Categories
2019 American Place Poems

Speaker for the Dead

We call for a new poetry!

We call for a new eulogy!

We call forth the Speaker for the Dead.

He will understand the lost as only the Ender of

Worlds can begin to grasp. He will tell us who they

Were, where They stood. You do not know nor could.

They never wrote it down for you. Never heard them say.

Admirer, lover, blinded still,

your pining overwhelming, what was real.

Their stories told without the Makar’s mark.

Stripped away, our own projections of glories old

And say the truth, no matter how dark.

The funeral can no longer be your poetic elegy.

It must be a poem of record telling the life of the

One who will be remembered beyond the grave.

Their stories a collection of Cities and States.

Categories
Ars Poetica Footnotes Why

We call for a new Poetry

“We call for a new poetry!
We call for a new eulogy…
It must be a poem of record Telling the Life of the
One who will be remembered beyond the grave.
Their stories a collection of cities and states.”

Speaker for the Dead, 2019

We seek a new poetry. Story psalms — Holy, archetypal parables in meter.

Even the epic poem in modern terms, needs to be broken down into individual, self-reliant poems. Each verse a poem in itself.

Twitter has killed the attention span, writers must adjust or the poetic arts are done.

There are two types of poetry I am interested in: Objectified — archetypal, seeking universality in a core idea, common human being or objective observations of time and place.

Subjectified — highly personal, experiential poetry written for or about a familiar.

Categories
Ars Philosophica Ars Poetica Footnotes Why

Plato bans the bard

As Plato would have it (though I can’t help but point out that science alone turns dirt under the foundations of his world view), the poet is to be exiled from the perfect society.
As a young man, I would sit in the canyon and read The Republic in the cool breeze of the summer by Oak Creek, escaping the desert heat burning down below in the red and green valley. At the time a student of philosophy more than literature, though the two not so inseparable now, I should have finished the book. Never read Book X. If in my youthful studies, I had come to this defense of poesy against banishment, I might have had a more focused effort in this endeavor.
Ironically, philosophy itself, could fall prey to this very argument, that it itself is contrived, created, an imitation of our actual thoughts and logic. Modern psychology bears this out. Even our memories are made over and over again. Each a mimic of reality.

Categories
Ars Poetica Footnotes Why

Poesy

Not a typo. Poesy is the archaic and implies meter.

noun

ARCHAICLITERARY
  1. poetry.
    “they were enamored of poesy and the fine arts”
      1. the art or composition of poetry.
        “the genius of poesy”

    The art of poetry is in jeopardy. Only by re-inventing its mode of consumption will we be able to maintain it’s place on the literary shelf and societal influence. A new mimetic at the heart of the language of origin. For every poesy must be rooted in its citizen poet. The city’s shadow capturing memes of life, memories of the language of a generation. Record of our greatest and smallest moments.  The archetypal drum, beating out our stories, repeating verse after verse after verse after verse.

    I present you the chorus of our psalm. Singing praises to the human being, doing what we do. How we exist. The emotive world we absorb that transforms and transmutates our language and our ability to relate to our surroundings and each other. For if there is a place for poesy left in this lingual-fragmented culture, it must be brief and with the heartbeat of the people. Anywhere, anytime.

Categories
Garden Psalms Poems

Burning your heart out

Old promises(*) of Love should be
taken from their dusty shelves

and Burnt!

Every autumn, like the raking
and the culling of the leaves:

stale promises!

Burning! Giving fertile soils to
new beginning and renewing vow

breaking ground
eternal flower
prescient poesy!

 

Categories
Ars Poetica

Archibald MacLeish

MacLeish sums it up nicely in his poem “Ars Poetica

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

A poem should not mean
But be.

Poetry Fondation printing

Categories
2019 Garden Psalms Hearts Quartet Poems Shapes

Heart’s Quartet

VIEW THE INDIVIDUAL POEMS

Categories
Ars Philosophica Ars Poetica Why

Proof of God?

Sometimes you just have to write and the poem becomes…calling for itself from the void dark matter.

Categories
Garden Psalms Hearts Quartet Poems

Psychí (1)

     Blue-eyed Lovely Lady                           long Psychic connection
Dancing to the Blues                                  Filial bondings going
little introductions led                                Well beyond the forms
to Feeling the                                                of LOVE that
same groove                                                  came before
turned into                                                       turning 2
a life-                                                                 to 1

 

Due to the nature of responsive web pages, the mobile version of this poem loses it’s intended shape. For readability, here are the stanzas in order:

Blue-eyed Lovely Lady
Dancing to the Blues
little introductions led
to Feeling the
same groove
turned into
a life-

long Psychic connection
Filial bondings going
Well beyond the forms
of LOVE that
came before
turning 2
to 1

Categories
Garden Psalms Hearts Quartet Poems

Philos (1)

Words
No need
We too can
Sit so silently
Contemplative
No need for words
We two commun-icate
Hundreds stories common
Psychic in the way we need not
say a single thing. Under
standing that
not even time matters between
spaces long
between our Sharings. Quantum
entanglement
perhaps. No matter, “I am glad you are here.”