RICH VISION
POETRY BY BLAKE STEELE
FILE 2
A...
ADAM, WHERE ARE YOU?
ANOTHER POEM ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH
ANOTHER SHORT EXHORTATION
TO THE INVISIBLE WILD HOST
WITHIN THE VISIBLE PLACID HOST
ARRIVING
INSIDE YOURSELF
A SIMPLE, MUTUAL DEAL
AT MIDNIGHT
(From Pierre Reverdy)
C...
CONCENTRATION
CONTRIBUTIONS
F....
FORGIVENESS MEANS RELEASE
G....
GOD IS A FREE SPIRIT
H...
HEAR O ISRAEL, THE LORD IS ONE
HOLDING TO DIALECTICAL ESSENCES
FOR REALITY'S SAKE
I...
I AM:
I AM A CHILD FULL OF PROMISES
I
FED THE KING AND WOUNDED HIM
IF GOD BE FOR US...
IN THE TIME OF SUNLIGHT
IT MAKES US FEEL GOOD TO CONTROL GOD
THROUGH OUR KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
I WANT TO FIND THE SOUL OF DOSTOEVSKI
L...
LETS GET THIS INCARNATION THING RIGHT!
LET US BECOME WALKING SABBATHS
LIFE IN THE WOMB
M...
MARY ONE AND MARY TWO
P...
POEM ON THE HEBREW WORDS
TRANSLATED JOY AND SALVATION
PURLING
S...
SAVORING CAKE
SINGING LIKE LEAVES AND FLYING THINGS
T...
THE GIFTS OF STRANGE TINY CREATURES
THE HUGE
HOT SPILL
THE SMALLEST PROVISION ELUDES ME
THE STUDENT'S QUESTION - THE OLD RABBI'S ANSWER
THIS IS THE PEARL OUR SAVIOUR BOUGHT
TREES OF GOD
TRINITY
U...
UNDERNEATH THE HUMAN FRAILTIES
SOMETHING TRUE COMES SHINING
UPON A DAY OF RELIGIOUS INQUIERY (FOUR POEMS)
UPON
THE GOOD AND BROKEN KING
UPON THE PRAYER OF FAITH
W...
WE SEEK GOD BECAUSE GOD SEEKS US
WHEN THE OURTER WEDS THE INNER WORLD
WHERE
ARE THE WARRIORS WHO PROTECT THE PRINCE?
WISDOM IS A SPONTANIOUS LADY
WRITING INTO A TOUCH OF REMEMBRANCE
WHY SHOULD MY LILLY CARE
34 POEMS: LAST ONE - HEAR O ISRAEL
THE POEMS
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THE HUGE HOT SPILL
They say that God is distant,
well ordered, reserved,
like a nun's tentative breathing
in the presence of a beautiful man.
But I say that God is hot and huge,
rolling in the lightning blue depths
of His own being!
Mostly, God moves cloud-like
through inner,
spacious places of the human soul
at a rate too slow for mortal sense:
but sometimes, when the world
weighs too heavily upon Him,
He trembles
and is felt as a passionate dream,
too full of fire and song to be contained
even in His own infinite expanses.
It is then that He spills over the brim of His being
into our being
to seize us
with His song.
I AM:
I am the object of another's hopes,
of
another's dreams,
of another's purposes.
I am the object of another's love,
of another's concern,
of another's care.
I have been created by another's power.
I am the fruit of another's husbandry,
the art of another's genius.
I am an object becoming
an offspring.
I share in a life I do not own.
HOLDING TO DIALECTICAL ESSENCES FOR REALITY'S SAKE
The poets are drawn into the dance of the many,
the holy luminous mosaic,
the diverse, the color rich bouquet,
the feast of Elohim.
Oh Lord of the flying, flaming hosts,
receive our praise!
And concurrently they are drawn
into the one essence of the essence.
Hear O Israel, the Lord our God,
the sovereign--our strength among us,
our ruling, all powerful towards us--
is One Lord. Unique!
And the holy poet's cry,
"The meaning of our lives
is at the source of our being!"
and, "We must dance diversities
into that luscious harmony
which is the sweet juice and fruit
of He/She/They who dwell in holy, compassionate,
ecstatic
and freely creative unity.
UPON A DAY OF RELIGIOUS INQUIERY (FOUR POEMS)
RELIGIOUS INQUIERY I.
On the first morning
the young student, his face framed with spinning curls,
caught up with the old rabbi who hobbled down the road
"Venerable one, what is piety?" he asked.
The old man laughed, shook his beard
and spit in the dust.
"Ask the birds sonny," he replied
rocked back and forth on his toes a few times,
then
scowled and walked away.
RELIGIOUS INQUIERY II.
Undaunted the young man
approached the old rabbi
who sat on a bench at noon time,
slurping his soup.
"Venerable one, how can we know God?"
the student asked with the intensity
of his youthful passion.
The old man laughed, wiped his beard
on his sleeve and
spit on the floor.
"Think like a window and open it, Sonny,"
he replied, then hovered back over his bowl.
RELIGIOUS INQUIERY III.
The young man knocked on the rabbi's door
in the evening shadows.
Hearing no reply, he peeked through the slats
and saw the old man hunched over a holy book
which lay before him on a wooden table.
The student nervously pushed open
the door and stood, hat in hand,
shuffling from one foot to the other.
The rabbi briskly flipped the pages
with his thick fingers and took no note of him.
The student, coughed and stuttered out,
"Honorable Rabbi,
I've come a long way to speak with you.
Before I go, could you tell me one more thing?
The old man peered up at him
through his wiry eyebrows, waiting.
The young man took heart.
"Venerable Father," he continued,
"How should I live to be holy?"
The old man's eyes brightened and he suddenly laughed,
pulling on his beard with one leathery hand
and pounding the other one on the boards.
"By Solomon's beard," the old man said,
"Audacious, precocious..." he paused,
looked hard at the young man,
then blew air suddenly out his nostrils.
"Sonny, listen now," he said, lifting
one
hand in the air. If you want to
live
you must be alive!
Go where you are going and open windows
for all holy creatures to swarm into your soul.
Start with the birds...
Let birds fly into you, singing.
Then, if you figure out both worlds
where you and the birds are
--be a child now!--throw open a space
in the center of every bird
and pour out through them
their own song in human words."
He paused, bent over and spit on the
floor then looked up with his eyes burning.
"Hear
now! Are you listening, Sonny?" he asked.
The student dumbly nodded.
"You sing and sing," the rabbi said,
"'Til your song more precious to you than your life.
Then you'll have begun to know just a
thing or two
more than the wind..."
With that said, the old man bent over,
kissed the holy book,
and without a further word blew out his candle,
and crawled into bed with his boots on.
RELIGIOUS INQUIERY IV.
The young man shook his head,
put his hat on in the dark
and stumbled outside into the
night.
He felt like cursing with exasperation.
The stars were shimmering in the cold sky.
He gazed at a bright one for a long while
and began pondering the rabbi's words.
Slowly, he started to hum
trying to imagined what a starÕs song might be.
Suddenly it was as if all questions were being asked
in three notes.
Then some words came to him, so he sang them
towards the sky,
"Star which shines with your back to me,
I'll sing through you towards eternity."
Just like that, he felt like he was being
thought of.