FRANCE
Poetry by Blake Steele
written in France, 1994
A...
ABOUT THE PIO RETREAT HOUSE VISION
A FUNERAL IN FRANCE
A CHRISTMAS SONG FROM BRITTANY
A MEDITATION ON FRANCE
A POEM FOR MANY YOUNG FRENCH WOMEN
A SONG FROM SAULAGES, FRANCE
C...
COMMENTS UPON GOD FROM FRANCE
G...
GOD IS CONCERNED WITH A MAN'S FAITH
GOD LOVES MY BODY LIKE HE LOVES
THE BLAMELESS STONES
I...
I HAVE A CHANCE TO BE RESPECTABLE
I LAY WITH THE CROWN OF MY HEAD
AGAINST OLD, CASTLE STONE
IMAGES FROM LUCERAM, FRANCE
IN THE END, A SOCIETY IS
JUDGED BY THE STATE
OF ITS ELDERLY
I STOOD TODAY WHERE DEBUSSY WALKED
FOR INSPIRATION
I WILL SING OF FRANCE
L...
LISTENING AT FORT LA LATTE - BRITTANY, FRANCE
M...
MOON LIGHT AT VAN GOGH'S GRAVE
MY LIFE POURED BACK UPON ME
MY SOUL
PRAYS BEST
N...
NOTRE DAME des SABLONS
P...
POEMS FROM FORT LA LATTE, BRITTANY, FRANCE
T...
THE ABBAYE SENANQUE
THE CIRCLE'S COMPLETION
(At a hunting lodge in France)
THE COMMISSION
TO THE RARE SOUL THAT CARES AND BREAKS THROUGH
U...
UPON A SPIRITUAL TRAGEDY
V...
VINCENT
W...
WHEN I BECOME THE EARTH'S OWN LOVE
Last Poem in file: ABOUT THE PIO RETREAT HOUSE
Blake
Steele
P.O.
Box 201
Bend,
OR 97709
503-382-2864
NOTRE DAME des SABLONS
Provence - Aigues-Mortes
St Louis had them build her,
stone upon stone,
up she arose,
a stalwart lady,
fit to last ages.
Her silent spaces hold
a myriad of memories.
So many souls,
passing through the eras,
have felt wondrous
things here...
perhaps as I have felt today:
the memoried stories
that make this lady live
--and centuries of prayers
which have soaked into her stones.
VINCENT
St. Paul's, St. Remy De Provence
I.
I walked today where a tormented genius walked,
where he strove to gather his soul into some
semblance of peace.
The place was peaceful enough.
It might have been peaceful for him then,
but unmitigated passions are not easily subdued.
I know that if a man
does not gain mastery over old passions
(the ones with tough roots
twisting deeply into his brain),
they can warp him into the semblance
of a colorful fly--
a fly which catches a
sensitive eye
with rainbows of light on its wing--
yet in time, bears a worm which infests carrion.
Passions debase us if gone awry...
yet, directed a
right, they might lift us
into a swirl of starlight.
Out in the garden
I observed that the mad man learned the rough
stroke of his brush
from the bark of old olive trees...
Light was his love--color-laden light!
When one loves an element,
its essence pours through.
His passion for color must
have been great
--beyond our imagining!--
for color grew to such a force through his eyes
that it crashed through all normal, mental defenses
until
light itself drove him mad.
II.
I sat for a long time in the dark chapel
where he must have often thought and prayed,
and sent my voice to echo in the same vault
where his voice was raised.
I felt he must have been impelled in his work
by a great weight of guilt!
Love graces us with balance in its ardor,
but the soul will pass all extremities
striving to appease a shame.
Genius needs solid ground from which to launch
bright rockets in the night.
His ground gave way at last, and strokes of
color drowned him in a sea of seething energies.
(This poor man passed through a colorful hell
on
his way to paradise).
*
And now, safely distant from his lonely eyes,
or the anguished sounds of his raving,
our shoes slide upon polished tiles
(though his sandals were heavy with clay),
as we gaze at the marks of his strident passion
--and are dazed!--
called to awareness by the flattery of fame
to feel for a moment, something beyond paint!
And so, we have built him monuments,
celebrating the genius which drove him insane.
GOD IS CONCERNED WITH A MAN'S FAITH
Provence, France - 10/6/94
God is concerned with a man's faith.
It is not by feelings that things are changed
except the feelings be driven
by forces of faith!
Perhaps I learned this in solitude
amongst ancient hills--
or perhaps by the failures
of my feelings.
10/7/94
COMMENTS UPON GOD FROM FRANCE
God flies on the wings of the wind
through
the candy shop of His own creation--
tasting everything!
And to God, the poetical child,
it is deliriously delicious:
The piercing purity of starlight;
the slow ecstasy of growing grass;
the stately, erotic wisdom of the trees;
the numbling, fumdubbery of rattling stones.
All the flavors dance through His brain,
--delighting Him!--
amidst a great weight of sadness,
as the compassions of His heart
brood painfully upon
the numb, ruinous nature of men.
10/7/94
UPON A SPIRITUAL TRAGEDY
I shall write again and again
about these truths of God:
the poetical child,
the passionate lover,
the rejected one.
The churches of France are dark, depressing
relics.
Why is there no music reverberating
from these ancient stones?
Perhaps there has been too much killing;
too much pretence of holiness;
too much religious hypocrisy.
There
is a great beauty of spirit missing!
There is an essential meaning missing!
What remains is the unresolved grief
of young girls
raped by ravenous warrior monks.
What remains are old stones
upon which the brains of children
were beaten out
by the commands of popes.
And whose eyes shall gaze through glimmering dark
to see visions of justice and beauty
in communities of spirit
celebrating ancient glories and new frontiers
if not the
children of rich and vile legacies
who are young, poetical lovers...
you who are passionate, rejected ones.
THE CIRCLE'S COMPLETION
(At a hunting lodge in France)
I wandered out into sheep fields at night
to stand in the wind and gaze up
at limitless stars.
Then it hit me, as a circle was completed
and the energies of a lifetime's worth
of longing released.
*
To spin, to spin in joyous rage