Monday, July 29, 2013

Three Poems from a Summer Notebook

Here are three poems I wrote this summer. I do not claim that they are art, merely journeywork. These are just a few of the things that sprang to mind while working with Worldview Academy this summer and happened to make it onto the page. I may write a retrospective at a later date, but I have been, as of yet, unable to process what has happened to me this past summertime. I hope you enjoy and are edified by these three poems.
_____

More Beautiful Than
Figure.
   Conjure up in your mind
the absolute worst
              image.
       Imagine it fully in
       your numbest brain cells.

Do you have it? Do you
        understand what that says
        about you?
      How do you live with
         yourself
            thinking the kinds of 
            things that you do?

Worse yet -
    How does a holy, perfect, loving
                 awful
                   God

   live. With you on His mind?

Pieces of dirt formed
         into the most beautiful
           of images.

Words
    spilled
        out onto the ground
             to form your face. 
        sincerely sighing silence
             forms into
your soul.   Yuh   wuh
        Yuch  wuch
        Yehh  Wehh
   Silence just breathing?

Proclamation of breath
constantly revealing.
    Reliving.
    Reviving his beautiful essence.

You can't escape it. Stop
    trying so hard to ignore
    His words on your lips,
    your trachea forcing you
    to mutter His undimmable Name.

Accept the fate He wants
       So desperately
                                       for you.

That horrible thing you thought?

   He made it
          
               more beautiful

than.


__________

At the Feet of Lenin
An imposition, though perhaps warranted.
The concrete is shaded and feels cool
to my touch.
My backpack rests beside me, tilted back,
looking into the fires of socialist art.

His red hands are daunting, graffiti bespeaking
his politics and despotism - blood of the martyrs. 
I cannot help but be silent.
For those who wander there may yet
be some hope in our eyes.
For those who cry, we may yet
see redemption in the shadows.

Dappling tree-branch sunlight
causes his eyes to blink. His minute
smile showing wisdom and
knowledge - full knowledge of what
he did to his country. Where he was.
His feet flat, solid on the metal ground,
his chest thrust emphatically into an
impossible future. Little could he
have know his impact.

Nor do those sitting on little metal chairs
eating falafel at little metal tables.
The red flag stone of the courtyard
eerily echoes his birthplace, tourists
call it quaint.
Staring at his plaque with "oohs" and "ahhs"
they call it history - removed from them.
Walking away they remember their well-
loved welfare and mother's voices telling
them to share.

The all-seeing eye from a masonic lodge
looks upon the whole scene bemused,
having worked opposing for centuries,
now forced to recall its weariness
minute to hour to day to century.
Its moral compass spinning in vain,
unable to face its fear.

Amusing. Lovely, sunshining day lavishes
the wealth of summer as I sit and 
wallow in decades of philosophy, my
mind awash in wonder.

The imposing figure at my back 
calls to me. It asks me to work.
It asks me to hold the human race
to a higher standard.
It asks for peace. 


________

Frisbee in the Loop

Watching those who love me most
playing the sport they love the most.
Contentment.

Hearing their shouts of joy, cries of defeat,
switching sides as points are won for posterity.
Boundaries.

Flashes of skin as slick fabric uncovers stomachs,
legs and arms in its haste to allow for movement.
Beautiful.

Passersby smiling, taking in the sights of
gleeful barreling through two-inch grass.
Flexibility.

Neon shades among various blacks, blues, and whites,
visually calling out everything they hope for.
Excitement.

Green - green as far as the eye can see in this town.
The end-zone cones stand in stark contrast.
Quizzical.

Forwards caps, backwards hats, personifying
attitudes and fervor for this aural art.
Fantasy.

How wondrous to be among people with light
in the right places of their minds and games.
Christ.