My Poem a la Tzara

Lajos Tihanyi's portrait of Tzara, 1927

 

For my poem at dversepoets.com I took my pastor’s sermon, 10 pp. in all, and tore it up into small rectangular pieces (don’t tell her :-). I then searched through the pieces and found “lines” that struck my poetic fancy. This is the result.


————




The learning curve ahead


Concepción and articulation


Believing that a brutal 
love 

and other nourishing danger


Letting go of convention 


immediately of your mind


could threaten to take


the harbor. Means to be pregnant


Light of day. And then follow,


Sure that this new life can.


Incrementally what won’t work
a

nd part of her or her own.


Fall down and get up a million times


To grow new neural pathways.

<aware>

<aware>

 <awake>

  <sense>

   </see>

   </feel>

   </smell>

   </hear>

   </taste>

    <world>

     </me>

     </you>

     </it>

     </them>

       <love>

         </empty>

         </full>

           <God/>

        </love>

      </world>

    </sense>

  </awake>

</aware>

Copyright 2013 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

Image: http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/march2008blog.html

<machine>

<machine>

  <work>

    <use>

      <build/>

      <wreck/>

        <measure>

          My life spirit

          Seeks the body

          Of you, world 

        </measure>

     </use>

  </work>

</machine>

<earth>

<earth>

  </alive>

  </alert>

  </one>

    <word>

      <me>

        We are star dust

        We are the heavens

        Themselves 

       </me>

     </word>

</earth>

<there>

Francis Bacon, Head (1948)

<there>
  </time>
  </space>
  </me>
    <where>
      </cosmos>
      </solar system>
      </earth>
        Ants build
        Structures
        I can see
        By destruction
        And creation
          <here>
            In desert realms
            Where the gold
            of setting suns
            Spills saving blood
            On dark mountains
            In the East
              <questions>
                </wonder>
                </awe>
                </curiosity>
                  Why do I fill this vacant
                  Space with illusions
                  Born from body's
                  Needs and heart's
                  Loneliness in idleness
                  Or passing light
                  Of beauty gone
                  In an awkward glance?
                    <passion>
                      What is does not remain
                      The song dies in the throat
                      Of the warbler, the knot
                      In the crotch untied
                      In the womb of death
                        <I>
                          </naked>
                          </broken>
                            Piecing together a scrap
                            Book of all the joys
                            And triumphs
                            The empty spaces
                            Telling who and what
                            I never am, though
                            The voices of the past
                            Vie for unity, a piece
                            Of infinity tasting
                            A dying tongue
          </I>
        </passion>
      </questions>
    </here>
  </me>
</there>

Copyright 2013 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

Letter of the Companion

Lamentation
Giotto Bondone
c 1306, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy

Dear friends in the Spirit,
may God's peace and joy be with you,
and the end of the age
sweep away the evil abroad.

We arrived in the town by the
wasteland road and met no ill
weather. Our brothers
drawn to cruelty and despair
lay in wait by the roadside.
Times are hard but here seem worse;
the land grows nothing in the drought
and still soldiers come for their tax.

Your brother, my husband,
knows well the road and brought us clear.
He traveled before among the angry ones.
We own nothing but the clothes on our backs,
and pose them no harm. We spoke new words
and the Spirit broke the hard heart.
Men with blood on their hands
wept and beat the dust with fists for sorrow.

Like children they asked to be clean
of what the times have made them do.
I held them in my arms like a mother
and sister. I told them
a great comforter has come to sweep away the pain
in the land. We spoke the Master's name
over them to drive off demons
that plague their dreams and harden
their hearts with anger and grief and death.

Some stared in amazement. I, a woman,
saw their tears. Their shame made them
hide their eyes from me. They spoke with hate.
"A woman should not see our shame,"
they said. I wept for them.
"God will see your sins on the last day.
His Spirit sees all and I am in His Spirit.
Leave this evil you do. Do not let the joy
the Spirit gives die in your anger.
Has not a great sorrow left your heart?
Follow the Spirit and cleanse yourselves
for when the end of the age comes."

Some were angered still more by my words and left
our circle, back to the shadows by the road.
Those who stayed wept at our feet and begged forgiveness.
They led us to the village, where the people ran for
fear when they saw us with thieves. One of
the brothers has a family in that town. They
cried for joy when he that they thought dead
appeared alive. They fell at our feet and kissed them.

When the villagers learned how we
cured the evil of their sins, wonder filled
their eyes, and their voices turned to whispers
as they spoke about God and his mercy, for
He alone can turn what was dead into life.

Peter praised the Spirit and spoke the words
of the Messiah to them. But in the village
men do not hear or see as clearly as in the desert.
So many voices drown the sound of the Lord's name,
and the truth is seed thrown on dust.

The women came to see a strange thing.
They fingered my clothes frayed by the wind,
and asked how I could put up with a
man who spoke such wild things and gave me
nothing but the street for a bed. Again, the
Spirit filled me and I witnessed to them the
power of the Lord to overcome all need and
desire in this world. The Spirit made
my legs tremble with lightness.
The words filled the breath from my lips
like a song from a bird in a green valley
when day begins and dew wets the grass.

Again, few listened. They laughed
and made fun of me and my poor things, and called
me no better than a slave. They mocked my words.
I did not feed my anger with their pride. I said
the Teacher too had suffered insults. Keep your
heart free from bitterness and hate, He said, and
fear the Lord whose Spirit will comfort you in
evil times. Some of the women stayed with
me by the fire when the others left.
They helped me prepare a meal and water.
We slept that night in a farmer's attic.

The Lord's work bears wonderful fruit, my friends.
I write from a small inn where the owner lets us stay.
Peter has a chill and fever.
Our lives are in the hands of God.
Whether we live or die, He decides.
I am not my own and His Spirit
fills me with psalms. I would
die in the street doing His work.
It is all one in the name of the Lord.
I pray he sends you his Spirit of love
as he does for me. All blessings be yours...

Published for dversepoets.com Poetics prompt

copyright 2013 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

<woman>

Woman, Willem de Kooning

<woman>
 </her>
 </she>
 </them>
   <image>
    </mother>
    </sister>
    </other>
      being born
      Into nothing
      You carved
      Me formless
      Yet squawking
      For a shape
      And direction
       <you>
        Seeking me
        In all I am
        Want
        Desire
        Loss
        Am not
         <me>
          Seeking you
          For all you are
          Have been
          Will be
          In loss
          And desire
            <fragment>
               Lost from
               Impelled 
               Towards
               Oneness
               Nothingness
                <life>
                  Full with
                  Longing
                  Empty
                  Of signs
                  Conscious
                  Of nothing
                   <death>
                    Unknowable
                    Limit
                    Of all
                    That is
                    Defining
                    Nothing
             </death>
           </life>
         </fragment>
       </me>
     </you>
  </image>
</woman>

copyright 2013 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

Moonlight Above Shed

A toolshed knows only moonlight when it nests in the arms of Spring.

<life>

<life>
 </them>
 </me>
 </you>
 <bullet>
     in seeking
     so much
     I lost
     what's worth
     saving
 </bullet>
</life>

<Eden>

<Eden>
  </utopia>
  </land of never to be>
    <dream>
     The nightmare
     Born from
     Chaos
      <knowledge>
       </good>
       </evil>
        I see a mirage
        In the desert heat
        It looks like me
        <g-->
         Speaking in the cool
         Breath soughed
         By palm trees
         Words as sweet
         As pomegranate seeds
           <wind>
             <בּת קול>
              </1>
              </0>
                <...>

                </...>
            </בּת קול>
          </wind>
        </g-->
      </knowledge>
    </dream>
</Eden>

bat kol (Hebrew בּת קול) - The voice of God, literally "daughter of a voice"
Copyright 2013 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

<exist/>

<exist>

      <dream>

           <act>

               <find>

               <id1=π />

               <id2=0 />

                 self

               < /find>

           </act>

      </dream> 

 </exist>

Copyright 2013 Charles David Miller. All rights reserved.

Garden

Moonbeam coreopsis along Superior

in a maze of rose gardens

where we wander past Mister Lincolns,

Ingrid Bergmans,

Seashells,

French Perfumes,

Betty Boops,