Category: Poet-Prophets

Sit now very quietly

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Yesterday, I was clever…

On By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Poet-Prophets, Theology / SpiritualityLeave a comment
Yesterday, I was clever…

Un-domesticating “god”

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God, and by extension, Jesus, has become increasingly the tribal warrior in the manufactured culture wars of Christian nationalists, as anti-Fascist revolutionary to leftists, as boy-friend to evangelicals, and in general terms, a mascot to be pilfered for ideological identification and validation. Poems like this can help us loose the chains from around “god”‘s neck.

For “god” to be God, we must allow ourselves the discomfort of God’s “wildness.”

___________________________

Sometimes a Wild God

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.

When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

Your dog barks;
The wild god smiles.
He holds out his hand and
The dog licks his wounds,
Then leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table
And the moon leans in.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.

~ Tom Hirons

My Gingerbread Church

On By robertalanrifeIn Poet-Prophets, RobsLitBits, Words...always wordsLeave a comment

I’ve not been especially active on this site for awhile. You know how it is with poets. Feast or famine. Self-aggrandisement one minute. Self-loathing the next. Ah well…

Therefore, I felt it a good way to break this space open once more, not with one of mine, but with a surprisingly tasty piece written by a young friend, Ruth. She is as intelligent as she is effervescent.

Please enjoy her words as I have. Perhaps have someone read it out loud to you while you sip mulled wine and let Ruth’s words warm you. I give you “My Gingerbread Church” by Ruth Quill.

_____________________________________________________________________________

My Gingerbread Church

At 11 John’s Place, a gingerbread house is under construction.

The pathway paved with after eights, garden filled with candy canes.

The porch a little crumbly, entrance, two gingerbread slabs 

leaned against each other like a pointed hat.

–

A gingerbread ramp with chocolate finger railings,

liquorice door frames and jelly beans for handles.

A tube of icing to cement the jellied toilets to the floor,

a gingerbread roof sprinkled with hundreds and thousands.

–

There are jelly babies crying in the back room,

but our lullabies are full because we know what’s coming.

Jonathan snores and clarinet hums, samba drums and tap drums,

young shepherds and wise men, holy screams of labour.

–

Let’s build a gingerbread altar for him, bejewelled with smarties.

Let’s hang a gingerbread mobile from the ceiling.

Let’s light a gingerbread candle and watch it burn down till the special day,

–

when we’ll hand out gingerbread on the door, inscribed in royal icing

with liturgies and scripture, and then snap it in two,

and dunk one half into those brilliant cups of tea,

and eat it, soft and sweet, broken for us, broken for all.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Ruth is a Scottish poet and freelance programmer based in Leith. Her writing is often inspired by childhood whimsy and play.

Viral Dailies, Day 25

On By robertalanrifeIn National Poetry Month, Poet-Prophets, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Just five days to go until the quarantine version of National Poetry Month comes to its virtual end. I’m marking the occasion by posting gems from a few of our own Pacific Northwest poets.

We see life a little different here in the PNW. A bit more aloof and distant at times, perhaps to highlight our sense of entrancement at the beauty and danger of our surroundings. Perhaps because the only words that don’t fail are those sung in poems. 

Ironically, to say as much, my offering today is from one of our favourite bands, Scottish group called Deacon Blue. They describe it well in their song lyric from “The Hipsters” – “Friends. Who needs friends, when there’s a road and an ocean?” 

So then, to highlight the unique Pacific Northwest ethos with a remarkable economy of words is this song by a band not even from here!

The Hipsters

All, all those waves
And that old sun
Shining

So drive
Drive to the coast
And let the water
Surround you

I was standing by the shore
Pulled by the deepest blue
Aching for the allure
Of the hipster boys
And the hipster girls
Shining

Friends, who needs friends?
When there’s a road
And an ocean

I was standing by the shore
Pulled by the deepest blue
Aching for the allure
Of the hipster boys
And the hipster girls
Shining

When I let the dream
Die slowly down
Did I do it right
Or was I wrong?

I was standing by the shore
Pulled by the deepest blue
Aching for the allure
Of the hipster boys
And the hipster girls
Shining, falling
Glistening, diving…

Viral Dailies, Day 4

On By robertalanrifeIn National Poetry Month, Poet-Prophets, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Few poets have the ability to paint such big pictures economically and simply as does Pablo Neruda. My friend Nancy Kelly recently posted this to my Facebook wall and it was a reminder of the impact of well-conceived, well-sung verse to lift and illuminate and proclaim.

For today’s Viral Dailies in celebration of National Poetry Month in isolation, let’s read this together, and just…breathe.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Poetry

And it was at that age . . . poetry arrived
in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don’t know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, not silence,
but from a street it called me,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among raging fires
or returning alone,
there it was, without a face,
and it touched me.

I didn’t know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind.
Something knocked in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first, faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing;
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
the darkness perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire, and flowers,
the overpowering night, the universe.

And I, tiny being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose with the wind.

Pablo Neruda
(1904—1973)

Hymn: A New Poem by Sherman Alexie

On By robertalanrifeIn Poet-Prophets, Words...always wordsLeave a comment

Why do we measure people’s capacity
To love by how well they love their progeny?

That kind of love is easy. Encoded.
Any lion can be devoted

To its cubs. Any insect, be it prey
Or predator, worships its own DNA.

Like the wolf, elephant, bear, and bees,
We humans are programmed to love what we conceive.

That’s why it’s so shocking when a neighbor
Drives his car into a pond and slaughter–

Drowns his children. And that’s why we curse
The mother who leaves her kids—her hearth—

And never returns. That kind of betrayal
Rattles our souls. That shit is biblical.

So, yes, we should grieve an ocean
When we encounter a caretaker so broken.

But I’m not going to send you a card
For being a decent parent. It ain’t that hard

To love somebody who resembles you.
If you want an ode then join the endless queue

Of people who are good to their next of kin-
Who somehow love people with the same chin

And skin and religion and accent and eyes.
So you love your sibling? Big fucking surprise.

But how much do you love the strange and stranger?
Hey, Caveman, do you see only danger

When you peer into the night? Are you afraid
Of the country that exists outside of your cave?

Hey, Caveman, when are you going to evolve?
Are you still baffled by the way the earth revolves

Around the sun and not the other way around?
Are you terrified by the ever-shifting ground?

Hey, Trump, I know you weren’t loved enough
By your sandpaper father, who roughed and roughed

And roughed the world. I have some empathy
For the boy you were. But, damn, your incivility,

Your volcanic hostility, your lists
Of enemies, your moral apocalypse—

All of it makes you dumb and dangerous.
You are the Antichrist we need to antitrust.

Or maybe you’re only a minor league
Dictator—temporary, small, and weak.

You’ve wounded our country. It might heal.
And yet, I think of what you’ve revealed

About the millions and millions of people
Who worship beneath your tarnished steeple.

Those folks admire your lack of compassion.
They think it’s honest and wonderfully old-fashioned.

They call you traditional and Christian.
LOL! You’ve given them permission

To be callous. They have been rewarded
For being heavily armed and heavily guarded.

You’ve convinced them that their deadly sins
(Envy, wrath, greed) have transformed into wins.

Of course, I’m also fragile and finite and flawed.
I have yet to fully atone for the pain I’ve caused.

I’m an atheist who believes in grace if not in God.
I’m a humanist who thinks that we’re all not

Humane enough. I think of someone who loves me—
A friend I love back—and how he didn’t believe

How much I grieved the death of Prince and his paisley.

My friend doubted that anyone could grieve so deeply.

The death of any stranger, especially a star.
“It doesn’t feel real,” he said. If I could play guitar

And sing, I would have turned purple and roared
One hundred Prince songs—every lick and chord—

But I think my friend would have still doubted me.
And now, in the context of this poem, I can see

That my friend’s love was the kind that only burns
In expectation of a fire in return.

He’s no longer my friend. I mourn that loss.
But, in the Trump aftermath, I’ve measured the costs

And benefits of loving those who don’t love
Strangers. After all, I’m often the odd one—

The strangest stranger—in any field or room.
“He was weird” will be carved into my tomb.

But it’s wrong to measure my family and friends
By where their love for me begins or ends.

It’s too easy to keep a domestic score.
This world demands more love than that. More.

So let me ask demanding questions: Will you be
Eyes for the blind? Will you become the feet

For the wounded? Will you protect the poor?
Will you welcome the lost to your shore?

Will you battle the blood-thieves
And rescue the powerless from their teeth?

Who will you be? Who will I become
As we gather in this terrible kingdom?

My friends, I’m not quite sure what I should do.
I’m as angry and afraid and disillusioned as you.

But I do know this: I will resist hate. I will resist.
I will stand and sing my love. I will use my fist

To drum and drum my love. I will write and read poems
That offer the warmth and shelter of any good home.

I will sing for people who might not sing for me.
I will sing for people who are not my family.

I will sing honor songs for the unfamilar and new.
I will visit a different church and pray in a different pew.

I will silently sit and carefully listen to new stories
About other people’s tragedies and glories.

I will not assume my pain and joy are better.
I will not claim my people invented gravity or weather.

And, oh, I know I will still feel my rage and rage and rage
But I won’t act like I’m the only person onstage.

I am one more citizen marching against hatred.
Alone, we are defenseless. Collected, we are sacred.

We will march by the millions. We will tremble and grieve.
We will praise and weep and laugh. We will believe.

We will be courageous with our love. We will risk danger
As we sing and sing and sing to welcome strangers.

©2017, Sherman Alexie