Thursday, March 18, 2010

Tales Well Worth Telling


Undoubtedly, there will always be storytellers in our midst with tales well worth telling.

Art by Deviant Art
Storyteller by ~sw33tdreamm
.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU


THE FORCE

"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower...
--Dylan Thomas


This is how the story goes:


There is a light that only leaves can see,
green cells whose sugar-yellow receptors, like retinas
down the length of their veins, recognize day breaking.

The light is sovereign
as the Father's rituals, as the Son's relics.
The field is white with flowers:
the force is in the flower, and in the field, and in the rain.
The Holy Spirit is light disguised as water.
Will you recognize the glory as it falls before your face,
and on your right hand, and on your left?
Cleanse your feet with water, pure water.

O, sister, lets go down, come on, brother, come on down
O sinner lets go down, Good Lord show me the way


Kick off your shoes! For as long as there is light,
the light becomes a cool river in the heat of day;
fill your arms, fill your skirts with flowers growing down
to the water's edge. We are saved

for such a time as this! For verily, thus saith.



(Down To The River To Pray, Robert Allen Zipkin & Douglas Metgar)
.

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

RWP Volta


Volta

Sixty miles per hour
along the Pacific Coast Highway
beside you, and you say, I wish
that you would lay your hand upon my thigh,

and so I do. The sea is gray with rain,
and no perceptible horizon reveals
saltwater to sky.

Now that I am old, ad patres, as it were,
and you are older still, I regret to say
that yours was not the first
my hand had touched.


(ad patres, Latin, to be dead, to be gathered to ones forefathers.) :)

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

RWP -- The Doppler Effect



The Doppler Effect


"Uber das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne"

("Concerning the colored light of double stars and other stars of the heavens.")
--Christian Doppler


Centered in the doorway, you stand where a window
Looks two ways: one way the hours swarm into blue,
Colliding like dominoes, piling up like old newspapers
On the porch. The other way the minutes retreat
Like beads on a broken string. Even the seconds
Are strangers speeding away, shifting toward red.

As you wait, entire universes are conceived and destroyed.
There, on the blue side, your mother's body
Has swallowed a seed, and shaped you from air.
A girl with freckles on her lips.
There, on the red side, your eight grandchildren
Hustle toward a future you cannot begin to imagine.

And you. You touch with care wherever the pain is worst:
Your eyes, your neck, your heart. You notice only now
That the window has become a mirror, and the doorway
Is shelter. Shifting now into red,
Your mother walks up behind you, slips you a chocolate
As she passes by. Your grandchildren's soft,
Unfinished baby skeletons tumble faster and farther
Away. And this moment, the Present melting in your mouth,
Is all you need.


(art by H. Koppdelaney)