ANAM CARA
poetry by
Blake Steele
(File opened Jan. 1998)
A...
AFTER A CONVERSATION WITH
AN ANAM CARA WHO IS MARRIED
TO
A GOOD AND VULNERABLE MAN
ANAM CARA
DÉ
DOLLY
I...
I WANT TO BREAK TABOOS
P...
POEMS ARE MEANINGFUL AND MEMORABLE WORDS
SÉ
SALLY'S WORDS
T...
THE HUNGRY MAN REPENTS
THE ROSE IN MY BELLY
THE TREES ARE ELECTRIFIED
W...
WHEN I GO FORTH HUNGRY AND LOOKING FOR LOVE
WHY DO I COMPLAIN OF LOVE'S PLAY?
LAST POEM IN FILE: SALLY'S WORDS
ANAM CARA
The loving soul
shines around its body
like
a luminous cloud.
The open-eyed are cloud drinkers:
the trusting, the celebrative,
the golden children
that live in a conscious mist.
It's a soul-friend
that beholds your light
and loves your beauty.
Soul, friend...
I use the words with reverence:
not lightly, as we use the word love,
or sex, or earth, or God
in our unknowing knowing,
in our bind slumber.
A soul-friend desires
to drink you in,
and in savoring you
wakes up those rivers
that move through your belly
and open skies in silent places
of your mind
until the mystery of you
moves and unfolds,
interblending
with hawk calls
and angel cries
in an ancient mystery
the awake call
home.
DOLLY
She drove me into a corner
and hugged me with all the passion
of a wild-hearted child.
If I could, I would take her to
the print store
and make a copy of her
for me.
AFTER A CONVERSATION WITH
AN ANAM CARA WHO IS MARRIED
TO A GOOD AND VULNERABLE MAN
We talked about everything I love:
the wild God: untrammeled, creative,
popsicle fresh and free;
and
poetry, that language which dribbles
in word drops
out of the wine press
of imagination
where the dancing feet of emotion
crush intellect's grapes;
and song, that fusion,
that ooze of emotional light
in the dark of soul;
and
creation: bursting,
flowing, shifting shapes
in the miraculous, unfathomable
instant that is before time was;
and love: its soft beams
beautifying the illuminated face;
the harmonious mergence of minds
to interblend
in an infinite tapestry
of
self sharingÑ
and the urge to penetrate, to swallow
to eat, to free, to enter.
I cannot speak of this dispassionately
anymore than one can make words
without syllables.
Such love, such fresh fluidity
to mingle,
such energies, such sparkle
to fuse and coalesce--
such forbiddances again to restrain!
It shook me, it crumpled my hands,
it made me sweat,
and whispered in my conscience,
"You
must let it all go..."
And I know love also looses...
So I kiss these memories goodbye
with this poem
as it ends.
THE TREES ARE ELECTRIFIED
The trees are like electrified
cauliflower buds
with all the white blown away;
they are dark lightning blasts
even in their quiet
and solemn slumber.
We
should bless the trees
everyday, lay our hands on them
in all seasons.
I think they hunger
for the touch of our souls,
our imaginative wonder,
the songs of our praise
mingling with the motions
of their adoration.
I think this marriage
would bring peace to the birds.
You know, perhaps Blake's
angel-filled tree is poignantly real;
perhaps, the Trees of Life in Paradise
have been forever here.
POEMS ARE MEANINGFUL AND MEMORABLE WORDS
Poems are
meaningful
and memorable words
which flow out of that
wild and silky part of our heart
like an unpredictable wind
moving through a disciplined mind.
THE HUNGRY MAN REPENTS
I want an imperfect woman:
dark ground in which to scratch;
a disheveled nest in which to lay;
a bird with frayed feathers
hopping through mindless patterns
in a cage;
a receptacle of golden seed
falling
from the dirty hands
of a broken man.
Let her turn her imperfect body
to my imperfect body;
her disjointed face
to my disjointed face;
her dark, lean soul
to my dark, hungry soul
to touch, in our imperfect love,
some free thing,
some perfect power,
some divine beckoning.
I WANT TO BREAK TABOOS
All my thoughts congeal
in my thirst for her
and something green and soft,
something radiant
slips through a soul fissure
and falls amongst the terrors
of
the lonely
who wanders.
I want to break all taboos
and fall into a dense dark
to discover her:
and there, to sing her body
with both hands,
with my feet,
with curls,
my thighs!
with a naked
navel.
Just let me realize
my unfinished grief
in her flesh.
And when I touch her silent nipples
with a stroke of light
and she smiles,
I want to rise above the earth
as a man!
with his arms
wide open!
free of flesh
and drunk
on the fumes
of my smoldering soul's
vision.
WHY DO I COMPLAIN OF LOVE'S PLAY?
Why do I complain of love's play?
though love takes me, naked and alone,
in desolate ways
until I learn that love
is empty of grasping need?
But what is it that holds me?
Only love's beauty which entrances
while
the absolute of a needless need
casts me forth crazy and alone
in this wilderness
to walk amongst
sheets of yellow light--blind!
and through the green forest's
mumbling music--deaf!
and through flowers and honey potsÑ
bereft of smell and tasteÑ
looking for the end of looking,
needing the end of needing,
all the while withering
for grief of the great life
I haven't lived.
WHEN I GO FORTH HUNGRY AND LOOKING FOR LOVE
In going forth to find
that which is so richly within.
I
have played the fool,
the jerk, the stupid game.
I've annoyed people...
No one thinks they are
the obnoxious party.
It's brilliant to wake up;
to hold the mirror a little higher
in careening light;
to look hard at the crumpled
child
hiding
in the shadow-bottom of the glass.
That's me: the touch-starved clown,
the adolescent buffoon!
A good laugh at myself
will fix me--
and some apologies.
THE ROSE IN MY BELLY
The rose in my belly
is opening again,
slowly, in the light--
and amidst shadows,
loosening its grip,
falling open like silk slips
from shoulders,
like a lady's hair falls
when the pin is pulled.
The rose opens in my belly:
I turn in the clasp of
God.
SALLY'S WORDS
I'm almost home now,
almost at the end of this weary road,
almost within small, welcome fences,
almost
circled by curling vines and flowers
where I may lay down safely in someone's arms
who knows my wounded, torn ways
and loves me, placing their hands tenderly on me
to
sooth... until I allow the simple luxury
of
slipping into old rhythms.
I'm listening to birds singing ancient songs:
homing songs, songs of wild flight.
I'm listening to the lullabies
of my own breathing,
and the whispered syllables of wind--
the wordless longing of silent love within.
For a moment, I'm a child again,
crying
myself to sleep;
until someone wraps me warm in light
streaming through their gentle eyes
and I cautiously let fingers play with mine,
and touch my hair,
seizing
my soul in a suspense of silence,
breathless and unknowing--
until words begin. Your words are light:
like small fireflies in dark woods
where frightening creatures move;
like
feathers of light
they drift carelessly and somber
amidst the fearful shift of shadows.
Now I'm nesting down in two worlds, still afraid,
yet running towards small lights,
small miracles in the dark,
your
words amongst them...