Dianne Jenkins
accomplishment is value w h e n you’re dead inside but i want to live. i want to throw away m y medals and trophies. i think faces are prettier; don’t you? the trees are so beautiful now. why can’t i paint what i see? something’s disconnected. i have a secret for you: there’s an igloo in m y middle! i have another secret for you: it’s melting.
Jonatha A . J o h n s o n
Reeling in the East
Oriental Scholarship Oriental Thought Like drunken butterflies Designed without no landing gear Batting against the startled atmosphere of Academia Waiting for an opening of mercy to appear
Jonatha A. Johnson
Dragon White and Dragon Blue
Dragon White and Dragon Blue Awesome presences endure Beyond the Gates they lie. Creative, surging power of fortune and destruction Beyond the Gate they lie in wait While we the vigil keep within and watch The Oracle consulting. The sign indicative of movement Shadows deepen shadows deep Dragon Blue is turning now All m e n to Arms! Defend the Western Gate! Hurry now the Dragon Tide is risen Dragon Blue has claimed the whole horizon! And in the lull W e count our blessings; those remaining Until the next alarm. Dragon White! Quick to the Gate Shining fierce like morning on the sea Glittering danger in the blinding light Piercing all tranquility Of those of us asleep in peace Within the Eastern Gate. Can Two Great Dragons lurk Unbeknownst one to the other? Would they notfindtheir contest true In challenging each another Somewhere in The Great Beyond Instead of here? Within the Gates Fear awaits its rebirth into peace White sky-patches sojourn to grey then melt in drops or fall in frozen feathers. As Dragon White transforms herself Again to Dragon Blue by molting.
Jonatha Johnson
A TRIBUTE T O J O H N KENNEDY
I remember the day John Kennedy died. Algebra class, a secretary came in and said, “The President has been shot.” Mr. Shutes, our teacher, said, “You will never forget this day.” “The radio says he is still alive,” But we knew he was dead. That 40 minutes until the bell rang, was the longest. Ever. They say, in Vicksburg, Michigan, that if you took a good canoe and paddled down the drainage ditch, to the creek, to the stream, then after a few weeks you could reach the Gulf of Mexico, a thousand miles away. Well, that day it was so silent in my country That you could have heard the sirens wailing for him in Dallas. Two girls started to cry, then pulled their desks close together. W e all felt so guilty. Like the time I left the kitten outside And she was hit by a car. Mr. Shutes said we could all just wait quietly for more news. And then he turned away. Methodically hefilledtwo blackboards with new problems, saying, “I’ll just put these up here in case you’d like something to do.” I watched him march the numbers across in regimented rows. Mr. Shutes had been a soldier in a war or two. H e had a way of walking, like in measures. At doorways he would hesitate, angling ten degrees, turning on his heel, and in this practiced way, his broad shoulders cleared the frame. And even from behind I could see, he was so busy loving that the chalky yellow rows remained straight even though his eyes, like mine, weren’t really focusing. N o w we shared this painful point in time. Algebra calmed the trembling in his fingers, making him a study in dignity.
Thefirsttime I had become serious, I was ten. Now my serious heart imploded once again. Algebra, oh, Algebra. A tangled load of problems on a balancing equasion. Shifting left to right to left, until, each time a little mystery is extirpated, Unknowns dissolving into knowns. Reducing all the tangles into a variable— Back and forth, forth and back. It seems These problems were created by the crazy Greeks (who unbalanced all of God’s equasions) Just to give kids like m e the shivers and the willies, even to imagine there would be a shadowy trace of Algebra lurking after highschool. Oh, Algebra. Shifting till I’m seasick and I can’t recall Your logical orders. Somehow, maybe somebody should put all the world’stangle of problems into a big equasion, until they teeter-totter enough times, till somebody could solve them. “Ask not what your country can do for you…” he had said. That evening was my brother’s birthday. Mother made him a cake, but I told her, “I don’t think anybody will want to eat any.” But we decorated it anyway. That night mom’s best chocolate cake tasted like clay. For three days the nation was in mourning. No one did or said anything than what was necessary. Then we all attended the funeral on t.v. and saw how John-John saluted, and we clipped his picture from the paper. Somehow, we all said goodbye. John Kennedy’s blood cries from the ground, “…Ask what you can do for country.” And in that timeless 40 minutes, the tangled burden of history held by someone else; had, somehow, somehow shifted onto me.
M a x Lambert
I call and call but there is no answer, although you can hear me, no response is your choice. H o w can I give back to you that which I took. I will try and keep trying, ‘til I no longer see the sun in the east, the star from the north, brown leaves in October or the blue of the sea. Beyond m y eternal rest like an echo in emptiness, as m y heart is anxious long awaiting your release.
W h y is it, I do things I know I should not Almost as though, I had forgot about the rules, the right and wrong. Seems like its taking just too long. All this waiting Can’t do what I want Anticipating the falling short falling…short. Almost, but never made it Nearly, but not enough One more step, one more minute One more nothing! Not later, Now! D o it Now! Pick your face up off the floor, turn the knob and open the door, There! Its not so hard to start again; Praise God! Praise God! Praise God! Amen!!!
Hard times, baby, hard times; Ain’t got no food in the cupboard, an’ no money to buy more. Gotta make use of whatever we got. …which ain’t a lot. A few slices o’ bread gotta pain in m y head with no aspirin to be found, end of the month comin’ round. Hard times, yes hard times. —Can’t ‘ford no furniture lay rugs for m y bed, a cardboard box is m y dresser— (Smack) that bug’s dead! Milk crates and cartons to rest m y behind, our ripped paper curtains are doing…just fine — B u t I got m e the truth, you see ta help m e carry on, I’ll become m e a good m a n before m y days are gone. Das right! These are hard times, seems nothin’s goin’ right but m y souls bin filled cause I seen the light — S o keep on, you hard times, you ain’t gettin’ m e down. You see a smile in m y heart. Yes, I know where I’m bound. …mmm, Hard times.
Curtis Martin
Theologers rage and philosophists storm about which second the new life is formed. But the soft and sleeping mind wrapped up so close inside has no shame to fear orfireof hate to hide. With brutal love conceived, in desperation borne, the dream of spring is crushed the veil of trust is torn.
Curtis Martin
Ifeda squirrel nuts today, he ate right from m y hand. I asked him home to sup with m e and later hear a band. He said “I’d like that very much if I hadn’t et already.” H e turned ‘round on his bushy tail and hopped off with his lady. N o w I wonder if I’m really mean or all that big and scary that he couldn’t talk and stay awhile; he sure seemed awful wary. Well that’s the breaks if ya get the shakes over almonds in the park. I wonder how it was with Noah on the mountain with his ark.
Melinda C . Vogel
O n the hill the fog rests its belly Cows jog, sheep nestle The road curls up to meet the warm windows The long white trailer And the green one. W e sing inside, frosting cookies Painting the icing firmly forming Our childhood dreams. Like children we circled And ran a story around: A beaded necklace Each designed of dragons Of Elves, of Grandfather clocks, Fitted together the dreams Made a pattern of Good and Evil And the battle between.
Lisa Mitchell
O d e to Parting with Love and from G o d
Though harsh partings ever augment the chasms; With peace, I recall the pleasant interludes of pleasure dialogue company, You summoned music mist whispers warmth breezes streams— Yet now, like the manner of January snow, Your Love beds down in m y life as a shroud of white-quiet; Where bitter winds haunt whispy atmospheres and await spring, when the snow dissipates into new and fertile brown soil.
Lisa Mitchell
N o w I can feel free to cry. N o w I can feel free. N o w I can feel. N o w I can… Now, “I”… …Now.
Lisa Mitchell
Love is still is still somewhere within a primordial sub subconscious of me-being anticipating an unpremeditated arousal from dormancy but afraid… afraid… afraid because it seems it will be a rude awakening.
Lisa Mitchell
i don’t n o nuthin’ cept w e n i sees u i git happy don’t n o w y i aint so smartt but w e n u tels m e sumthin’ i no it’s rite an i lissens so u makes m e glad ta no ya an i wans ta m a k e u happy too den w e bofe be happy ok, god?
Larry Moffitt
Child of O k l a h o m a
W e put the potatoes of our sweat under the dark, pungent earth, while the full moon shone overhead. The light would show God where we planted so he would know where to send his blessing. We walked in the footprints of our ancestors and saw their visions in our minds. W e gave birth to the great-great-grandchildren they could see but never hold. At night we dreamed their dreams and by day we lived them. At sunset we stood on the bank of the pond where the children swam with the dogs. And we watched the sun sink into the ocean that always sits just beyond the farthest point you can see in Oklahoma.
Larry Moffitt
A T i m e T o Refrain
You float right by we nod and you touch m e inside caressing the distance. I reach with folded hands across m y heart the joy of our touch still lies locked in the plan of God. Our hearts have spoken but the ribbon has not been cut and we dare not disobey. I give kind attention to your laughter hear deeply your tearful prayers your repentances for tiny sins. But we have kept the truth have had no hidden moments nor spent our honor for now the bridge is raised and we dare not disobey.
Larry Moffitt
Farmer B r o w n
Grandfather onlyflirtedwith senility on the days we rode to the stock auction singing the same verse of “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” so many times that even the sheep in the back were happy to die. Weather was central. Baseball was central. The Russians were central. The Bible was central. The other parts of life were alongside the trail, chickenfeathersand onion skin. The most difficult thing he ever had to do besides die, was put his dog to sleep. H e was ancient and familiar, a cross between the smell of dried leaves and the taste copper pennies leave in your mouth.
Larry Moffitt
I prayed for it to rain so I could see m y street between the drops. It rained green and some remained on all the trees. A bold move that brought winter to its knees.
Larry Moffitt
Post W o r d Processor C o m e d o w n
frosty high i pace the base bored from the plug to the door too much diditdidit feeding basic bytes to the beast until a long day later not country music or cheese bits can down or dull theflyingedge nopainnopainnopain but the inside m a n is jazzberries taking the nerve endings for a walk another midnight and time to eat the rug but I had rug for lunch no matter wired a young cat in a zoo
Larry Moffitt
Eyewitness N e w s
C o m e with your happytalk and microphone, your lighttight image-taker and lighttight heart. Describe the blood and where the bodies fell. Inform m e that m y family died and ask m e how I feel. Ask m e if I blame the mayor, the president or hell. Bend your knee to get in close. Speak low and sympathize. Inspire m e to get it out, to vent m y rage before I die. Catch m y tears in your hand, look sad yourself but do not cry. Hurry before they cut to the weather. Or we lose the light. Or I will slur m y words and die and step into m y night, without knowing if I helped you. Enshrined in your morgue there should be m yfinalreasoned thoughts and a can offilmnamed after me.
Larry Moffitt
T h e M a n W h o Froze
I look at bums tofindwithin the hollowed eyes of tender men, a soul as soft, as hard the shell of whiskey breath. So hard to tell if they had summers long ago or friends who envied them their hope. I see a man whose life has frayed whose parents gave his dog away, whose thoughts of childhood die in pain, resentful unforgiven stain. It snowed last night and some before while sleeping he, at Heaven’s door. If he and God at one time spoke it was once and long ago. He met the wall that seems to be where ideal meets reality. Forgot to pray, forgot to ask if there was still a way to go; couldn’t understand the love and didn’t know he didn’t know.
Larry Moffitt
West 35th and Others
Empty streets are bloodless veins through which no life may pass only wind and wings and calm and blowing trash. The street was shocked to see me there This day it planned to spend alone I teased it with m y foot I paused and spoke and left m y thoughts behind when I went home.
fleeting in morning mists that cover and hide come moments of thoughtfulness without any source of pride and then one speaks in quiet lisps confessions from the sensitive side
it is now fall and i await next season thinking of snow, of cold bitter cold winter seems but a warm thing to what i see over m y shoulder so i look again and look forward
in the autumn fullness of things with trees in colors tempoed to the whispered dance of leaves as they boldly (shyly) caress m y sleeves in the contemplation of wings with birds in patterns southward through the branches bare and leaning as they sigh and wave in tender meaning in the memory of such as these with winter soon to follow to the hollows of m y mind and soul are the scenes which bind us one and whole
there are many sides of m e opening doors to many stairways try to avoid the broken pieces as i laugh in all the aching places i love you; you are just like me insecure, unsure of m y humanity there are many of each of us and we are looking, looking through the windows, through the many sides laughing, aching, looking glass mocking, mimicking, all the sides are looking right back
i can hardlyfindthe lines in all honesty thefilmis thick across my eyes i’m not crying because i miss you though i do no, it’s a much slower weeping my friend to whom i feel so free with all my frailties please forgive m y frustration but it all seems so without compassion history tirades on i have to stop sometimes but sometimes i cannot stop i can hardly find the words in all of m y heart the aching holds its grip upon the outer edges i think the innermost is n u m b though it isn’t it’s much too much for m e my friend to whom i’m trying to touch with my meaning i have the history books and the lives and deaths, lives and deaths of those who moved in their time and dreamt of better times that have never come for them they haunt m e — damn them for hoping in m e i can hardly scream at god i’ve been screaming at the silence and silence has embraced m e the crush of tears that is history alone i was not there in the past and so i cannot really remember but i cannot begin to forget
the edges cut sharp and the picture freezes i’m leaving you are leaving i love you, you wanted it that way and i could not escape i try to get up from the seat try to think of how to stop the bus but it is already moving away the time and distance between us already forming i turn to look back for you the gaping space of a doorway now empty
i love you with an aching my loneliness breaking the memories into pieces wrinkles and creases i’m afraid i’ve fallen into worn out patterns pushing words into trying from thoughts dead or dying only the aching reminds me that life can be kind to m e so i love you again fool i a m now and was then
M . Morris winter
outside the snows c o m e gently like the layers of m y soul inside m y thoughts fall against m e like the separate crystals that glow as they suspend themselves across the lights and then disappear as they scatter out into the night and i a m still here
night it isn’t fair to weep tears are something close to mockery all the weeping that could possibly be done has already been accomplished w h o a m i to add tears to the task of those n o w dead? death it isn’t finished with us yet memories are something which haunt us all the dying that went on and on that too was our accomplishment w h o are w e to watch the task in other places still c o m e down? come down like the night. it isn’t fair it isn’t finished for nazi camp survivor, elie weisel
how our lives slip by and away without a m u r m u r have we forgotten do we still remember? i recall the lines on your brow the quizzical quirk of your eyes oh love, oh love i don’t know how when i hear you laughing through a memory of mine i cannot pursue you but i sometimes stop and curse you wherever i go you slip into your place where no one else may go and often without m e knowing until m y heart skips a beat in time in the time and distance you left behind in m e parts of me, lonely searches through the word love, through the world into the word love.
late at night i can get so tired so tired of the day gone by more tired that it’s gone than having gone through it away wanted to send something to you would it do? could i be just enough, bold enough to let you know i was getting into that way feeling beyond the boundaries i’ve forgotten how alone it is to sense people and more people all around you all alive around you inside it’s a sad desperation and only at these hours do i wonder god, if god at all i’m hoping you don’t mind would you mind? if i whisper a littletooshy for prayer hear i am
bittersweet waters after the fire that swept away the flames of a friendship gone sour doused with trembling anger no place tofindthe remnants the rags or the wretches so i drink bittersweet desires after the storm that took m e to your door and left m e facing an enraged wall which faced m e suddenly weak, suddenly small
i know you have been holding onto the aching like the carrier of theflickeringliving flame who runs from dream to dream and game to game hold on then through the chilling wind you cannot be lost for long in this constant moving beyond there will be ground for you when you are found and through this we shall least become on firmer sites, higher beings of the candle vision
M . Morris spring
w h o can tell w h e n winter ends and spring begins? my fingers fly across this page dawning of a n e w age. and who knows the second of night which splits into grey and then, night again? the end of the old no one seems to know. there are those deep in frigid cold dark in the dark, alone in their soul clutched by cruel discontent the shadows submerge and freeze there are those but disarrayed discouraged forms of kicked aside clay fired by ancient, distant visions the broken shards arise and breathe who can tell when the end is near thefinalcalm before new birth? (before the fury and the fear rant and rage, cast and curse against the quiet creeping fingers curling from edge to edge of earth)
who can say? horizons fly across my eyes dawning of a different sunrise.
i don’t feel as if i need a reason a long letter to explain everything w h e n there is nothing that words can d o i was thinking anyway of life and things that grow of simple dignity there is some dignity in the polite way flowers never m u r m u r apologies (and so they are without excuse) never sorry they borrowed from sun and soil alike never sorry that after all that they eventually take all and die they grow for the sake of the eye that was m a d e to wet at beauty’s w h i m but these are thoughts left to m e w h e n there is nothing that words can d o
annie always looked for the biscuit box first thing out of bed and m a d e sure the tea was shared as the last ritual of the night i can easily think of annie h o w little i have forgotten, still fresh in m e the fragrance of cinnamon cakes her heart was always morning nightingale of mft
M . Morris summer
my heart is an empty gaping room with sunlight fading through window dust as m y thoughts organize all that i must get myself into soon and all too soon my heart is a tight-lipped, crooked smile with courage mustered against the tears as m y thoughts encounter the past two years that we had for awhile and all for awhile m y heart is an open aching wound with cuts of tender waking hours as m y thoughts unfold like subtle flowers trimmed and left to surely bloom in an all too empty sunlit room.
I Ching consolation
biting through today i must begin i should be ashamed of time wasted and my hours spent foolishly but i a m not too ashamed— i a m simply not proud my hope, only hope is that i can bite through the obstacle of my undisciplined character and that i do not mind the bleeding
you were never a simple thing never a something i could make to ease the inconvenience of loneliness you are (and always) a word speaking a joke laughing a life breathing and a death crying as i watch this friendship dying only time can heal me or haunt me m y heart is a winsome child (?) it looked easy for you that flashes her show-off smiles,
—September 1973 my heart is a measureless stream that runs for miles and miles, my heart is a poet alone who took her pen in hand and cried and cried. my heart is a thunder of emotions that sing with electricity that stretch the limits of the sky with snaps of laughter and delight. and with the suddenness of an equinox m y heart is all yours, all yours, once again. —September, 1983
M . Morris from i to thou
m y father’s office has books on books all in rows but predominant over all of those hangs one big trout swollen proud i suppose thatfishstory is often told on the other wall my father placed a plaque which preserves a newspaper clipping in white and black of him and a famous senator whose n a m e i cannot remember and next to that another one of him with m y mother in the corner grows the lemon tree he is saving from winter cold on the edge of his walnut desk under the glass are the old comic strips which m a d e him laugh his favorite one depicts the obscure trials of a pastor it lies thereflattenedby the years and losing color suspended from the upper rows a tiny fisherman trembles his toothpick rod (where did he find such a little boy’s toy?) there are those who love my father and i know m y father loves them and loves them more than his books,his desk and the office full of his life and character.. his chair is not so worn.
from the ashes of fire that dance in suspense of the night towards m y eyes of awe and fright who are unsure of knowledge pain until the agony of all that i desire rises in m e like a helpless wing fluttering from the flame of blackened and charred remains ready the shape of despair takes hold and dissipates in a burst of anger bold of life, from life again phoenix from the fire ancient longing rises higher, ever higher
tremulous calls like the whip-poor-will fluttering wings that cannot hold still expressions of a soul in flight
coming to rest on my window sill peering eyes that cannot be filled searchings of a mind for an inner light and i in my room writing poetry watch this curious bird w h o flew to m e from far-away lands of brown swept earth and endless blue skies that daily give birth to runaway children with long red hair flowing behind them to horizons of nowhere and i who usually leave the windows closed stop for a m o m e n t from poetry and prose to open the latch of m y o w n cloistered heart and catch the songs of a morning escaping from dark
i’m not quite sure why i call her m y friend enigmas, complications innuendos on end… i’m not quite sure why i love her at all open arms, warm embraces cold, icy walls… i’m not quite sure why i let her get to m e visions, conversations thoughts traveling, traveling… so my thoughts turn back to rainy weather, duckies’ feathers stories she’d tell to make m e laugh… and i’m not quite sure how to live in the space between high tide, ebb tide just give her time… her own place, her own mind
For a friend of a friend
willow once a friend of mine i remember how i cried for a tiny shivering tree clinging to its simple dignity against the whipping of the wind willow once with branches thick and fine i remember how i climbed for a place in m y hidden home where i spared m y dreams alone against the whisper of the leaves willow once with courage to the sky i remember how i tried for a loving way to let you know that my world was letting go against horizons larger than the weeping of your eyes
(litany call)
in front of the endlessness of fear and fright of emptiness i a m standing with the wind alone and were i to leap would the wind carry m e or could i cross-over on the screaming wings of m y mind?
(and response)
I believe we are to have the wings of eagles I believe we are toflyto the stars I believe that every tear you cry for God and for others is a jewel that paves the road to heaven I believe your fearful screams will mellow into songs of intense joy and you will want to jump up again with others take the leap, hand in hand I believe we all will fly soon.
Karen Judd Smith
Chris N e w m a n
STATION SITTING
Station sitting, and pretty long journey ahead Across the Punjab past red-dust sunsets. W e saw fields of peasants, thin like weeds among their crops. You told m e it was too dusty, so we closed the window, making a carriage oven. Funny things happen on a journey. A shoe-shine-boy rebellion, going for double or nothing. Cramped conversations in compartments packed with fat ladies. Yet the same thing could happen in London here, If we were not careful. Not that the tube is a bit stuffy Or the sun smogged over. But let’s not mention the crowded compartments for nothing is ever mentioned there.
Chris N e w m a n
BRIDGE T O L L
Arterial road bridge, carrying your traffic from heart to brain, but both are asleep. Red moving tail lights, transport sleeping minds back, to north shore cocoon beds of T V home. White headlights bring more across from the suburb motormowerland, to die further in the city fake. Headlights beaming like lamps in empty skulls. YET Around me gentle water lap laps, its elastic skin ululating in green peacefulness, and the headland opposite is… a living tree silhouette, cut from sky gossamer and woven into substance. H o w Marama, our moon, is still there. All creation is sane, waiting the awaking of m a n from his madness.
Elizabeth Parker
W h y a m I called for this inglorious task W h e n the crown I approach brags even sharper thorns? Why, when quiet sunsets were all I asked And the mists on the valley and the ripening corn? Why, when the night must fall at last And I a m not enough for the days unborn? It was never my fear that the strong would fly, That cowards would rule and the true betray; It was never too much that the angels cried, That the wisest fell and the helpless strayed; It was never too much when the bravest died— It was never too much till You went away. Now the good walk out and in the silence weep, Black greed goes forth and stalks her men. Cold in the night as the chains and deep, I a m still awake and trying hard; and when At home the embers die and the children sleep, If here the sun should rise, I’ll try again. And I give thanks. But for You, m y life had never been.
Elizabeth Parker
T O T H E SISTERS
All the gentle, wise ones Are gently, wisely marching again Luck to you the dusty windows wave And the oaks and the sparrows turn their tears away And Liberty shakes her head in the flicker Ofthe old fire: sad, sad But not forever, no. They are parting the waters and walking through the sea They look almost as if they are not afraid They have knives cutting eternity out of the sky They are open souls, immortals in ivory They are a wind breathing seeds upon the hills… And we butfleasin the horse’s tail Lord oh lord we’ll all arrive But the race is theirs. And for this there will be thanks Dusty windows will wave them home There will be Peace, and Joy, And all the beauty in the world Liberty will lift her head And children dance forever on her lawn But ofthe gentle, wise ones The march, the miracle Only God will remember all… Well I could just cry Just lie down across m y country and die lord oh lord And when I pray I a m dumb, somebody, I am mute But I a m not blind I sketch wise and gentle symbols across m y page.
Elizabeth Parker
Lead on, gold Moses. Your Promised Land lies in shimmer ahead Silver ripple on black virulent black And I, from so many thousand feet, White light blazing through m y wings And caught surrendering To the great and holy need T o sit still, K n o w nothing more. I have seen it all just now: H o w they come, they shine, they smoulder Shoulder this our entire life, oh yes, B e c o m e the chosen. I a m touched d u m b By an unwritten race That defies the world for m e Becomes one. Walk on, good Moses, walk on g o l d — Lead us, lead us h o m e — h o m e . D o I — d o I see your eyes brim over For those w h o must die in the desert, Die, die in their sleep; D o I hear your broken thought: m y God, We’re all just trying to get there. M y God M y dear God, we’re all Just trying— I put m y finger to the double pane of glass and touch your face— Looking down, I watch the weary millions go, Tiny puffs of whispered cloud, Walking across the sea.
Elizabeth Parker
Wings oh good catholic Father Wrap us tight and fold us out and Let us dry light we are the windows In the cosmic church open pilgrim souls Shed the barren faith we are the tune Of the shining summer day sing us a little m a n Breathe us like a breath of eternity drift free And be absorbed in us and when we fly Fly.
If Ever I Forget You
If ever I forget You, Let You fade or leave or lose You, Wish to hide or choose to be hid from Your face, Still there’s no place Where I can be outside Your keeping, Or where Your weeping doesn’t echo in the wind. I could deny all sights and seeing, Say Your being was a myth or dream or lie, But still I’d cry to hear the daybreak, Sweet with singing, soft with sun, And run with joy along the ringing ocean’s edge. Were I to stop my ears, my eyes, Close off the skies and every scent ignore, Your kisses still will fall like rain to reach me, Teach m e that You live, You are; And if I forget the very trees, There’s still the breeze of morning meeting And Yourfingerswind a greeting in m y hair. No there’s no escaping Your world’s shaping, love or law, And poor are they who’ve looked so often without seeing; Your being is the sunset pageant, gold and bright and tall, And all who’ve gazed on dawn have seen Your face.
Mazed in magenta The heather-edged trees Cluster in a nimbus of wind. Cloud, in a steel drift, sifts claret coldly. The larches, in their last days, Are a frieze of fine rain, Nebuly gold on a sky with a crenellate edge. The spectre is Death O n this Friday of the world week, And the wind-song haunts the strong stone of m y own fibre With its ache of antiquity. O h skeleton trees, Bone of m y bone, H o w well I know the shape of your secret growing! But death is this season’s misconception; It is only that after Autumn, All activity remains inward. Winter is an inbreathing— Cold because warmth is conceiving Deep in the maiden grain. Stand then serene in the shadow of the Tree For life resurrects where dark delves deepest; Sun’s day soon dawns again And you will be upgathered in its light. (1981)
Something, Somewhere
There’s something sometimes somewher Miles inside of m e That yearns across the mountains And the oceans of wild sea, That looks far further yet Than where the sun could burn And for something somewhere Miles away, With all of m e I yearn. Deeper than the thunder bounces Round the slow green hills, Brighter than the heart of summer Where the yellow spills; Above all earth, a quiet, A piercing peace— There’s something there, Of which only the something Somewhere Deep in me’s aware (1972)
Robert Selle
Plump S u m m e r M o o n
She is full-bodied yet chaste, with a lacework of clouds falling from her waist which she draws across her creamy face- her onyx-and-silver veil!
Robert Selle
Trudging the summer dust of the highway median strip, asking money to make the world good again. Humble business, this, plodding upon beer bottle shards, struggling ragweed, yellow cow vetch (crawling o’er the sun-baked sand), andflattenedWhopper boxes, the hot dust rising merrily in copper-shimmer puffs!
Robert Selle
Harbor-dirge
In the gray morning, the harbor’s fog fuzzes the air, hushing the audience of oaks and maples, beeches, hemlocks which are h u d d l e d — listening— on the tiered and bouldered harborside— listening motionless to the harbor’s somber concert: the ships’ whistles, fog-muffled, the mourning of a whistle buoy, the lute music of the strings of waves strumming themselves on the rocks’ fingertips. T h e strains stream through the still tangle of leaves and twigs and branches and trunks u p to the granite rampart where I stand resting in the lave of ether-thin music.
Chris S e m a n s k y
P o e m for Beginners
It’s easy to bite into it’s soft like lavender or suede Before long it doesn’t ask for m u c h it will creep up on you just to be read you willfindyourself it’s too simple reading between the lines to be considered you’ll think, this must have cultured or abstract deeper content, some implications maybe an analogy You would expect to find it next to a Dr. Seuss book That’s it. It’s an analogy in a dentist’s office to the universal emotions it doesn’t beg which bind us all together or give advice in a paradox of frenzied passion it’s pointless (you’ll think, even if it’s not and to the point you can m a k e it that way) of being absurd you imagine the words it wanders at times taking on wings like an old n o m a d adjectives sprouting antennae sometimes you will verbs indiscriminately find it meeting adverbs slipping off the page at the conjunction There are no political insinuations this is it, you think no social statements the end just think of it as and it is. 1) ink o n paper 2) spacefilledin 3) occupied thought BUT WATCH IT
Chris Semansky
Abraham’s Failure
You couldn’t have known it was going to snow that day in the Middle East, things are unpredictable like that. And you couldn’t have known that your belly (sick from ptomained pig) would force you to sleep longer than usual, and besides your alarm never went off anyway. “It was an oversight, a simple mistake,” you would cry later. “After all that blood and entrails, the chalky bone of an old heifer, What are two birds in the bush worth anyhow?” Maybe it was just his imagination the way storms sometime have a way of making you feel ashamed, or how thunder takes on voices when you’re already that afraid.
Chris Semansky
O n Dealing With Communists
Never close your eyes to hungry animals who smell of lies and old bones
I look upon the days behind and brood For I have left them not completely filled. M y actions, sometimes thoughtless, harsh, or crude are there recorded—time abused or killed. The hearts I’ve touched, though not so soft at times Cry out for more—or less—than what I gave. This time a balm, that time those heartless crimes. They come to soothe, or haunt m e to m y grave. I cannot change what time and distance seal, But now, beyond, m y story will be told. To all who listen: May I learn to feel, And warm the hearts and hands that once were cold. The person that I was before is dead. A new man, now, I step and step ahead.
K a r e n J u d d Smith
O h m y soul Let not m y love fade Nor engaged hearts twist apart Let not the pain of ignored gifts Turn the timid impulse of m y heart back Only to dwell within a vacant reality Lost behind locked doors In a world without knowledge Without demands In a world without pain My plea is fear unfolding To be consumed only by your courage To look past dusty reflections Into circles Of shadows D o w n to where the unmoved May be the moved in you Sire, turn around Look to the one everywhere And nowhere Else I fear a world will implode. (5th February, 1983)
T h e Fullness of T i m e
Eternity is whispering its secrets Into the sin-deafened ears of time: The journey to the Father’s house continues, But now—never again, alone! The trees clap their hands for the joy of it all, The clefted rocks smile with glad astonishment; The snow-crowned mountains stand on tip-toe Trying to peek into heaven’s courtyard. The golden hem of the sun’s garments Brushes the giggling grass; The rainbow is chuckling, the span of its seven-hued smile Painting the horizon with the show of twice-born hope; The sky is rejoicing, laughing till it’s blue in the face The fullness of time has come, As the Gospel descends on the wings of a song: Joy to the world! The Lord has come! Traveling in the greatness of His strength, God has restrained the sword-arm Of the death-angel, And his banner over us is Love
Paul Stearns
the hen is silent I never know where she is the proud rooster tells me everything his love life his hunger his smallest wish. she knows hiding places and goes there for such long times in soft white breathing there gleaming in safe clucking darkness I worry about her she is soft with eggs full of simple mystery.
Paul Stearns
Destroy All Monsters
Fresh in m y mind the girl in leopard skirt and glittering eyes sings of death, drugs and related things, while the senseless Scandinavian kids smile wide and dance. Needing some refreshment going around asking everyone for innocence, acting as if it were a stick to be retrieved, I was finally out for a master and unable to even find a vendor I retreated to a cavernous white r o o m with scattered steel chairs. And afterward, at the party the realization repeated—that only with borrowed strength will I be able to fend off the stranger’s smiled offering of this, that and even her, Please G o d help m e , I’m trying hard to destroy all monsters.
Bruce Sutchar
Three mallards whisper together wondering what Sunday will bring. I wander out to a midnight shadowed meadow skating pond. Orion, beside the big dipper, shines in a clear winter’s sky on the night of the virgin m o o n the haze surrounds thefirstnight’s crescent i slide on the ice filled with childhood memories of Saturday hockey games and changing skates in a hastily thrown together wooden shack m y fingers and toes n u m b with Chicago’s winter wind
Laura Taylor
You came. You went. Some time was spent. And Love was grown. H o w glad I a m to have known you, both. Sometimes there is so much water under the Bridge it is washed away. And a new one must be made. Dear God! You numbed the pain allowed m e to go on and even warmed beyond all reason. it loved like rain. wind will re-arrange, And now, the Blue Sky.
Mary Townsend
Great fish of mysterious waters Prince of the wide ocean— Many tears are shed for you on land. Songs are sung in far-off places. Prayers said o n starless nights. We wait for you each day as people wait for dawn, or spring in the cold mountains: W e wait as if your coming would kindlefirein a dying heart.
The ocean hides its jewels well— It tells its secrets quietly A n d m u r m u r s a strange language o n our shores It shares itself with those only w h o offer their years their toil even their blood; It cannot surrender to what is false. Giant fish— You, w h o d o not deserve to die, A n d w e w h o d o not deserve to kill you Will meet A n d give to this loveless world our lives Great fish from the brilliant sea.
Mary Townsend
A River of Birds
Escaped into the just-breaking dawn, a misty morning. As I stepped out ofthe door m y ears werefilledwith a mighty roar, never heard before, a sound that stopped m e in m y tracks. Flying south across the sunrise was a dense river of birds, m a y b e half a mile away butfillingthe air with the mass of their voices, each chattering and chiming, swelling to a noise like a waterfall that passed and passed into the distance. A few groups fell away from the main body and swooped d o w n on ourfieldsand woods to feed, disappearing into the treetops like windblown seeds in the grass. Blackbirds? Starlings? A n d where going? I walked to the back gate in awe: admiring the golden-red leaves of a maple, each marbled with beads of cold fog and glowing like amber. I noticed stretched between the fingers of one leaf a perfect radial web, misted white, and at the center its tiny maker, curled and fast asleep, hanging in the windless morning, safe as a bird on a ship. There is a special H u d s o n sunrise that seems to rise out of the water itself, spreading across the lupin-blue sky and making itself at h o m e over the mountains. O u r river flows two ways and the Indians n a m e d it for that: twice a day turning the landscape inside out to go back where it came from, playing with the tides and dizzying the poor dreamers wholive along its edge. Does it have a right way and a wrong way? O r an upside d o w n and a right way u p for the limpid morning sky I see in the water? A couple walks by the river, hand in hand; some couples I k n o w are enjoying their marriage from opposite sides of the world. M y friend doesn’t see his wife very often and sometimes that seems to be a misfortune… That night the same throng of birds again, flying north with as m u c h chatter and celebration as they had m a d e going south in the morning: thousands of fluttering specks reflected in the river until a small wind merges sunset, clouds and journeying birds into one.
ISBN 0-932884-21-6