A WILD SANITY (FILE 1)
(An extension of the Wonder poetry manuscript)
Writings from 1994 through 1996
INDEX:
A...
A COMMENT ON
PHILIPPIANS 2:15; REV. 3:15;
GAL. 5:1; ROM. 8:21; IS. 61:7
REV. 21:5: 22:4,5
AFTER STEPHEN SPENDER
AND GOD MADE INNOCENCE
ANOTHER COMMUNION
ANSWERING THE UNANSWERABLE
AT THE FOUNTAIN HEAD
B...
BEGINNING A LETTER TO THE MIRACLE OF A HUMAN BEING
BLOWN
AWAY AND THROUGH
C...
COMMENTS ON A VERY OLD TRADITION
OF RELIGIOUS STARCHINESS
COMPASSION UNLOCKS AT LAST
D...
DABAR
E...
EAT UP THE SHADOW TO REVEAL THE LIGHT
F...
FIGHTING TO STAVE OFF DEATH
THROUGH WORDS
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I WILL OUTGROW GOD
FRONT PAGE
G...
GOD OF THE WASHERWOMAN
GUIDELINES
H...
HOW THIS WORLD MIGHT BECOME THE PERFECT PLACE
TO GROW A CREATIVE AND
COMPASSIONATE SOUL
I...
I AM IN THE CLASHES OF TWO SELVES
I AM THE CROSS OF CHRIST
IN LOVE'S OBSCURITY
INNOCENCE RISES
I WANT TO BE A LADDER
L...
LET'S GIVE GOD SOME CREDIT FOR HIS BRILLIANCE
LIVING IN AMERICA - 1995
O...
ON A UNIVERSAL ENTROPY
ON THE MUSE
P...
PART WAY THROUGH THE GRIEF
POETRY FLOWS OUT OF THE GROWING FORCE
R...
RIVER JOURNEY
ROLLING IN A HOLY CIRCLE
S...
SAINT ARMOND
SHARDS OF HIS UNBROKEN BLESSEDNESS
T...
TALKEN THE POETRY
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SAINT ARMOND
THE LIGHT OF GOD
THE LIPS OF GOD
THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS FREEDOM
THE TROUBLEMAKER
THE UNBREAKABLE STRENGTH
TO EVERY WOMAN
TO HEROES AND HEROINES
TO THE LITTLE BARRON
TRUE PRAYER
U...
UNCONQUERABLE
W...
WHAT A NOBLE PIECE OF WORK
WHEN OUT OF STONE WATERS FLOW
WE MUST SET THE GOD-MAN FREE
WE MUST SING SPIRIT WORDS
46 poems
Last Poem: ANSWERING THE UNANSWERABLE
THE POEMS:
I AM IN THE CLASHES OF TWO SELVES
I am in the clashes of two selves
mid stream...
There is an aching
for young beauty
in my toes,
in my loins,
in the free center of my brain.
I long for both God
and an impermissible woman.
*
--A broken boy
confuses things.
*
There is a rose-fragrant wind in me.
Streams of it flow from my fingers.
The deer and birds come to me,
delighting in its currents.
*
Yet, tumbleweeds spin
in my belly
as a thousand wires
are tangling into tightening knots.
*
I am in the clashes of two selves...
mid stream.
I AM THE CROSS OF CHRIST
I am the cross of Christ;
I am the stone and the tomb--
and I, the opening door
of His resurrection.
COMMENTS ON A VERY OLD TRADITION
OF RELIGIOUS STARCHINESS
Are the stiff, cold-eyed,
ascetic intellectuals
who spy out heresies,
who proclaim judgments
of condemnation
against those who err from true doctrine
really the standard of discipleship?
Are these men
God's image restored,
Eden regained, trees of life,
bridal souls, mad lovers
of God and all God has made?
Are these the spirit-drunk apostles
of reality? Are they the burning flames;
luminous pillars; crown bearers;
hidden manna eaters; white stoned and
secret named Ñ do these ones hide
the morning star in their luminous breasts?
Are they the ones to be
God's royal wild men in the new world?
Has Eshoo Meshikhah of the burning eyes
and gleaming feet with his own finger
inscribed within these astute minds
the wild creative nature of the Artist of the Universe
and the wonders of the radiant city of God
and the mysterious new name of Christ
which no one knows but Him?
If so...I guess I better listen
to these
holy men...
even if they look
a bit blanched and pinched nosed
to me.
ANOTHER COMMUNION
Out there, miraculous things
are held to be common
by the dull hearts of men,
but here, in this house,
a young fly is a wonder
too great to conceive.
And so, the fly, thus honored,
shows flashes of its intelligence
and beauty,
and sitting for a while in a pool of light
gathered in the palm of my hand,
loves God with me.
HOW THIS WORLD MIGHT BECOME THE PERFECT
PLACE TO GROW A CREATIVE AND COMPASSIONATE
SOUL
If people's primary passion
was to develop
simple openness to God
that the light of consciousness
might flow liquid
through their whole being
then we would work together
to see that each of us
had ample provision
to keep us healthy and free
while we labor
to grow beautiful souls
and to do loving deeds amongst us
until we journey
from earth to paradise
when our days
of holy, ecstatic
pilgrimage are through.
ON A UNIVERSAL
ENTROPY
There is a
sinister black cat
stalking the
little birds
of love and freedom in me.
RIVER JOURNEY
How shall we find the fountainhead
or the destination
unless we follow the river?
But the banks are too thick
with roots and whorls,
reeds and brush.
We must walk knee deep,
thigh deep, belly deep,
breast deep, throat deep,
nose deep, eye deep,
head deep in the river!
and feel its currents
ripple around us,
flushing through us--
swirling up our bottoms,
splaying our toes!
Then we shall have arrived:
some swimming up current,
some floaten down,
some just splashing
and playen around,
in the river.
TALKEN THE POETRY
Let's talk the poetry,
Talk the Life,
Dance the word,
Make God sing!
God's in the flux and flow
Of Spirit and Word.
Let's find Him!
Be found
In Words of Spirit,
Worlds of Life!
Let's do it!
Let's do.
Let's
Talk the poetry,
Talk the Life,
Dance the Word,
Make God sing!
WHEN OUT OF STONE WATERS FLOW
When the Word is rigid,
when it is stone,
it induces fearÑ
or becomes a jungle gym
for intellects to play on.
Only when Word cracks open
and flows out crystalline,
fluid,
do trees of life
spontaneously burst into bloom
by the force of
liquid surge up their hearts.
A COMMENT ON
PHILIPPIANS 2:15; REV. 3:15;
GAL. 5:1; ROM. 8:21; IS. 61:7
REV. 21:5: 22:4,5
What are the blameless
and innocent children of God like?:
They are passionate!
They are free!
The lions and fish,
trees and silent plants,
all insects, and stones,
instinctually await to be infused
with their joy of Being.
It is written,
God will transform
the whole universe
through these children's
open, luminous hearts.
THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS FREEDOM
We must be rebirthed by Spirit:
not an intellectualized doctrine
about the Spirit,
but by the living, breathing,
blowing, flying, burning,
fragrant, speaking,
watching, wild and wondrous Spirit.
We must crack open and encounter
Spirit!
THE LIGHT OF GOD
The flowing light of God
is like fresh washed linen;
white sea foam;
a lamb.
WE MUST SING SPIRIT WORDS
Are you tearing open your garments
looking for your luminous bones?
Are you letting the halt and lame,
the terrible shadowed ones within you,
come to bathe in your own fiery sea?
We must sing spirit words
in the flowing breath of Shaddai,
Alaha, Ruah, Miriah.
We must find the crystal river again
and naked of soul, dive in.
TO HEROES AND HEROINES
Let us pour out living waters
from the deep passions of holy river
in our bellies
into the leaves of trees,
and roots of grasses.
Let us soak stonewalls with
clouds of spirit incense.
Let us bless our homes.
Nursing homes can be our art galleries,
our children's play grounds.
Let us flow fragrant waters
into young minds to make them
ancient with memories
and into old minds to make them young
with deathless dreams.
We can wash each other's souls
with beautiful water-words
and compassionate deeds.
TO EVERY WOMAN
Women bear the fragrances
of barnyards, of wheat fields,
of tide pools, of roses.
They are more naturally poets
than most men,
for men no longer grow up
fishing the sea,
driving oxen, pruning peach trees
soaking in GodÕs book of Life.
In the ovaries of a woman
is the seed of light;
in her breasts hides GodÕs face;
from her deeper belly
flows the candied river.
O woman! Let down your hair
over the face of every poet...
and incubate him!
Be for us life's poetry.
DABAR
Who lives under the hill,
beyond the seven seas?
The one who smells of humus;
the one with wet leaves in his beard and hair.
Who runs with His coyote brothers
celebrating freedom?
Who watches eaglets sucking up blood?
Who speaks like thunder, like walls of water
beating on stone?
They once called Him El Shaddai,
the thousand-breasted one...
Who rides a careening chariot upon the winds?
Who dives into clouds for a laugh?
Who peers upon us from beyond the skies?
The one with fire and ice in His eyes;
the one with the great Northern Star
shimmering in His breast.
This one became Eshoo.*
Eshoo became this One.
*Jesus in Aramaic
THE LIPS OF GOD
Wherever the breath of El
blows through,
there is the mouth of the Lord,
the opening of God:
and we become His lips,
His word!
GOD OF THE WASHERWOMAN
God is silky soap
and icy waters
from the fountainheads
of Himalayan streams.
God is flowing
Pleiades starlight
to nakedly bathe in,
purer than tear-dropped candle-flames
in ancient prayer chapels.
Blessed are those who are washing
their souls,
making them white.
Blessed are the washerwomen.
I.
AND GOD MADE INNOCENCE
And God made human innocence:
the fawn-like, shy look, the snow-eyed,
the water drop face, the thin lines
like reeds, like swan necks,
the down, the rabbit fur,
the warm milk of it.
And God loved innocence.
So He made a garden
of gardenias, of hyacinth, of sweet myrrh,
of figs and pomegranates,
and He placed innocence there
and told her to play.
God swirled around her like a soft breeze
and kissed her young breasts
and trickled his water over her shoulders...
and His wind combed out her hair.
And God said,
"It is good."
And God brought her to His innocent man
who smelled like bears,
wild rosemary, wet sagebrush and deer:
and God put a shiver
in their loins for each other.
And roses slowly bloomed
in the woman's breasts,
and in the man's belly...roses.
So they moved upon each other
like water over stones, like bees nuzzling
into the throat of flowers.
And an angel poured silver waters
over their heads and into their eyes
until water spilled down their bones
to wet their flesh from the inside.
Then innocence laughed
until she heaved and cried for sweetness
and buried her soft moistness
into the man's warm fur.
And God savored the beauty He had made
until a muscular green
shadow convulsed in a tree
and something hissed,
"good and bad..."
as Earth
wept.
II.
INNOCENCE RISES
The tomb was opened by slim white hands.
A beaten body shimmered.
Outside, guards were cursing for fear
while the Roman centurion
in his dark tent
suckled on the breast of a Hebrew whore.
Wise Innocence walked out
with daylight in His face,
with the full moon in His eyes
--and dying night became luminous
around Him.
Before their cold, war-hardened eyes
He disappeared like dew
into the heat of God...
until Mary came:
the seven-deviled Mary
whom the Lord had loved.
And a gardener whispered,
"Mary..."
No one else could speak her name
with such a quiet passion of love...
It was a serious war,
so the Child couldn't laugh yet,
but he showed her His torn wrists
saying, "See here
what the darkness did."
And His eyes held the joke of it
and all the tragedies
of ten thousand years.
So she wept at the beauty
and ran to tell His disciples
to wake up.
AT THE FOUNTAIN HEAD
Let's drink
from the fountain
of wise innocence
and become
the passionate
innocence of God.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD I WILL OUTGROW GOD
I would sing in these fresh streams and breezes
of the feminine Shekinah.
I would outgrow God: the old man of the skies.
I shall take Him off like a snake wriggles out of its
skin.
Then God shall bound down from deep blue
with lightning in Her eyes,
my lover, my young beauty.
I shall be the bridegroom welcoming God my Bride:
Christ the lithe, the sprightly one who laughs--
the young willow tree, a green leaf in the wind.
I would be the warrior surrounding
with candlelight and song
the cruel lord of me I have confined
in my own dark dungeons.
I shall bid my chefs to feed him
with a continual feast of the finest foods
until he lies down satisfied, my brother,
the beloved counselor at my side.
Thus I shall recover my blessed land of Soul
for God, the fair lady, my shy Bride.
And She shall kiss me for my compassions
with wild passion as I die,
and take my heart in a locket
unto the Old Man of the skies.
SHARDS OF HIS UNBROKEN BLESSEDNESS
I have pressed my body into the elements
and found God:
God, the lover of His own creations;
God, the artist of this festive beauty.
The senses, baptized by the Spirit's fire,
are ablaze.
Light streams forth from all conscious things.
And all things are alive!
The consciousness of a tree
is in its patient, relentless growth;
the consciousness of a stone
in its obdurate being;
the consciousness of Earth
in its lush, sensuous bearing
and reclamation.
Now I know that the light of all consciousness
is God's, His supreme gift Ñ
shards of his unbroken blessedness.
LET'S GIVE GOD SOME CREDIT FOR HIS BRILLIANCE
Some serve God because
of divine authority Ñ
I love God
because of His humility
and cachet prestige.
BEGINNING A LETTER TO THE MIRACLE
OF A HUMAN BEING
Greetings, noble, marvelous, unique creature,
with wiggly toes at the end of your feet;
with amazing curling, delicate, fingers, spreading and
reaching
like roots; and eyes, light catchers and transformers
for the mind's eye; and ears hearing with drums beating:
little uncreaking bones pumping, dark waters trembling,
minute hairs quivering, electric currents flashing
to the listener of your miraculous mind;
and that nose of yours sniffing, huffing, sucking
great billows of air, sensing fragrances;
and that sublime tongue licking, tasting, acrobatically,
twisting, flipping and flapping in talk;
and those lungs quaffing and drafting gallon-full draughts
from the ocean of sky, whiffing out words formed
masterfully
in your crackerjack throat; and your fathomless, spacious,
luminous center, watching, hearing, sensing it all:
soliciting wisdom, quietly dwelling in manifold mirrors of
glass:
adroit in wonder, brimming with prayer... spilling light
out eyes
when they open to shower delight as love hums...
Greetings to you, Word of love! beauty becoming,
bewildered and wounded, wayfaring child of miraculous God:
howl-dog and pearl, bridal and bent... desert of doldrums
desperate and coddled, foaming fountain, rare and
upraising,
slippery and succinct...
Greetings, greetings, greetings!...
Oh! Forgive me. I forgot why I was writing you
or what I wanted to say.
Sincerely yours,
A poet
WE MUST SET THE GOD-MAN FREE
Wild woman of the soul, descend into the deep moods of His
holy love and find wild words to make Jesus free and beautiful again.
When did we put Him in a safe little cage, a quilted zoo:
white cloth, quiet candles, cold pews...? This one made
hawk's wings,
gave the wild ass its freedom, molded the thick neck of
the ox,
sculpted the sweaty flanks of stallions. When did we make Him
into such an innocuous man: sweet like a mango too long on
the tree? When did we first domesticate Eshoo, that wild man of Nazareth, issue
from the loins of the thousand breasted Shaddai?: He who threw over a money
changer's table, a culture, a world; He with fire in His eyes, a voice like the
raging sea speaking molten words--His whip of passion flailing the dark. If we
who love Jesus refuse to find the words and deeds to set the risen man, the
wild man, the High God-man free, then the world will pass by his sad
ineffectualities.
FIGHTING TO STAVE OFF DEATH
THROUGH WORDS
(A Poem for All Those I Love)
There are moments when the pain of this separation seems
too great to bear.
Is everyone afraid to sing out, "Do you remember me?
I'm a child of God,
holding this mask of forgetfulness up to my clear, shining
eyes, protecting myself from the pain of this separation just like you
are..."
My soul longs to speak to another soul in safety; to
realize just for an instant
that it is heard and known. Oh you foolish mystery, I
would say Ñ can you hear me at all? You do your dance of deceit like I do when
my courage is not up to the task of being real, of bearing the ecstasy of my
being with wisdom.
There are moments when acute wakefulness is an agony that
crushes the heart, a grief too great for the body to bear. Then, to stay alive,
one must speak one's truth concerning this holy tragedy and the love-born
wisdom of this separation whether anyone else hears it at all...
BLOWN AWAY AND THROUGH
It is because I cannot accept
this blindness
this alienation
from the divine beauty
of God
that I suffer
unto the failing of my heart.
I rail against
all that we fail to say and do,
all the goodness we miss!
And so
I travail
just to keep on
breathing.
Somebody blew
a hole in my heart
with an emotional bullet
and my breath
is leaking out.
SAINT ARMOND
Saint Armond
sat upon a stone
and chanted,
"Because You love me,
I love You.
Because You love me,
I love You.
Because You love me,
I love You!"
until he floated off the stone
and a wind blew him away.
He landed
in a valley of lepers.
UNCONQUERABLE
After they had tortured Saint Armond
with hot coals
he smiled at them and said
"Thank you, that was useful."
That so infuriated their twisted souls
that they cut off his tongue.
"Now I will be silent, and write,"
he thought to himself.
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SAINT ARMOND
As Saint Armond sat praying in his prison cell
his torturers stood around a fire
dreaming up new ways to break the holy man's spirit.
The oldest and craftiest amongst them
suddenly got a dark smolder in his eye.
"We've tried tongs and coals, we've tried stretching
and pounding, pouring and pricking...
now, let us torture him with softness.
Send for Lola."
All the torturers smirked at the inspiration.
They brought Lola in. Her eyes were birds flying
in dark circles;
her hips great golden sheaves of hay;
her breasts white lambs
leaping out of the fold.
She moved like a breeze across the floor
and wrapped her hair around Armond's head.
He right away kissed her and loved her
and wrote a poem to her upon a wall
about the white energy of God
and all the green blood streaming down
upon them like light.
*
Lola got a prison cell right next to Armond's.
THE UNBREAKABLE STRENGTH
The strength of a man's spirit
must be sustained:
It is the spirit
of his brokenness.
Break the goblet:
a liqueur flows out,
puddling to image
the sun's
flashing light
from its dark fluidity.
All things are fulfilled
in time
on the way
beyond time.
Now, we need integrity
to our open nothingness
in the unbreakable strength of being.
POETRY FLOWS OUT OF THE GROWING FORCE
Poetry is that which flows
out of the life force
born of wrestling to break
the old holds
of grief and grievances
until the heart
opens its sacred valve
and nothing pours out
in words.
THE TROUBLEMAKER
There is a troublemaker,
a round faced troubadour
who was born in Moses' tent,
who listened to the old man groaning in the night
and sometimes peeked around the edge of his blanket
to catch a glimpse of bright angels.
There is a many-colored coat
on a young man's flesh and bones;
there is a wild dreamer in prison;
there is a ladder that rests on a stone
and leans into paradise;
there is a naked prophet
who lies on his side,
breathing dust,
mouthing poems from his belly.
This is the troublemaker
grown up... this is the salvation
of a culture.
I WANT TO BE A LADDER
I want to be a ladder
resting on a stone,
leaning into paradise.
"Come, leap into my heart,
climb my thoughts
to far beyond my mind
with your mind"
I would cry
to every weeping soul
laughing by.
GUIDELINES
If poetry were the bottom line
one could celebrate all perversities
and be eaten by them gladly:
down into death
singing praises.
But the sun is the sun
and night, night,
the earth keeps turning
from shade to light,
and as the mad dog bites
the wild horse runs
while the poet writes:
ÒUndo the undone.Ó
TRUE PRAYER
The acclaimed actress
turns from the audience
to gaze into the spotlight.
Such is true prayer.
The Indian beats upon his belly
until a river flows out.
Such is true prayer.
Sunshine glimmers in a bird's eyes,
and turns to song.
Such is true prayer.
ROLLING IN A HOLY CIRCLE
I have not come here alone,
for the sky was packed with wings
and bright faces
as I journeyed into the dark
of forgetfulness.
And the dream began
as a weeping upon soft breasts...
I pass through this dream alone
and yet am never alone,
whether drunk or sober
whether wicked or joyously holy:
the day is full of voices,
the night full of faces
I can neither hear nor see.
Such are the words
wakefulness brings to me,
such is the vision of a blind heart.
WHAT A NOBLE PIECE OF WORK
What a noble piece of work a person is,
a story unfolding:
some of the reading done,
most untold and thus unknown Ñ
the wide, variant circle
at last completed
from home to home.
COMPASSION UNLOCKS AT LAST
It is compassion
which unlocks at last
the secret chambers
of the heartÕs wounds
that we might lovingly press
our wounds into another's wounds
in a certain luminescent bond
of ultimate meeting and meaning.
AFTER STEPHEN SPENDER
When shall we break, O break open, break the whole town
open,
fling brickbat out of back closets, take out the fiddle,
to transport children to the slow munching of cows
as if that were the miracle...
then let color run out our brains: paint the streets
green,
paint the ocean sands white as flame,
put our tongues to the test, let them lick books,
tell the tastes, speak the spaces, sing it
like starlight, sing it like a rage of sun.
PART WAY THROUGH THE GRIEF
How many passions
have I buried
beneath the snows
of sorrow?
I stopped shouting
at the sky
and the sky stopped opening.
I stopped admiring
countless colors in the clouds
and the days turned gray,
or if otherwise, I did not notice.
The trees were just objects on the streets.
I thought about money
and other sensible things.
I'm taking my clothes off now.
Look at me! I'm more than a walking silhouette!
I'm going to practice some wildness now,
sing a sea chantey,
tell beauty she's beautiful,
risk being alive again!
IN LOVE'S OBSCURITY
To die for love is to die alone,
unknown, no one singing your praises:
maybe a few silent ones
at the foot of the cross,
maybe a couple confused souls
mumbling on a road--
That is all...
It's a very select company.
LIVING IN AMERICA - 1995
It hurts to be a poet
to live behind mind veils
in a world that has failed
its own inherent poetry.
It hurts to open the old book of poems
written when I was passionate for love:
Yet I must drink grief fully to soften my soul,
to toughen my mind for sacrifice.
It hurts
to spin slowly alone in a dance of flames,
tasting through the body that beauty
which hovers about us in the air,
in wind, wanting words from us,
wanting deeds from us
while we are asleep,
and all our struggles
are to awaken to the wrong dream.
TO THE LITTLE BARRON
We are not strong enough to hold
the passions of the divine,
the flaming dreams
of other people's beauty
explored, expanded,
becoming the dominant theme.
Self weakens us
with its growing strength.
We build castles
against the siege works
of the wind,
against the catapults of river stones,
against the arrows of angels.
The little Barron sits in his stone cell,
admiring flamboyant tapestries
of religious figures,
acquired with the residue of his securities.
Outside, moonlight seeks out naked lovers,
seeps into jade eyes,
caresses the jowls of wolves.
The little Barron is expanding his empire,
trading up, moving from the green land
to large numbers on a magical screen.
He's been buying and selling souls for sometime now.
Once he figures God out
he'll sell Him.
ON THE MUSE
It is the sound of a whale's primeval song,
of a wolf's plaintive howl,
of wind in a lufted sail,
of a child's spontaneous laughter,
or a woman's soft heartbeat in my mind
that opens dark gates in a white wall
and lets rose petals
spill through.
EAT UP THE SHADOW TO REVEAL THE LIGHT
(Reading the News)
Eat up the shadow
to reveal the light.
It is a bitter dark
full of mother's howls
for lost sons,
full of the weak whimpering
of young girls
too weary
to resist the soldiers who rape them.
Two men drink fire from one glass
and discuss how to best
cut the intestines
out of a small boy,
cursed to be born
of their mortal foes.
Shadows of the bitter dark.
Politicians ignore it.
Shadows of the bitter dark.
Newscasters don't howl.
Shadows of the bitter dark.
We don't care.
Shadows of the bitter dark.
Some body has to eat up the shadow
to reveal the light.
If you haven't eaten
until the bitter turns sweet,
then you may still need to learn how to
read the news.
FRONT PAGE
A peasant woman,
a Muslim,
perhaps not fully real,
(not being American)
though her howls
for her dead son,
for her raped daughter
seem real enough.
ANSWERING THE UNANSWERABLE
Some say the old gods that played with souls
shattered down into death
on Christ's cross
and hung around to cry
out of a mourner's mouth.
Then why these inexplicable tragedies?
Yet, blessed are we who weep,
with no questions asked,
for a lost love
that lasts.