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Crumpled Wisdom
Commanded sentences, structured and many words sovereign
over lords and ladies who slip away into the fresh dug earth,
dank and dark, only shades now in death’s underhouse.
once so proud they now align the endless corridors,
swaying to and fro in darkness and in awful silence.
And crumpled Wisdom crouches in mind forged chains,
begging alms or a candle from the passing shades.
Wisdom has no pull in Reason’s court, the venerable judge has gone mad,
he spews verdicts unintelligible pronouncing
sound arguments untenable.
Can Wisdom, after all, be only a lodged complaint,
ignored, as darkest, dark night
compresses close all around
only punctured by pinpricks of light.
Bright intelligence answers, she asks,
“Oh friend, your mind’s a candle
are not the pinpricks of light the many
stars above, have you grown so large
be closed in by the stars?
You’ve only forgotten how to breathe. Remember
Our Lord, who spent three nights here.”
Wisdom looked into his cupped hands and saw
in the faintest of light but growing steady and strong,
a cross, a cross of light.
Then in the east a fire blazed, dissolving night.
“Arise, arise renewed, see the night it’s only foggy dew
see our Mother’s fields encircled by the sea
and a tree standing at the worlds center,
streaming golden in the sun.
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Listen
Words whispered but once, long ago
heard from far away,
the trees bending to listen
shimmered and shaken
by the encircling wind,
a single leaf on updraft
whirled and found
clever chaos in the form of a man,
self deceived, who
busied himself out of the way,
by night he climbed a tall tree
and sat upon the moon,
to rule a continent below.
The land and the glimmering sea,
rolling swell, then hollow
the weight of the water rising, then
breaking, crushing
the rocks gathered at lands edge,
rolled and tumbled about
by words whispered on
the howling wind.
Far and
wide he saw it all encompassed
by the limits of vision only.
Morning light begins the play,
now sits Bartleby the Scribner
scribing naught, he dreams of girls
under his desk as he eats
plum pudding out of a jar
drooling upon the pristine page,
soon he will faint dead away
saying, “I’ll work no more,
beyond is fraught with conjecture,
what is known is the passage
not what’s been passed,
all the scribing was scribed long ago.”
Across measured spaces
ancient travelers
marked time out along the way,
not by the stars
but by words whispered
at the first dawn
and carried on the wind, even
down to our own time.
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The Arising of the Setting Sun
The oblique rays of the sun,
morning rise or evening set,
still twilight is a moment balanced
between light and dark.
Becoming is movement
towards one or the other.
A scale’s balance descends or rises
as determined by weight
that sinks or counter balanced rises
setting in motion the spinning gears,
wheels and pulleys, ticking time
as determined by the arising
of the setting sun.
The morning buzz was all around
excited people milling about
gathering swirls and eddies
of talkers talking
flowing into a great hall
where high upon a scaffold
the ax murderer Raskolikov
waits to be judged.
‘What is to be done
with this wayward youth who
took life with an ax, so cheap.
Justice demands hanging
but such a bright youth,
virtuous and sincere,
gone terribly wrong though
some say society is to the blame,
his crime by grinding poverty compelled.
He did a woman in,
she was a creep, she won’t be missed
it’s a shame about the other though
who got in his way.’
Three high judges sat;
Philosophy, Science and Religion,
over bearing and aloof
their judgment shrewd
to them the crowd deferred.
The evidence was presented
Raskolikov knelt quietly by
and made no defense.
The first to speak was a mad philosopher,
who wore a great walrus mustache
and a superman suit
red cape and all,
his eyes, able to stare with mad intent
two ways at once.
Hunched over a book
he furiously chewed words
and spat them back out again.
“I judge you small,
thou art a worm, get off your knees,
we rise above morality
to do great things,
why qualms now?
It’s will and power to make a man free
a new man to break
the shackles of history.
Really, your crime was too small
we’ve God to overcome”
Raskolikov answered simply,
“you didn’t hear the women scream
or see their blood
that washed nothing clean,
it’s dangerous philosophy
to make light of tragedy.”
Next spoke the man of science,
a thin man with an incisive beak
and an atom splitting mind.
Calm rational eyes
through a magnifying glass
looked at all the world,
he wondered that it was so small.
“Existence is only what is perceived,
is really isn’t and this is never that.
This criminal before us
look what he did with an ax,
what will others do
with guns and bombs, missiles and war.
Violent types will do what they will do.
we must put him away,
all of them,
to a barbed wire camp
as big as a nation,
we will bond them and bind them
link by link, catalog and control.”
“My category is not my nature,
you know me not at all,” Raskolikov answered.
The priest in his grand robes
and funny big hat
had gone to sleep,
a little drool came from between his fat lips
as he was nudged awake;
“This world is but a vale of tears,
a passing fancy of no consequence,
but to come to heaven
you must brave it out as best you can.
There is forgiveness for you,
even such as you,
just touch my robe’s hem
and kiss my ring,
the flesh is week, desire strong,
it ends in a fiery pit,
never ending despair, howling night
and sinking fear.
Heaven is far and the way bared by sin,
no one gets in except through grace
so sign up here and I’ll be ‘Your Grace.’”
Then with bowed head
under his breath he said,
“excommunicate them all,
I’ll have my sleep.”
Raskolikov stared strait ahead,
“I don’t ask forgiveness
or heaven undeserved,
mercy I decline,
I’d have those women alive again
or it’s my death I prefer,
my heart has gone black and cold, I fear it
died
with them, whose lives I took”
The verdict was guilty
and the sentence read:
“Exile to cold Siberia,
let alienation be your plight.”
Honest Sonia, the harlot who walked
the same sad streets
Raskolikov walked had become his friend,
with clear blue eyes
and softly spoken words,
she drew his tears
from the warm depths of his cold heart:
“Your alone my friend
your crime has set you apart,
by what is true
my life will redeem you,
your exile I will share.”
Then turning and addressing no one
she said “There was a time
and a time to come, when
philosopher, theologian and scientist
are one and the same one,
who speak the truth
from a heart brimful sorrow and joy,
over flowing love;
‘The world is hell but heaven too
neither to be conquered nor eschewed,
in your mind and in your heart
consider the One that is true.’”
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One Night
One night, I
woke,
to a voice that called my name,
I started
awake,
to see no one
there
but a presence I feared
kept sleep
away
until an odd restless dream
sealed my eyes.
Over a wide bridge crossed
a
thousand or more
an endless human stream,
the tramp of many feet
as one
in slow measured cadence,
enshrouded sightless eyes
the walking dead looking on.
Morning light dawned and I,
went about my business
but listless
till night came and I dreamt again.
I was alone on that
bridge,
then hearing
the terrible tramp of many feet,
I was swept along,
tossing the restless night
in soaked sheets
until I screamed
awake.
For many nights successive
the walking dead
crossed that bridge,
the terror of those nights
bedraggled my days.
Until a night I dreamt
unlike before
out of the crowd
a wispy woman approached,
frail and half starved
holding her dead child, close,
looking to me
with hopeless unseeing eyes,
she said, ‘My child is ill
can you help my child?
please sir, can you help?’
‘These are not
the dead
but the living,
walking asleep’
was my awaking thought.
My day took me downtown,
shop windows drawn blank and bared,
aligning the gritty streets, that
the homeless scavenge
and cops beat,
a young whore
lifts her skirt and cries, ‘for cheap,’
a man was strangled
in stinking sheets,
and scruffy children, running
down the bloody streets
knives drawn,
everyone turns indifferently away.
So I went up town
where the
avenues are broad, lined
by well
ordered homes and gardens
with pleasant parks nearby,
kept clean
for young pretty moms
ever watching
their brood
at play
and the trusted priest also watches
scheming how
to steal one away.
It is never known what lurks
around corners unseen
but
vibrant women are snatched
by the murderous air.
I went to the hospice nearby
where death
is kept between clean sheets,
a used up body wastes away
brightly looking east,
hope in the dawning day.
In fearful awe I ponder
what we do asleep.
I will cross that bridge myself,
going up against
the downward human flow
to cry, ‘Awake Awake, Alarm Alarm
Awake.’
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A Friendly Death
The clock towered high goes around
and around, running out
for each of us in time,
to the rhythm of ebb and flow.
Alone I walk the singing streets
beneath shining stars, along
the melodious sea
wave after wave break, pounding,
the measured beat of my heart kept
time in my lilting steps,
moving me along, until
I came to a place and stopped dead.
It was there I saw feared Death smile
at the weird waves breaking,
rolling up to where he sat
on a bench with room for two.
Resisting an odd urge to wave
I stood by aloof, awed
by spectral fears, dreading
his gaze but curiously calm too.
His assured calm was infectious,
like the laugh of a young
girl and the moon's glint in his
humorous eyes quelled my fears.
“Good evening sir?” I sputtered out,
my breath held, my heart stopped,
“If you have come for me, your early
I think, though there's no telling when.”
He gave me a pleasant smile, “No,
I come only when called,
it's just a lovely night
for watching the moon wax or wane.”
Incredulous, I challenged,
“You don't come until called?”
I wondered that I was
so free with venerable Death.
“No! Never, not even once have
I come early or late,”
He said, pleased I had asked,
“Sit here my friend, let me explain.”
I took my seat but for sometime
we sat silent as old friends
often do, sit content
not speaking, listening, until
“everything measured in time
passes in time, everything
collected dissolves, what is
erected falls, 'when' is determined
by the thing's nature and the forces
that move it, not by my
whim or decree, I am
as bound by time as you,” Death said.
“What becomes of me finally, when
I come to you?” I asked,
unsure of the ground shifting
under my feet as the sea and sky
slipped away leaving nothing,
no up no down, no sound
heard or anything to see,
no words or thoughts reflected
but a single blue spark remains,
to ignite the void asunder,
light expands becomes many
colored and I see and I hear,
I have a voice that dies echoless
in the enclosing dark
pressing down sinking me
in the dank earth. I lay silent,
breathless until a stirring wind
caresses, warm breath fills me.
A presence I sense close
by in the dark as dim light glows
tracing the contours of distant
hills that roll into valleys,
the undulating land
stretching out to embrace the sea
and the sun arising on two friends
seated on a bench watching,
“a prayer and a presence
felt, like a poem with no words
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Young Girl
A girl walked in from a
summers day
wearing almost nothing,
too young, despite the bold sway
of large breasts over narrow hips
and legs as thin as whips.
A strange mixed age to be between
watchtowers flashing
overhead, crowned in balding sheen,
she is to bring them down
slowly flowing into the ground.
Her friend is nearby wearing
a shirt that flows unsure
of her contours, shying
away from a stranger's look
her smile curious but her head shook
as she looked up walking by,
her young legs boldly bare
remind an old man that soon he'll die,
sitting there musing, taking stock
drinking coffee around the clock.
He remembers another's
soft sway
breathed by the wind
of his own distant summers day,
the glide of her limbs and soft tresses,
touching her face and lifting her dress
and them both gliding and
smiling
on a fair wind through sunny air,
far and away they drifted, a whiling
the time in love's embrace
avoiding the unavoidable race.
They ate roasted
red peppers
stretched out on a bed of coals
the wind blew to fan silent embers
burning their bodies naked and flashing
they clutch and claw madly laughing
Golden glades whisper through morning
soft rain swells, laughing silently
he will let it out alone, after soothing
she laughs, eyes blinking cold steel
ceasing fear from the dust unremembered
risking chastisement for the Sun's debacle
as he rested on his way, along his course
turning aside at the last moment, suspended
he slogs through, ankle deep in mud
slowly sinking not sensing that he will not
burrow or take to losing well amongst
the water's boiling up sap rising, haunted
by a
girl walking in from a summers day
wearing almost nothing,
alone with his thoughts he will pray
to arise as vapor and flow
skyward leaving a seed to grow.
end
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