Poetry Notes and Letters

Castro in the Cantina

thegnosticpoet — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 01:13:57 +0000

He looked like Castro with a lesser beard
And younger by a bit, as I then thought.
Perhaps he’d spot the tyrant twenty years,
But the nose, cheeks, and eyes the photos brought
Across the Strait of Florida, he shared.
He must be far older than I, with wife
And full-grown sons across the table there.
Undoubtedly he led a different life.
I looked again and saw his gray matched mine,
And estimated once again his age.
Around his eyes I saw no trace of lines:
Late forties say? My thoughts were not assuaged.
Here was a man much older than my mind,
And if he looked at me, what did he find?

E’re the Dawn

thegnosticpoet — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:24:29 +0000

“It’s always darkest e’re the dawn.
I swear your dawn will have its worth,”
She scrawled upon the wall and ran.
I looked upon the dripping words,
Blacker black on a blackened wall,
And wondered why my wyrd was here
Not where I’d thought for good and all.
But destiny is always queer,
Not caring where we’d go or why
Nor lighting paths to show the way
But bounding us like hedges high,
We blind beggars who shun the day.

Bitter herbs and bitter tonics:
How would we shun them if we could?
Yet sometimes they’re the doctor’s orders
So we take them as we should.
I, like a horse recalcitrant,
Have pulled the wagon where I would,
Again the master takes my reins
And turns me back into the wood
Whose dark and twisted shapes still leer
And reach above to block off sun.
Perhaps beyond this darkened passage
Waits the brightness to be won?

Look in the Shadow

thegnosticpoet — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:31:59 +0000

I’ve learned to look in the shadow.
One never knows what lingers there.
Perhaps stray light reflects a pair
Of eyes or teeth lined row on row?
Things freeze in the shadow, although
They also move with speed to spare,
Disappear even as you stare.
Would you expect to see them glow?
And yet, it’s why I’ve learned to park
My eyes on places that are dark.
The shining eyes, the glowing smile
May grace the shadows for awhile,
A rose may seek the sun’s bright mark
While greater lights may hide the spark.

Fast and Cheap Example

thegnosticpoet — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 01:40:47 +0000

The night was cold and damp with clouds upon
The face of Selene, dimming radiance,
Encouraging dark deeds and wicked fun,
With murders and mayhem and games of chance.
Over again they churned there in my mind:
The thoughts, the memories, the imaginings.
My hands in Abel’s blood, I could not find
A way to cleanse the stain or salve the stings.
Would morning ever come? “Look to the east!”
I hearkened to the voice and turned around
Away from my thoughts, away from that beast.
In the east of my mind a quiet sound,
A small light shone, dimmed and filtered by thought,
’Til I made my way to what God had wrought.

Journey to Heaven

thegnosticpoet — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 01:36:34 +0000

Hell
Self-created, Sticky
Suffering, Torturing, Comforting
Sorrow, Nightmare, Freedom, Delight
Releasing, Praising, Smiling
Victorious, Effortless
Heaven

Birds?

thegnosticpoet — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 01:34:35 +0000

Twelve birds
Trade joy songs
Sunrise!

No Shadows in The Last Station

thegnosticpoet — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 05:35:06 +0000

I write in hints of shadows where
The passion cowers, peeking out,
A child amongst the grown-up legs.
The suicide is not on stage,
The ardor of ten thousand days,
The flesh that presses softer flesh,
The dagger drawn to rip and tear,
The arguments with rending clothes,
Invisible for all to see.
And what is left between the words?
Just paper, white, untouched, unmarred.
The conjuror will cast his spell
To find the only one he’s fooled
Looks back at him within the glass.

For Mehetabel and Two Sisters in an Art Museum

thegnosticpoet — Sun, 10 May 2009 08:45:29 +0000

I ran across your name the other day
My heart was filled with laughter all unplanned
And memories of other times held sway.

A laugh can hold old Father Time at bay:
Each shake of mirth reverses fallen sand.
I ran across your name the other day

And thoughts of you and Archie made their way
To crowd the now out of my mental land
And memories of other times held sway,

Old classes where I met you in the fray
With characters from splendid down to bland.
I ran across your name again today

When concrete poetry had led the way
To read a thesis by the artist’s hand.
But memories of other times held sway

Mehetabel’s young kittens all at play
And texts of English writing to be scanned.
I ran across your name again today,
And memories of other times held sway.

Watchers

thegnosticpoet — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 07:26:15 +0000

How many watch the greatest play
All in their seats they listen, still,
The while we actors do our will
To miss our cues and waste the day?
But will they close their eyes to us
When scenes are private by our wish?
Or like voyeurs, is this the dish
That stays their eyes upon our lust?
Or when they breathed was it enough
To live those lives both sweet and rough,
And we, the actors who remain,
But play to emptiness in vain?
I’d rather think the hall is bare.
I need none there to watch me here.

Unsleeping, Unchanged

thegnosticpoet — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 00:22:14 +0000

I thought to read a bit before sleeping,
But then I read too much, and here I sit
Aroused from bed by an unquiet mind’s
Chirping like a chipmunk in the dark room.
I have long played the jester and the fool,
And each pointed barb I’ve forged has cut me.
No rest for the wicked, and none for me.
For I have lived the greatest sin of all:
I have taken myself seriously.
I was the joke who did not laugh along.

So, sleep has sloughed off into the silence
As remembered sins, real and imagined,
Occupy my mind, an army entrenched.
I stare into the stillness of my soul.
It’s not a placid lake or peaceful vale.
It’s a junkyard, piled high with refuse,
but with unrecycled treasures unfound
and ready for some careless foot to kick,
revealing gold among the bric-a-brac.

O, Restless Truth! How did I get this way?
I feel the silence still, immutable.
It speaks within, still, as when I was eight,
It claims, “I am the same. I am unchanged.
The years may make no claim on spirit’s stuff.
Events in time are weights attached to fire;
They cannot hold the flame nor bind the air.
Either they know my heat, or are consumed.”

And now the eyes that would not close have drooped.
The mind that would not rest is stilled of thought.
The head has bowed and jerked and bowed again.
I lay this fey-made shell upon the bed,
the I within has dumped the garbage scow.
So now I stride across the moonlit shore,
Once more the fire that lives ‘twixt sand and sea.