Living this way,
this life, or any other,
the toxins pile up,
pile higher, leak in
and out, penetrate,
perpetrate, poison
us
faster
and faster.
There is no getting
around it, this dying
of the slow poison
of our lives,
of the relentless, mild hurts,
of the searing pain,
the constant humbling,
the wounds and grief,
the unrewarded snatch and grab,
the soundless scream. No getting by
the empty glory, however long the mourner’s line,
of the lonely grave.
The good times, too,
the joyful heart beating,
the slow and easy grace
of home, the laughter of
children in the unequivocal grip
of happiness, these also
are the nightshade, the deadly spice,
the too-sweet nectar,
the blinding fireworks
that light us on our
stumbling way here.
But where we are now,
bathed in beauty, about to touch,
to linger in this moment,
is where we are now.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Jezebel
[A poem, Jezebel: Prologue, might serve the reader as an introduction to this one]
You know when we met
I was a girl who loved
Baal for his rain and sweet water
and might love you for your youth and sweet breath.
I was the lure brought you unknowing
to Siddon where the sun skied mornings
above cedar hills, making jewels
on the crest of harbor swells.
Jezebel, chief’s daughter,
dreaming of many things,
but most often of the boy
to make my thighs quiver,
and none of the queen who later
would make my eyes run wet and salty.
You, pale desert boy, came,
hooked by my dreams,
with hair like raven’s wings
and prophet’s dreams of glory
and torturer’s dreams of pain
and a core of discontent
that you were born a shepherd.
I would have left my father’s hearth
to be your shepherdess, but for
your claim to something greater.
Our joyful dance pleased Baal, I know,
while you pretended grim shame before your god
who punished you like an angry father,
whom you yet embraced.
Were we to approach the other now,
would you wet your lips for this sweet Phoenician,
or would I be target for your rage
and angry accusations?
Do your loins remember
my dewy hills at dawn,
the little rivers of our wet fertility
dampening chest and thigh and mysteries?
Or would you pretend to a purity
that never pricked a gentile?
I am reconciled that I did not defy my father,
fight Ethbaal to love my Israelite shepherd boy.
But I tried and tried
to come to you and cried,
Eli, your Jessie has come,
when I arrived, but there was no answer.
Had you waited for me? And misunderstood
my absence? Cursed me for rejecting you,
as you curse me now for turning
from the worship of your god
who demands more than other gods?
Now, Ethbaal is king in Tyre
and I am queen in Samaria
and spread my legs for Ahab,
the Israelite king, whom you daily damn.
I am thus, Queen Jezebel,
the living bond between Israel and Phoenicia,
which you condemn,
somehow forgetting the beauty
of Eli and Jessie,
as your one god does dismiss
the beauties of the many.
Your own voice,
which once whispered
sweetness in the courtyard
of the temple of Baal and laughed
in the sight of the sky goddess, Lady Nut,
your voice thunders and threatens,
slanders innocence, proclaims
dominion for one god above all gods,
dismissing dancing and worship before many.
My Eli, sweet tormented shepherd,
it is not our gods who invent unkindness,
but ourselves. This your lord god must know,
though you shrill otherwise,
and speak of a god blind to
the pools of kindness and courage
in foreign worshippers. How like the way
you deny knowing the pool of love in which
we bathed and sung praise.
Do you remember the hart at sunrise
leaping our prostrate bodies?
I crept the shadows before that dawn
and startled when you arrived beside me.
And when you opened your robe,
I stepped inside your arms and
warm wrap of cotton while we sank
to earth, your lips sweet on mine,
your tongue a spring of wild water
plunging to my thirsty roots. We moved
slowly to the late calls of night birds,
quickening even as the owls hooted
slow caution, finishing to the sound
of hooves pounding, the hart
robust and wild above us and gone.
In the peace we found, I swear I heard
the great heart beating and felt the
throbbing pulse below,
just as it might have been
on the glorious first day.
I said the gods are smiling and you looked
at me and I said you are
smiling, too, and you said, this time, yes.
Do you remember this just as your god
of many promises remembers only
those he wishes to keep?
Do you remember only that
which serves you now, a perfect
acolyte of your god?
In your zeal you are become
a destroyer, first of earthly desire,
your youthful wish to sip the wines
of a hundred kingdoms forgotten,
your wish to sample the women
of every prince of every port
of the wide Phoenician sea, lost,
perhaps gone as though never dreamed.
These are shriven within your heart,
consumed in the desert heat
of a different passion, your
service to your one god, who
requires devotion not in me to give.
You denounce Ahab, whom you call
the willing tool
of the prostitute of Tyre.
But Ahab leads as leaders do,
has kingly duties I do not hinder,
ministers to the myriads,
who worship whomever they will,
ministers to the myriads
who toil each day and wear down
like rocks in the stream,
who suffer hardship of drought,
and locust plagues, and children born still
and children died young
and lovers claimed too soon. It is Ahab
who must guarantee them fed and succored, Ahab
who cares for the widow and
soothes the orphan, Ahab
who keeps the granaries full against famine
and decrees no favorite among the gods
of the people of Israel, among the gods
of Israelites, Ammonites, Edomites and
Moabites. And his people praise Ahab’s
forbearance, thank Ahab for kindness,
while you call Ahab sinner.
In the King’s court, I have stood for
sandalmakers from Ammom, stood for potters
from Moab, saying to the King that these, also,
are his people, saying that there should be
no special privilege for the Jews
and the King has ruled as he would
after careful listening. Ahab is no tool of
Jezebel.
But Elijah Hanavi tells the story,
Jezebel the prostitute from Phoenicia
twists Ahab’s judgment and sins against
the one god.
And who listens?
The Hebrew zealots listen, and
the hopeless, aching for legends of more and
better, listen, and those who already bear hatred,
they listen. These have never seen the sea,
or the natural beauty of Phoenicia’s hills
or the works of other men in Tyre. You
have made allies of these men whose
hard lives will change as Ahab succeeds,
but the gifts of milk and honey they are
to inherit are merely empty promises
from an intolerant god. Who will protect Israel
from Assyria? This lord, your god, has no chariots.
Ahab’s soldiers, Ammomites, Edomites,
Israelites, Moabites, these are Israel’s shield.
The soldiers of a kingdom of many customs
and many faiths, these will protect Israel,
as will Ahab, the King, whom you damn.
You have raised the Hebrews, enough
riot through Samaria and all of Israel, to kill
450 priests of Baal. And now you flee to the hills,
claiming that Jezebel sends vengeance racing after.
But it is I who remain behind.
I who calm Ahab, who
wishes to decree your death.
Seek no vengeance, Ahab, I say.
Only bring Elijah to explain this deed
in your court. But, yes, Eli, I also urged
Ahab on, saying hunt Elijah,
he must answer to the families
of the lovers of other gods.
And as I speak
I am split in pieces
I am Ahab’s queen
I am the princess who was
Eli’s love and the tears
that Jessie cried
to the sun that rose in Eli’s
face as he wandered east
spring fresh from Jezebel’s eyes.
Does Elijah triumph here?
Will the story of Jezebel and Ahab be told
according to Elijah? And what in turn
will be the fruit that grows from such stories?
But Shepherd boy, know this,
Jessie will not flee the lies and sordid tales.
I am a chief’s daughter, Queen of Israel.
What you have sown,
I will be here to reap. What you decree,
May come, but Jezebel does not flee.
I remember you once had such a will
when we loved a lifetime ago.
If you're interested in some of the thinking behind this poem, and haven't already read it, I've posted a commentary on In & Out with Jeff.
You know when we met
I was a girl who loved
Baal for his rain and sweet water
and might love you for your youth and sweet breath.
I was the lure brought you unknowing
to Siddon where the sun skied mornings
above cedar hills, making jewels
on the crest of harbor swells.
Jezebel, chief’s daughter,
dreaming of many things,
but most often of the boy
to make my thighs quiver,
and none of the queen who later
would make my eyes run wet and salty.
You, pale desert boy, came,
hooked by my dreams,
with hair like raven’s wings
and prophet’s dreams of glory
and torturer’s dreams of pain
and a core of discontent
that you were born a shepherd.
I would have left my father’s hearth
to be your shepherdess, but for
your claim to something greater.
Our joyful dance pleased Baal, I know,
while you pretended grim shame before your god
who punished you like an angry father,
whom you yet embraced.
Were we to approach the other now,
would you wet your lips for this sweet Phoenician,
or would I be target for your rage
and angry accusations?
Do your loins remember
my dewy hills at dawn,
the little rivers of our wet fertility
dampening chest and thigh and mysteries?
Or would you pretend to a purity
that never pricked a gentile?
I am reconciled that I did not defy my father,
fight Ethbaal to love my Israelite shepherd boy.
But I tried and tried
to come to you and cried,
Eli, your Jessie has come,
when I arrived, but there was no answer.
Had you waited for me? And misunderstood
my absence? Cursed me for rejecting you,
as you curse me now for turning
from the worship of your god
who demands more than other gods?
Now, Ethbaal is king in Tyre
and I am queen in Samaria
and spread my legs for Ahab,
the Israelite king, whom you daily damn.
I am thus, Queen Jezebel,
the living bond between Israel and Phoenicia,
which you condemn,
somehow forgetting the beauty
of Eli and Jessie,
as your one god does dismiss
the beauties of the many.
Your own voice,
which once whispered
sweetness in the courtyard
of the temple of Baal and laughed
in the sight of the sky goddess, Lady Nut,
your voice thunders and threatens,
slanders innocence, proclaims
dominion for one god above all gods,
dismissing dancing and worship before many.
My Eli, sweet tormented shepherd,
it is not our gods who invent unkindness,
but ourselves. This your lord god must know,
though you shrill otherwise,
and speak of a god blind to
the pools of kindness and courage
in foreign worshippers. How like the way
you deny knowing the pool of love in which
we bathed and sung praise.
Do you remember the hart at sunrise
leaping our prostrate bodies?
I crept the shadows before that dawn
and startled when you arrived beside me.
And when you opened your robe,
I stepped inside your arms and
warm wrap of cotton while we sank
to earth, your lips sweet on mine,
your tongue a spring of wild water
plunging to my thirsty roots. We moved
slowly to the late calls of night birds,
quickening even as the owls hooted
slow caution, finishing to the sound
of hooves pounding, the hart
robust and wild above us and gone.
In the peace we found, I swear I heard
the great heart beating and felt the
throbbing pulse below,
just as it might have been
on the glorious first day.
I said the gods are smiling and you looked
at me and I said you are
smiling, too, and you said, this time, yes.
Do you remember this just as your god
of many promises remembers only
those he wishes to keep?
Do you remember only that
which serves you now, a perfect
acolyte of your god?
In your zeal you are become
a destroyer, first of earthly desire,
your youthful wish to sip the wines
of a hundred kingdoms forgotten,
your wish to sample the women
of every prince of every port
of the wide Phoenician sea, lost,
perhaps gone as though never dreamed.
These are shriven within your heart,
consumed in the desert heat
of a different passion, your
service to your one god, who
requires devotion not in me to give.
You denounce Ahab, whom you call
the willing tool
of the prostitute of Tyre.
But Ahab leads as leaders do,
has kingly duties I do not hinder,
ministers to the myriads,
who worship whomever they will,
ministers to the myriads
who toil each day and wear down
like rocks in the stream,
who suffer hardship of drought,
and locust plagues, and children born still
and children died young
and lovers claimed too soon. It is Ahab
who must guarantee them fed and succored, Ahab
who cares for the widow and
soothes the orphan, Ahab
who keeps the granaries full against famine
and decrees no favorite among the gods
of the people of Israel, among the gods
of Israelites, Ammonites, Edomites and
Moabites. And his people praise Ahab’s
forbearance, thank Ahab for kindness,
while you call Ahab sinner.
In the King’s court, I have stood for
sandalmakers from Ammom, stood for potters
from Moab, saying to the King that these, also,
are his people, saying that there should be
no special privilege for the Jews
and the King has ruled as he would
after careful listening. Ahab is no tool of
Jezebel.
But Elijah Hanavi tells the story,
Jezebel the prostitute from Phoenicia
twists Ahab’s judgment and sins against
the one god.
And who listens?
The Hebrew zealots listen, and
the hopeless, aching for legends of more and
better, listen, and those who already bear hatred,
they listen. These have never seen the sea,
or the natural beauty of Phoenicia’s hills
or the works of other men in Tyre. You
have made allies of these men whose
hard lives will change as Ahab succeeds,
but the gifts of milk and honey they are
to inherit are merely empty promises
from an intolerant god. Who will protect Israel
from Assyria? This lord, your god, has no chariots.
Ahab’s soldiers, Ammomites, Edomites,
Israelites, Moabites, these are Israel’s shield.
The soldiers of a kingdom of many customs
and many faiths, these will protect Israel,
as will Ahab, the King, whom you damn.
You have raised the Hebrews, enough
riot through Samaria and all of Israel, to kill
450 priests of Baal. And now you flee to the hills,
claiming that Jezebel sends vengeance racing after.
But it is I who remain behind.
I who calm Ahab, who
wishes to decree your death.
Seek no vengeance, Ahab, I say.
Only bring Elijah to explain this deed
in your court. But, yes, Eli, I also urged
Ahab on, saying hunt Elijah,
he must answer to the families
of the lovers of other gods.
And as I speak
I am split in pieces
I am Ahab’s queen
I am the princess who was
Eli’s love and the tears
that Jessie cried
to the sun that rose in Eli’s
face as he wandered east
spring fresh from Jezebel’s eyes.
Does Elijah triumph here?
Will the story of Jezebel and Ahab be told
according to Elijah? And what in turn
will be the fruit that grows from such stories?
But Shepherd boy, know this,
Jessie will not flee the lies and sordid tales.
I am a chief’s daughter, Queen of Israel.
What you have sown,
I will be here to reap. What you decree,
May come, but Jezebel does not flee.
I remember you once had such a will
when we loved a lifetime ago.
If you're interested in some of the thinking behind this poem, and haven't already read it, I've posted a commentary on In & Out with Jeff.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Peak Dream
I once stood alone,
high in the Rockies,
astride the Continental Divide,
backpacking strong, vision questing.
From that majestic purple place,
I could see the amber waves flowing
to the jungle shores of Asia where green
jungle lit with American flame, screaming and
stripped of human song. I wept and
railed and shook my fists and swore
a permanent oath. By my will and effort
this war will give way to peace and beloved
community. By my will and by my love
and by my effort there will be a great awakening.
Americans moved by a new sense of the promise
of peace will walk the land and tanks,
festooned with flowers, will crawl beside us.
The air up there was clean and cool and thin
and, up there, I was godlike and, as happens,
wrong.
high in the Rockies,
astride the Continental Divide,
backpacking strong, vision questing.
From that majestic purple place,
I could see the amber waves flowing
to the jungle shores of Asia where green
jungle lit with American flame, screaming and
stripped of human song. I wept and
railed and shook my fists and swore
a permanent oath. By my will and effort
this war will give way to peace and beloved
community. By my will and by my love
and by my effort there will be a great awakening.
Americans moved by a new sense of the promise
of peace will walk the land and tanks,
festooned with flowers, will crawl beside us.
The air up there was clean and cool and thin
and, up there, I was godlike and, as happens,
wrong.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Work We Do
What we could have
been, what we should
have been, what we
never
rooted
in the black
dirt of our lives,
blossoms in my heart
the way I imagine
god resonates for others. Yet,
where would we be without
the dreaming community,
the drumbeat of stampeding
wishes, the stream course worn
to bedrock, where we flow, lifting
and carrying what once lay before us.
been, what we should
have been, what we
never
rooted
in the black
dirt of our lives,
blossoms in my heart
the way I imagine
god resonates for others. Yet,
where would we be without
the dreaming community,
the drumbeat of stampeding
wishes, the stream course worn
to bedrock, where we flow, lifting
and carrying what once lay before us.
Friday, May 14, 2010
How It Might Look From Here
Exploring canyons of the brain
standing stunned at the top of
Peaceful Valley admiring the beauty
of the little river of thought wending
its way to the mouth of declarations
flooding and fertilizing the delta talk
standing stunned at the top of
Peaceful Valley admiring the beauty
of the little river of thought wending
its way to the mouth of declarations
flooding and fertilizing the delta talk
Friday, May 7, 2010
Laying Fallow
Sometimes
words one does
not write are plowed back
into the brain in restrained hope that
there may be a more bountiful harvest next time
words one does
not write are plowed back
into the brain in restrained hope that
there may be a more bountiful harvest next time
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Playing on the Hills of Original Sin
Even as we terminal cases
arrive, we are naively
bedazzled by springs seen to be wet
with eternal hope. This may make our baggage
lighter, but only when hope
stays fresh. After all, nothing
ruins a good time
like soggy baggage, the sodden
mess we make of our
lives, pasted and glued and jerry-rigged, saved
occasionally as we are by discoveries,
the freshets of joy, trickling
nectar to the roots
of despair buried beneath
mounds of soil, detritus,
crawling scavengers
and laughing children
who will play on anything
so long as they and we
remain young enough to play, at all.
arrive, we are naively
bedazzled by springs seen to be wet
with eternal hope. This may make our baggage
lighter, but only when hope
stays fresh. After all, nothing
ruins a good time
like soggy baggage, the sodden
mess we make of our
lives, pasted and glued and jerry-rigged, saved
occasionally as we are by discoveries,
the freshets of joy, trickling
nectar to the roots
of despair buried beneath
mounds of soil, detritus,
crawling scavengers
and laughing children
who will play on anything
so long as they and we
remain young enough to play, at all.
The Technology for Spanning Great Divides
Where is the lost and found
for voices? The cure for tangled
tongues? Courage for the defeated?
Inspired faith for the shrinking away?
Is there a vision of ourselves that
does not sing? A music that
does not rise and fall
and rise again? A longing that
does not broadcast truth?
Silence, freely chosen,
makes way for hearing
others speak, makes way for
the rustle of the world,
makes wavelengths of
skin and space around, this
silence chosen for its fullness,
but silence self-inflicted
flinching from wounds and blows,
hiding shrinking assets from
unrelenting claims, the isolate
poison with one remedy—
high notes and clear notes,
deep humming from the well
of self, the heart allowed to vibrate,
uttering prayers enough to flock,
celebrating small victories, risking
private passions, one human sending,
one receiving, now and again.
for voices? The cure for tangled
tongues? Courage for the defeated?
Inspired faith for the shrinking away?
Is there a vision of ourselves that
does not sing? A music that
does not rise and fall
and rise again? A longing that
does not broadcast truth?
Silence, freely chosen,
makes way for hearing
others speak, makes way for
the rustle of the world,
makes wavelengths of
skin and space around, this
silence chosen for its fullness,
but silence self-inflicted
flinching from wounds and blows,
hiding shrinking assets from
unrelenting claims, the isolate
poison with one remedy—
high notes and clear notes,
deep humming from the well
of self, the heart allowed to vibrate,
uttering prayers enough to flock,
celebrating small victories, risking
private passions, one human sending,
one receiving, now and again.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Journey
Blogging intrinsically biases quantity over quality. A blogger can, of course, invest more time looking for a better word, more succinct phrasing, editing out typos and other clumsiness, but the urge to get something out and posted is constant. Happily, the poem below is one I've worked on for awhile and posted previously on In and Out. It's a better poem than some of the others posted here.
Journey
Here am I
in this unbounded place,
a point in passing,
a bridge between times,
through darkness, across voids,
around the great signal fires.
It takes an effort of will
to catch what I’d missed,
to see we in that space
took wing,
to hear small birds with
perfect pitch and
immaculate messages,
to conjure a thing so close
god’s eyes cross with
recall and effort,
cross with wonder and unselfconscious
neglect for appearances.
The path goes far beyond the end
of innocence and divides in the next space.
The trail has gone this way,
into the future,
precisely the path I follow now,
with music by birdsong,
if I should choose to listen, and
lit by brilliant flowers,
if I should choose to see.
Reflecting,
I stop at the odd firepit.
Step carefully around the scattered
bones. Toeing, then picking at them,
the old bones near dust. What beasts were these?
Something immense, I’m sure.
Something fierce, I wonder.
How does a place become so empty?
What has been driven before me?
A sudden thought;
what lurks behind?
A memory, perhaps. Of us.
What also wanders here?
Midst birdsong and flowers,
who will find whom?
This hunt nearly consumes me.
Gathering a bouquet of thoughts,
I consider fragrance, balance of color,
length of stem, the flowering cup.
With fresh effort,
I hear small birds
possessing perfect pitch,
singing immaculate messages.
Leaving reason behind,
the supreme, last seen, seemed adrift,
remote, flickered out in the distance,
just this side of the horizon line
The not known has gone this way,
into the future and
I am following,
backed with music by birdsong,
way lit by scattered
combustible bushes.
Tiring, I stop at the next firepit.
Step carefully around the scattered
bones. Toeing, then picking at them.—
The old bones stir.
What beasts are these?
Something immense, I see.
And without name.
How long abiding here?
Thoughts rolling like sea glass.
What has fled before me?
Who wanders just ahead?
With what purpose?
With eyes failing like mine?
With strain in the effort
of looking?
Who will find whom
around birdsong and flowers
and gathering bones
of resurrecting beasts?
What happens then?
Who will continue this hunt?
The next thought,
not really my own, consumes me,
and I am gone on the breeze. Dust.
Journey
Here am I
in this unbounded place,
a point in passing,
a bridge between times,
through darkness, across voids,
around the great signal fires.
It takes an effort of will
to catch what I’d missed,
to see we in that space
took wing,
to hear small birds with
perfect pitch and
immaculate messages,
to conjure a thing so close
god’s eyes cross with
recall and effort,
cross with wonder and unselfconscious
neglect for appearances.
The path goes far beyond the end
of innocence and divides in the next space.
The trail has gone this way,
into the future,
precisely the path I follow now,
with music by birdsong,
if I should choose to listen, and
lit by brilliant flowers,
if I should choose to see.
Reflecting,
I stop at the odd firepit.
Step carefully around the scattered
bones. Toeing, then picking at them,
the old bones near dust. What beasts were these?
Something immense, I’m sure.
Something fierce, I wonder.
How does a place become so empty?
What has been driven before me?
A sudden thought;
what lurks behind?
A memory, perhaps. Of us.
What also wanders here?
Midst birdsong and flowers,
who will find whom?
This hunt nearly consumes me.
Gathering a bouquet of thoughts,
I consider fragrance, balance of color,
length of stem, the flowering cup.
With fresh effort,
I hear small birds
possessing perfect pitch,
singing immaculate messages.
Leaving reason behind,
the supreme, last seen, seemed adrift,
remote, flickered out in the distance,
just this side of the horizon line
The not known has gone this way,
into the future and
I am following,
backed with music by birdsong,
way lit by scattered
combustible bushes.
Tiring, I stop at the next firepit.
Step carefully around the scattered
bones. Toeing, then picking at them.—
The old bones stir.
What beasts are these?
Something immense, I see.
And without name.
How long abiding here?
Thoughts rolling like sea glass.
What has fled before me?
Who wanders just ahead?
With what purpose?
With eyes failing like mine?
With strain in the effort
of looking?
Who will find whom
around birdsong and flowers
and gathering bones
of resurrecting beasts?
What happens then?
Who will continue this hunt?
The next thought,
not really my own, consumes me,
and I am gone on the breeze. Dust.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Last King of May
Two poems
Abbreviated lyrics from Natalie Merchant’s (if you'd like to see all the lyrics or hear the song, go here)
The Last King of May
Farewell today
Travel on now
Be on your way
Go safely there
And never worry, never care
Beyond this day
Farewell tonight
To our joy and our delight
Go and go peacefully
We can’t keep your majesty
Be on your way
Make way for the last king of May
Make a cardboard crown for him
And make your voices one
Praise the crazy mother’s son who loved his life
Make way for the last king of May
And make a hole in the sky for him
Raise your voices up
And lift your loving cup
To his long life
Jeff Epton's
The Last King of May
Is the king I remember
the first? Or echo? Or a
painter’s blend of splash
and memory? All my kings
caress me like baby fingers
on my breast. All my kings
whisper like hillside breezes
stunned to find the gowned queen
waiting. All my kings
dream virgin blush onto
their veteran queen. All my kings
get a lover coy as ecstasy requires.
Why should the beloved weep
so hard that the first prince did
not endure? Who imagines
the shattered eternal composes
herself for the young royal
who knows no king before him?
Ah, love, you have risen with the sun,
lighting me awake and ready. Come.
Shall we talk and sip tea,
soothe the heaved and troubled lives
of the wild, ranging pack? Putting off
our sweet roll until lust sheds restraint?
Riding hurricanes like storm gods,
wishing for the mother of winds
to blow us to the consummation
from which I alone return.
Grant me uncorrupted memory
of the first king. Barring that,
speed the visit of the last king
in whose arms I will finally rest.
Abbreviated lyrics from Natalie Merchant’s (if you'd like to see all the lyrics or hear the song, go here)
The Last King of May
Farewell today
Travel on now
Be on your way
Go safely there
And never worry, never care
Beyond this day
Farewell tonight
To our joy and our delight
Go and go peacefully
We can’t keep your majesty
Be on your way
Make way for the last king of May
Make a cardboard crown for him
And make your voices one
Praise the crazy mother’s son who loved his life
Make way for the last king of May
And make a hole in the sky for him
Raise your voices up
And lift your loving cup
To his long life
Jeff Epton's
The Last King of May
Is the king I remember
the first? Or echo? Or a
painter’s blend of splash
and memory? All my kings
caress me like baby fingers
on my breast. All my kings
whisper like hillside breezes
stunned to find the gowned queen
waiting. All my kings
dream virgin blush onto
their veteran queen. All my kings
get a lover coy as ecstasy requires.
Why should the beloved weep
so hard that the first prince did
not endure? Who imagines
the shattered eternal composes
herself for the young royal
who knows no king before him?
Ah, love, you have risen with the sun,
lighting me awake and ready. Come.
Shall we talk and sip tea,
soothe the heaved and troubled lives
of the wild, ranging pack? Putting off
our sweet roll until lust sheds restraint?
Riding hurricanes like storm gods,
wishing for the mother of winds
to blow us to the consummation
from which I alone return.
Grant me uncorrupted memory
of the first king. Barring that,
speed the visit of the last king
in whose arms I will finally rest.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Jezebel: Prologue
Whose story is it,
that most demands the tell?
And who does the telling,
who the listening?
Untold stories rob the dead
of glory, turn defeat to
notoriety, suffering to mounds
of city grit and melted slush
trickling sewerwise to the sea.
Victory confers stewardship
of history and the fable-making
mechanism, the right to tell the story
suddenly the right to lie. Just so did
Eve's story become Adam's rib
and Baal the god of rain and sweet water
become corrupted Beelzebub.
Just so did the monotheists
supplant the polytheists.
Just so did Christianity sign
the new covenant with god
and make believers of some of us,
except where Islam told a taller tale
and left infidels behind. Lose the right
to sing one's own song
and become the villain
of the story, or be forgotten
all together, erased as one
who never mattered, dead as yesterday's flare.
that most demands the tell?
And who does the telling,
who the listening?
Untold stories rob the dead
of glory, turn defeat to
notoriety, suffering to mounds
of city grit and melted slush
trickling sewerwise to the sea.
Victory confers stewardship
of history and the fable-making
mechanism, the right to tell the story
suddenly the right to lie. Just so did
Eve's story become Adam's rib
and Baal the god of rain and sweet water
become corrupted Beelzebub.
Just so did the monotheists
supplant the polytheists.
Just so did Christianity sign
the new covenant with god
and make believers of some of us,
except where Islam told a taller tale
and left infidels behind. Lose the right
to sing one's own song
and become the villain
of the story, or be forgotten
all together, erased as one
who never mattered, dead as yesterday's flare.
Monday, April 12, 2010
The Perimeter of the Future
The meaning of things lags.
Decisively we move ahead,
aimlessly we drift forward,
furiously we burst through,
timidly we creep behind,
ending, not quite as we imagined,
on the perimeter of the future,
our predictions muddled, confounded
and realized. And still we must decide
our next posture. Defensive? Feinting?
Assertive? The meaning, of course,
is key, but the meaning of things lags.
We have arrived, but the future
with all the answers we crave
has moved on. Like gods we create
metaphors of flashlights to help,
picking our way through unlit places.
And on the walls of the caves
loom the shadows of ourselves, of messages
calling on us for explanation.
We are suddenly oracles, machines
to create meaning. And we do,
securing our base camp
on the perimeter of the future,
planning to rest and move on
before the peak recedes again.
Decisively we move ahead,
aimlessly we drift forward,
furiously we burst through,
timidly we creep behind,
ending, not quite as we imagined,
on the perimeter of the future,
our predictions muddled, confounded
and realized. And still we must decide
our next posture. Defensive? Feinting?
Assertive? The meaning, of course,
is key, but the meaning of things lags.
We have arrived, but the future
with all the answers we crave
has moved on. Like gods we create
metaphors of flashlights to help,
picking our way through unlit places.
And on the walls of the caves
loom the shadows of ourselves, of messages
calling on us for explanation.
We are suddenly oracles, machines
to create meaning. And we do,
securing our base camp
on the perimeter of the future,
planning to rest and move on
before the peak recedes again.
Friday, March 26, 2010
The Banshee Wail
The oldwomanshuffle—no speed
to write of, really,
but dogged determination to move
onward, upward, anywhere but here,
the long voyage out and you
can never go home, again,
and on and on
the journey begins, blah, blah, blah
yet she keeps moving,
never tiring enough to decide
there’s no more point in
oldwomanshuffle,
and if she really lets go
with the wail that inspired
all the stories there’d just be
another story and she’d be
just as far from home,
so wailing’s just a waste.
She’s not gonna do it,
there’s still business up ahead
to write of, really,
but dogged determination to move
onward, upward, anywhere but here,
the long voyage out and you
can never go home, again,
and on and on
the journey begins, blah, blah, blah
yet she keeps moving,
never tiring enough to decide
there’s no more point in
oldwomanshuffle,
and if she really lets go
with the wail that inspired
all the stories there’d just be
another story and she’d be
just as far from home,
so wailing’s just a waste.
She’s not gonna do it,
there’s still business up ahead
Friday, March 19, 2010
Memories of what will matter most
Brendan’s short sleeve school shirts
come in three colors,
pastels yellow and green,
rich and simple blue.
On the front the shirts say
Be Kind | Work Hard | Get Smart,
on the back messages kids read
passing through the halls.
The yellow quotes Brother Malcolm:
The future belongs to those
who prepare for it today.
The green quotes Maria Mitchell:
We have a hunger of the mind…
the more we gain, the more is our desire.
The blue quotes Gandhi, fierce pacifist:
We must be the change
we wish to see in the world.
Today the sun shines brilliant
against a pale blue sky,
down on a yellow one
and a green hanging
from the lattice roof
I built back deck.
We have no washer, no dryer,
so I hand wash these,
hang them out to dry.
Today, I hope as I age
that I never forget Brendan at 11,
or the vision of
shirts drying in the sun,
or the need for us to be
the change we wish to see,
even as I acknowledge
how much else
I have quite forgotten.
come in three colors,
pastels yellow and green,
rich and simple blue.
On the front the shirts say
Be Kind | Work Hard | Get Smart,
on the back messages kids read
passing through the halls.
The yellow quotes Brother Malcolm:
The future belongs to those
who prepare for it today.
The green quotes Maria Mitchell:
We have a hunger of the mind…
the more we gain, the more is our desire.
The blue quotes Gandhi, fierce pacifist:
We must be the change
we wish to see in the world.
Today the sun shines brilliant
against a pale blue sky,
down on a yellow one
and a green hanging
from the lattice roof
I built back deck.
We have no washer, no dryer,
so I hand wash these,
hang them out to dry.
Today, I hope as I age
that I never forget Brendan at 11,
or the vision of
shirts drying in the sun,
or the need for us to be
the change we wish to see,
even as I acknowledge
how much else
I have quite forgotten.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wake-Up Call
On the move
spot to spot,
gone noon
or higher
hearing the heaven
breathe in my ear,
bound for the quick path,
point to point,
but the sun in my eyes,
smoking where
staining when
in yellow heat,
in red blood
rafting
tunnels and branches,
splashing tissues and brain cells,
calling my name,
singing the praises
hot blood
does sing.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Rush of Life
There are rhythms to life--rhythms of effort, periods of inspiration, patterns of accident. I know mine are there. I just don't understand them as well as I'd like. But it's still a relief to know that what goes away comes back again.
It has been spring here in D.C. for awhile. There's been a lot more sun, on the average, and the days have been growing longer and warmer. I haven't noticed much of anything budding, but I might notice tomorrow. Today, at least, I noticed it was spring. It was also the first day since sometime last fall that I walked over to Otis and Georgia Ave. to pick Brendan up at school.
On the way, I'm thinking it's about time for outdoor poetry season to begin. And then, I stopped, sat down on the concrete capstone of a low brick wall and wrote my first poem since I don't know when. I don't usually post poems right after I write them, they need too much work--not that I'm claiming that my revisions actually make them passable--but I'm going to post this one here, on In and Out, now.
And then I'm going to post it on another blog I'm starting up called Outdoor Poetry Season. And after this other poems will go on Outdoor Poetry Season. Posting them here on In and Out is too confusing. I mean, what is In and Out about? Cutting military spending? Railing against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza? It doesn't matter, really. It's just that from now on I'm going to put poetry on OPS and I'm going to put everything else on I & O.
There, I'm glad that's settled.
The Rush of Life
Thinking like rivers
meander, I can say
there will be no further
stunning breakthroughs
There once were, you know,
the river, young and raving,
tumbled boulders, leapt recklessly,
pushed ahead
But there will be progress—
not so it would show—
but you could still feel it,
the rush of blood
Arteries, veins pulsing potent remains
of original intentions, or,
as Alan has put it, the rush of life
through the universe. Bang.
It has been spring here in D.C. for awhile. There's been a lot more sun, on the average, and the days have been growing longer and warmer. I haven't noticed much of anything budding, but I might notice tomorrow. Today, at least, I noticed it was spring. It was also the first day since sometime last fall that I walked over to Otis and Georgia Ave. to pick Brendan up at school.
On the way, I'm thinking it's about time for outdoor poetry season to begin. And then, I stopped, sat down on the concrete capstone of a low brick wall and wrote my first poem since I don't know when. I don't usually post poems right after I write them, they need too much work--not that I'm claiming that my revisions actually make them passable--but I'm going to post this one here, on In and Out, now.
And then I'm going to post it on another blog I'm starting up called Outdoor Poetry Season. And after this other poems will go on Outdoor Poetry Season. Posting them here on In and Out is too confusing. I mean, what is In and Out about? Cutting military spending? Railing against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza? It doesn't matter, really. It's just that from now on I'm going to put poetry on OPS and I'm going to put everything else on I & O.
There, I'm glad that's settled.
The Rush of Life
Thinking like rivers
meander, I can say
there will be no further
stunning breakthroughs
There once were, you know,
the river, young and raving,
tumbled boulders, leapt recklessly,
pushed ahead
But there will be progress—
not so it would show—
but you could still feel it,
the rush of blood
Arteries, veins pulsing potent remains
of original intentions, or,
as Alan has put it, the rush of life
through the universe. Bang.
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