WINDWHEELDED
Poetry by Blake Steele
(FILE 2, Opened 4/8/98)
A...
A DISCLAIMER OF GOD FOR GOD
A DOO-DAH DAY
ANOTHER MORNING
A POEM FOR A CERTAIN LIL
TO REMIND HER OF HER DIGNITY
A POEM IS A PLACE
A SUPPLICATION
AUTUMN DANCE
B...
BEAUTY IS MY WORK
BE CRAZY WITH LOVE
BUDDHA'S SONG
DÉ
C...
CAFE SANTE
F...
FOR
LILLYBUD BLOOMING
G...
GRACE
HÉ
I...
IN EARLY WINTER
I
WISH
P...
PONDERING THE LAMB-LIGHT
S...
SANITY'S RHYTHM
SOMETIMES, A SLIGHT SHIFT
T...
TO TAKE THE HOLY TUMBLE
THE LAMB-LIGHT SHINES
THE LAST AVERSION
THREE LEVELS OF BEING
LAST POEM IN FILE: TALKING TO THE SON OF MAN
TO TAKE THE HOLY TUMBLE
I would be a poet of the wild
and wide world,
but time and time
again
I must return to my own heart
and strive to be real--
to write this transformation,
to expel black thorns from my brain,
to turn again
in the free flowing loops,
to take the holy tumble
into God's bed:
happy and naked,
vulnerable and blameless,
blood splattered,
and sleepy,
sinking
into
a silent
shout.
IN EARLY WINTER
I was feeling down
about the state of my life
when
I read an Oliver poem
about barely breathing and thinking
you were alive...
So I went out naked into
a winter's grouse of wolf-wind
and raised my arms up silently
towards the silent moon
and all the stars that praised you
and surrendered open again
as the wind whirlabouted
to bristle my hair and prickle my skin.
Then I turned back indoors
to my cluttered little workshop
which
was suddenly a warm and welcome nest,
and brimming with thankfulness
knew I was alive.
A DISCLAIMER OF GOD FOR GOD
There is a dead way to think about God,
a way of oppressive connotations:
a baggage ladened, bickering, constrictive way;
a gray way, all pinch-nosed and guilt riddled,
of an angry old man in the skies
or of three prudish guys--the status quo
we've institutionalized.
I would like for you to set all that aside
if you can, and consider with me a second way:
A
way of glacieral freshness,
of deep belly laughter,
of love's naked longing,
of star spattered vastness
and the eruptive white spume of whales--
of delirious songs
of birds drunk on berries.
It is about the greatest freedom you have ever known;
the wildest abandonment in beauty!
and a light that melts you
every time you see it shine in a human eye.
It is about the repose of a rose garden
in a face you instantly love,
and the greatest fairy tale of sacrificial love
come true! It is a Voice
that captures your heart forever...
Or being electric with life!
shaking your head in a dance
refusing oppressive existence,
breaking open
until
you are brimming with life--
being crazy with love--
spinning in wild circles, singing
for no one--not even yourself!--
just because you must sing to say it
and
move in it, the eternal spume,
the gurgle in the gut:
drunk and giddy--
angry and blatantly sober--
snapping the chains!
passionate and flaming,
thirsting and howling,
green and all growing,
falling and flowing,
forgiving and free--
like a river.
*
When I
mention the God name,
please know that I'm referring
to this second, more primal way.
FOR LILLYBUD BLOOMING
This huge beauty of love:
a
woman-child
once lonely in her longing
for something of substance,
some wakefulness to wonder,
some fresh fountain through a face,
some
words that dance in the mind
and birth a sudden joy,
this scamp-child of lilies and roses
dances softly before the eyes
of a dying man
to lighten his spirit
for the long journey into brightness;
then slips a cloth angel
into the little girl's pocket
who watches her father's anguish
to leave
his body for ever.
Drifting in a haze of love and grief,
someone she has never seen
leads her into an adjoining room
where a man labors to die
alone. She rubs his arms
and whispers promises in his ears
that angels will greet him
and sing him into lands
of love and beauty
he has always secretly languished for.
This is the unfolding
of a tight pink bud
into a lavish bloom
that perfumes the world.
This is birthing!
How the heart longs
to be slathered with love!
How the feet long
to
dance in rose petals.
It all unfolds
in creative compassions.
The sick and lonely and dying
draw out the bloom
by the power of their secret sun.
The rose dies open
in a simplicity of flame.
THREE LEVELS OF BEING
My body eats the grape.
My soul suddenly awakes
in gratefulness for the miraculous gift.
My spirit senses the divine
beauty of God's thought
of a grape
and
I am amazingly clear!
though drunk with light.
A DOO-DAH DAY
(Psalm 96)
Today, the trees seem very, very happy.
Perhaps it is as the psalmist foretold--
they are clapping, they are swaying,
they shimmy and clang!
they feel God...
If they could pull up their roots
they'd dance on them--I'm sure of it!
because when I feel God--all fresh and lissome,
frolicking in green--
my spirit shimmies, like those trees,
in an inspirational breath--and I want to dance
from an essential urge bursting from my core!
To throw back my head and howl!
like those trees surge back:
clattering and trembling,
ecstatic and shimmering,
rattling with sky in a wind!
THE LAST AVERSION
There is a white ship sailing
over beautiful waters:
it shines like
a simple flame
or a star.
If you ever saw it,
you would run at once
towards it
into the waters and drown.
But,
like most,
blinded and averted of eye
when it comes,
you hear the water lap
against its bow
and fear it! struggling
to climb up
an impossible cliff
to familiar land,
until, at last, too weary,
you fall back into a dark sea
where
the boat will assuredly find you:
your face shining like a simple flame
or a star
after you drown.
BEAUTY IS MY WORK
Beauty is my work:
to labor in spirit, letting life spill into words
which might move your mind
in ways that release that light
I'm love-drunk for: the
light of the truest you,
all wet with wonder--fresh I mean--
a wise and wild child shining
through the intricate maze
of your soul; through your eyes,
all awake and wanting nothing but love
and loving; peering out your face,
beautiful with joy like the sun,
innocent as a breeze,
or calm with repose, like a rose,
soft and sleepy on a summer's day.
SOMETIMES, A SLIGHT SHIFT
I have seen sunlight fragmented
on the ground, fractured by the trees
into innumerable fluid, yellow bees
spluttering as the trees moved--
the light altered by wind.
And I have looked up
as trees parted,
wind-shifted to another place,
and all things changed, the thousand lights
coalescing to a single fire in the sky
that burnt my eyes.
*
Sometimes, the slightest shift
is all the difference
between standing next to a person
or slipping into them.
CAFE SANTE
There is a cafe
where love is the main dish.
It is in our town--
right
between the beautician's parlor
and a lake where swans
effortlessly glide.
All my life I have ached
for what the world could be
if
it awoke to the task
of birthing beautiful visions,
if it carried in its heart
the ecstasy of angels.
In this particular cafe,
the
waitresses are the angels,
serving an infection of love,
healing the human spirit
with warm, deep hugs,
cups of smiles,
platters of
beautiful words.
The world is so hungry for love,
--not soulless selfishness as sex--
but love that opens your chest into
a great spaciousness of light,
or instinctively lays hands on your head
for a moment of blessing.
It is love that opens our eyes
to spiritual visions that have fed us
for thousands of years.
And it is love that calls us
to the great task before us:
the hard work of joy,
the descent into the dark
to transform our souls
until honey runs in our blood.
There is a cafe
where joyous freedom
is a thousand times
tastier then its savory
dishes.
It is in our town:
right between the cracks in the sidewalk
and an eternal dream.
BUDDHA'S SONG
God
fell between the fingers
of that prince who trembled
high in northern mountains
amidst the cold fragrances of April.
Hands wide open:
gold
coins dropped
into gold bearing streams,
silk garments thrown upon the grass,
body dipped in the silver flow,
beard glistening with pearl drops,
ears soothed in bird song,
heart welling with angels--
the great loneliness slipped away
as the meaning that could not survive
in temple or palace
streamed through his mind
to ravish his heart
like spring breezes thrill
the emergent bud.
And so he returned barefoot
to the warmth of southern lands
with almond oils flowing from his fingers--
naked amidst the naked ones,
poor amongst the poor,
to
sing in bareness of breath
the core of his soul
from earth to sky,
from bud to blossom.
THE
LAMB-LIGHT SHINES
The Lamb-light shines
when her heart smiles through her eyes.
Nothing is as clean and beautiful:
not pure gold, nor mountain streams,
nor scoured linen flapping in ocean breezes
on a wild island.
This is the scampish wisdom
of restored innocence.
It is the laughing light of lilies,
a soft rose glow
in the essence of her spirit--
the joyous grace of the primal Christ.
Though the world may sully her,
grind
her up in its beauty factories,
muddle her, dispose of her
in a land of illusive shadows,
nothing shall defeat that light!
She will remember.
She will come home.
A SUPPLICATION
I desire
the One Cause--
the great primal Life
of all this beauty--
to be poured forth
in one form:
one wild woman,
one wise and passionate child
who is my muse,
my longing,
my heart's delight,
my ecstatic song.
We have been in each other
since the stars were born,
and shall be loving God
in each other's soul
when the last star fades.
Perhaps we are apart
so I might write
&nbs