Revelation

Timidly I offered myself
open
to religious doctrine
I knelt down a mass of clay
a blank slate, an empty vase
Halfheartedly willing
Halfheartedly I thought epiphany would strike
and save
I listened to gospel songs and wailed along
willing redemption my way
But just as no prayer ever felt fitting,
no song ever rang true
I visited church, I went to mass
listening while the priest preached, exalting Jesus' love
But if he was a carpenter
would that make me a nail?
Hammered into obedience
fixedly docile, forced into a foreign plane
I beseeched the Buddha
to lighten my burden-ladened soul
but meditations moved me no more so
than biblical citations
Untouched still
and heavy with recrimination
infinite fingers point
My faith in anything
was in shambles
I hadn't realized
a quiet part of me still
clung
to the idea of an
abstract
absolute power
I never felt so alone in the universe
until an unrealized expectation
died before fruition

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He was clever at finding people’s weaknesses and exploiting them.
Those who knew of him spoke of him with both respect and scorn.
Some said he was a genius.
She was warned to be afraid.
He swore he wouldn’t play with her
and on top of everything else she had gone through
it was enough to make her cry.
But that wasn’t her style.
He was sure of himself, if nothing else.
She was wary
but his sympathy seemed genuine.
He had a way of pressing her hidden nerves.
They were people of extremes.
They would stay up all night
burning a candle at both ends that threatened to explode.
He thought she was crazy, and maybe she was.
She held back a part of herself
that she never showed to anybody.
He recognized it and understood;
he also had a hidden side.
She constantly swayed, like a dancer
until he held her
and she broke down.
Then her soul passed through him
as they melded.


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Imagine quickly and forget quicker
We are all puppets in a show without rules
Almost – two neat syllables with which to sharpen one’s regret
She continued to walk toward him
because the thread of pain that bound her to him
was too taut to pull back on
She felt as if she would snap every minute
He sounded so casual and, oh, how that hurt
No one ever felt the same once love died
She felt her eyes grow hot and heavy
but she wanted his love and you couldn’t buy that with tears
Whatever god charges for such a seemly simple thing
the price is surely much higher
Her pitiful hope was so laced with despair
it could have been toxic waste; it was really no hope at all
She could not stand to be with him partially
when she wanted him so totally
The pain in the room was so thick
it was a wonder the walls didn’t weep
She couldn’t relate to the pain
she wished it would just go away
and leave her in peace
yet she was terrified to let it go
She didn’t want to lose hope even though she knew
carrying a broken heart around in her chest
was killing her
She had to stop bleeding like this in public
He strolled away, and it almost shattered her
She cried then
and her tears did not feel wet, but dry
like dust laid undisturbed in a place forgotten by love


"Father"
I looked back at my father
And though I didn’t know if he loved me
His gaze did something to me
I was staring at my own genetic code
But the family mirror was smeared with dust
Fine particles mysteriously settling with each passing moment
Unseen by anyone until it was too late
I couldn’t wipe them away by striking him
The gesture would be as futile as it would improper
It would not reverse the situation
It would only reflect it back
It could not heal anything
And perhaps would serve only to infect wounds more
He moved to touch me
Perhaps wipe a tear from my face
But then seemed to think better of it
Maybe he was afraid I’d bite him


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Wounded angel
With a halo of melancholy
Her coolness did not affect her vulnerability
She appeared strong but lost – without contradiction
He already liked her
More than logic or lust could explain
Her voice was soft and smooth
It touched him without human feeling
It touched him deeply
He should have died right then
He could have, but the gods were not kind
If the world was any example, the gods were crazy
Love was seldom kind either, he was to think later
Love killed more than it saved – it was a curse
Cruelty in beauty
Nature’s greatest tease
The rose that pricked
The thorn that caresses
Simple lies work well on the young and foolish

Luna
The moon is a mirror
It only shines because of the sun
The moon is a liar
Always changing
Sometimes so big and bright
Others barely visible
Sometimes I hate it

Iole 1 - Devolution of a Poet

Thursday, September 15, 2005

I used to try to write in the voice of the poetry greats
Never Shakespeare or Yeats, mind you.
But Coleridge, Tennyson, Wordsworth, Rainer Marie Rilke
These were my gurus.
They were profound
And naturally, at sixteen, so was I.
In those days writing
Was like dressing up to take part in a play:
I wore the words magnificently, like costumes–or so I thought.
My poems paraded before me
Epic pieces on Love, Justice, Redemption
The Great Unknown.
Much later, dusting off the gold filigreed notebook
I realized that all this while
The words had been wearing me!
Feeling the need to show my poems who was boss
I trimmed off their tassels
Threw out their feather boas
Like a compulsive mother I spat
And wiped off their faces
Trying to reveal what lay
Beneath all that theatrical foundation.
Obsessed with life and its infinite detail
Suddenly everything that could be held still
Could be a poem:
A rotten leaf;
A sunflower in an empty Corona bottle
Beside my dorm-room bed;
The lone hair I had pulled out of my chin that morning.
More honest now, less shy,
My poems and I became fast friends.
No longer seeking profundity
Still desperately seeking self
We held hands, went out for coffees
Smoked cigarettes together.
Amid the deluge of pop-song poetics
I managed to produce one or two truly remarkable
Phrases–if I do say so myself.
Nowadays writing is a more tiresome and questionable endeavour
Like digging for semi-precious rocks
In an abandoned mine field.
Saved from my earlier delusion
I know now that not everything can be a poem.
Sometimes a rotten leaf should be allowed to be just that.
An empty beer bottle masquerading as a vase
No longer seems quite as avant-garde
And as for that hair on my chinny-chin-chin
Well, it just seems less hilarious now
That I live under the constant threat of triteness blowing
The pages that double as my weekly shopping list
Into shreds