Long Among Poems
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And this picture on the wall of my heart told a story of men giving birth among themselves in the north promiscuously...
Sipping memories from the lungs of the girl child.
They were not ashamed of the little ones watching their nakedness which howled at them mannerlessly.
We bathed the oceans again and again,
We made the sand shone like the moon,
We washed the sky daily to see clearly of what the earth has in stock for us.
We painted the earth and added more colours to the chirping rainbow.
Life became wet in our palms because we saw images and figurines of women whose shinning womb were made abnormal by men of yesterday.
And mother told of an innocent girl that killed her father, mother and brothers,
She was patted by the king for doing so,
As she told this ear breaking tale,
we saw the rain emerged from the ground instead of the lonely idle cloud that watched us through different mirrors.
They said we'll live forever on paradise,
They said there is heaven and hell,
They said evil people will be punished on the last day,
They said we will burn for thousand years,
But how could a father punish his children with fire and brimstone?
How could spirit burn in a fire?
How could we tell lie to ourselves and expect the sun not against us?
We have seen cock making love to a duck and, dog to a cat, and grandma told us it was normal.
And Father told of the miseries of the black spirit in our village streams,
How pouring of libation on the family shrine brings good wife and good harvest,
how rubbing oil and wearing palmfrond on your lips wad away demons.
he said there is a third heaven above us,
He told us why the He goat smells,
He said white ghosts do fly day time; he has seen the flashes of one of them at Benin.
After Christopher, I creed,
After Achebe I loved again
After Seghor
After Wole and Niyi' folklores,
After Habila Helon,
After Chimamanda's truths,
We'll retrace this fables with a knitted thought towards strings of our voices.
How does the patient dog eat the fattest bone now?
Does the silent cock still live for a lifetime?
Mother lied to us
Father lied to us
Grandma lied to us
Grandpa lied also
A mirage formed
Teachers lied to us
An illusion created
We are not who we are through those illusion told to us through their lips.
Yours Poetically,
©John Chizoba Vincent.
Far off the beaten track and trail
on quest for music’s Holy Grail
led pilgrims on biblical scale
more than can be counted.
With midsummer sun on our cheek
in tents to shelter we did seek
and pitched them at its highest peak
on a hilltop mounted
As we climbed the lean of the hill
my beer I would try not to spill
and sat with the great unwashed till
olé and adios.
It was I, El Skeet, amigo,
in my poncho and sombrero
half-cut like a loco gringo
who waved “vaya con dios!”
We lit yet another hash bong
all up in smoke like Cheech & Chong
and passed it to each one along
under the cop radars.
Till late as wasted brain cells flag
with every mind trip headfu-ck drag
I tucked in to my sleeping bag
on the hill ‘neath the stars
As music and mayhem did rage
back in next summer’s youthful age
we camped closer to the big stage
by a shallow hollow.
I’d sit and watch the crowds go by
in the hot sun and dust and dry
under a big Waikato sky
from our camp on tent row
And as I ripped in with the guys
to our grog trailer of supplies
we made a hanging chain of ties
with every pull tab rent.
Waiting for Cold Chisel that night
with a superdoob glowing bright
I was fuc-kin’ high as a kite
and lurched back to my tent
The next day I woke in a daze
and walked off my drunken malaise
when I heard singing songs of praise
in some weird sh-it I saw.
Tambourine hippies, punks and geeks
and chanting Hari Krishna freaks
burnt incense in clay painted cheeks
so I got high some more
Yet in a hot wet and wild hour
stoned in the unisex shower
I gazed many a sweet flower
in their naked splendour.
We bathed too in waters that flowed
down where the lazy river bowed
lest my head spontaneous explode
on my three day bender
That night by the stars we were led
as above a smoky sky bled
when out The Enz rocked “I See Red”
and fired a burning flare.
In the spirit of Sweetwaters
we lived among at close quarters
sons of Bacchus and his daughters
and I so revelled there
Written: November 2009
Sweetwaters was an annual three
day music festival back in 1980s.
Pretty like the crystalline canyon rocks -
Fair like a deer wandering in the morn' -
With the Great Spirit as a faithful witness
A baby girl named Red Feather was born
And for her onyx eyes and ruddy cheeks
An angel was sent with kisses to adorn.
Her misery began with John Martin -
A white trader of uncouth demeanor
Who took one day a Navajo woman
As payment for whiskey and gunpowder
And soon his bride realized an inheritance
But in so doing died young in labor.
Red Feather lived - lived with a cruel father
Who cursed her and of her did not boast -
Withholding not his friends who laughed at her
And was ignored by passersby the most -
Irretrievably lost between two worlds
That scorned red highlights and native clothes
Until one day when grief overwhelmed her -
She ran away - against the blinding tears -
Where else but to the village of her mother
But discovered that they too made jeers
At the sight of her and there enslaved her
And instead of love - realized her worst fears.
But solace found Red Feather at moments
When she'd steal away to Spirit Canyon
To gaze upon the weathered petroglyphs.
Silence touched her heart every now and then
As she'd sit among the lonely rifts
And consider the Earth with the heavens.
There among them was one where an artist
Told of the wish of an ancient warrior
To jump the cliff and join the gentle spirits
That captured Red Feather's awe in particular
And since the life ahead held not her interest
She soon desired him and her mother
So it happened during one nice spring day:
The wildflowers breezed as she took the path -
Eagles circled above her at midday
And Red Feather stood on the edge with wrath -
Embraced the sky and Sun and leapt away -
Seeking what the next world might have.
Since that time many a wayward Navajo
And traveler alike claim to have seen
Red Feather come to them - white with glow -
And swear wholly it was not of a dream
But that she lives - she lives as a ghost
Wandering along the cliffs and beneath.
So should you come to Navajo Country
Look sharp - Red Feather's spirit takes flight.
She may run silently with a clan of coyotes
Or dance in the shadows of your firelight.
She may be the breeze that blows softly
Or the silver mist that rises at night.
He was the Lamb that had to be slaughtered
during the Passover and without Calvary, there wouldn't have been any salvation;
nothing would have forgiven our unpardonable sin!
Christ, as Isaiah prophesied, came when Jerusalem
was in dire need of a king who promised freedom!
The Romans were the conquerors with that mighty sword,
but only the defiant Barabbas waged war against Caesar with many a rebellion!
Many say that we shouldn't venerate the cross which Jesus died upon,
but without the presence of that cross, we couldn't have been saved;
Jesus' blood gushed from it, to stain the rocks below, and wash all inequities away...
and the weeping and wailing of His mother Mary deepened when Christ expired,
as the earthquake jolted Jerusalem's streets and Temple,
to even make the envious and skeptical Priests tremble,
the radiant sun became invisible as darkness covered all;
and was it a coincidence or the undeniable fact that God Himself showed us His mercy?
We haven't carried the heavy wooden cross through Jerusalem and being whipped,
and laughed at; and we haven't seen those women cry for the Christ whom they heard speak;
and we haven't felt the agony of the most atrocious hour that He endured for us all!
An impostor wouldn't have suffered and died to become the Redeemer they awaited,
a liar wouldn't have glorified His Father and preached a Gospel that offered much hope;
History was changed at Golgotha, and human kindness nurturing divine love triumphed!
Lord Jesus, many heard you speak on the Mountain and beheld what we could not!
Lord Jesus, Andrew and John stood by you and comforted Your Mother with their tears!
As you promised the good thief...Lord, remember us, too when we testify in Your favor
or die for Your sake! Paradise awaits us, and all who believe in goodness, not evil;
the excruciating crucifixion was predestined, not being staged by Man who hated love,
it had to happen in order for Humanity to reconcile with their forsaken God of Israel!
We can never be worthy for Your sacrifice, unless we become the messengers of true faith...
to uphold truth and dignify love as you often did in words and deeds!
If we forget Your passion, nothing can magnify the purpose of Your death;
and without a shepherd, this flock will aimlessly roam among rocks and weeds!
Copyright 2009 by Andrew Crisci
What is the difference between night and day... between darkness and light... Evil and good... Angel and Demon... How can we live among each other and survive.. hearing about hope.. trust.. honesty... and how can they live with Lust, despair, depression, agony, anger and such heartlessness...
You speak to me about this word called "Hope"..
Everyone has a chance to create their own lives.. to change the hand they were dealt
That there is something better out there
You just have to remind yourself of all the small happiness that happened to you over the years and it soon becomes greater than the despair..
You claim to be sadness.. to be depression..
In reality you just have moments of lowness...
Your world is surrounded with beautiful waving trees
A sunset that lights up the dawn sky
Somehow the ocean looks beautiful to you, the glistening of the sun upon the waves
You see happiness in everything that happens to you, you see something positive in all the things life gave you
But..
What if we do not see the same thing, what if I live in the darkness...
The deranged half of this world of which you cannot see..
What if everything you see, I see in complete blackness..
The sky is grey, the ocean is red... and the aura around my world is chained to a dark future..
How is it that we can live on the same planet.. but see two different views..
I can sense your light.. you can sense the darkness I hold within me.. All I see for you is a horrible ending.. Your hope.. is my dark secret
In my world I see you as the beggar.. the one who tells you good tales.. but can never prove them.. and keep asking for your attention.. they want you to believe them.. but yet you cannot see the sun in bright orange colors because in your world there is no sun .. there is only a moon...
Your beautiful day for me is like the desecration of a grave...
So I will ask you again...
What is the difference between night and day... between darkness and light... Evil and good... Angel and Demon... How can we live among each other and survive.. hearing about hope.. trust.. honesty... and how can they live with Lust, despair, depression, agony, anger and such heartlessness... ?
Does light.. somehow stabilize.. the darkness... ?
Can a Demon live without lusting for something pure?
How is it that the day can turn into night so quickly as if its not painful.. ?
The sun peeks his face out from the passing wind
still chilly and cold, and in this air the tree branches
stretch their arms to hold the sun as if sails on the deep and gray sky
The sun that is out of reach of a hand
may be a hope; no, it ought to be a hope
One night I saw a wayfarer, becoming a moonbeam,
going toward April stepping on the footmarks March
has left behind
Although he has gone through so many hills and high waters
with a knapsack on his back that was full with the countless
sentiments he put in it for pity’s sake, the sack was emptied;
for the lapse of time makes things wear and tear
his garment was worn to rags, and when the wind
passes through it penetrates the garment to chill the bone
The deep anxiety he is unable to shake off, and therefore,
reflected on the running water murmuring through the field
as ripples of moonbeam, which is not from the fleeting of time
or his sufferings while he was walking among the foes, but because
he is sorry for and worries about friends he has to leave behind
The friends, not many in number shared his happiness
at the time of banqueting, surrounding the table though
plain and simple, abundance in God;
at the time counting the falling stars lying on a stone pillow
by the gap between rocks. The friends, not in damnation but
in endurance and warmhearted understanding, talked about better day to come while burning the passions in the bone fire on a day when they were wet and shivering in early spring drizzle
For the days he was with his friends were too short,
it caused him an embarrassment in counting the days,
yet they were unforgettable moments of joyous and happy experiences
As he walked through the field with friends he talked about tomorrow
standing on the hill top side by side, he asked them to pray for him,
sitting on the sands by the water he sighed for he has to leave
the friends, the sweet and bitter memories behind
Nonetheless, he cannot just stand by a roadside as an emotionless stone,
he crosses the hill under the shade of a waning moon, and when
the humble hearted teary-eyed wanderer blooms as a lily on the other side of
the hill in dawning, the sunray fall on the lily on the dew
as hope to those who remember him, as happiness to the friends
he left behind, as the covenant of the Lord to all who trust in him
OF THE COMMON SEAS
"We must come down from our heights, and leave our straight paths, for the byways and low places of life, if we would learn truths by strong contrasts; and in hovels, in forecastles, and among our own outcasts in foreign lands, see what has been wrought upon our fellow-creatures by accident, hardship, or vice." **
Truth need not be found
in philosophers' musings,
or complicated by thoughts bound
with theorems and words, fusing,
nor within the intricacies
of mathematical proofs,
as one and one may indeed
not equal two; un-truth is truth.
Truth becomes vast in life,
and like the pearl, can be found
as beauty captured, in seas rife
between the common oyster's gown,
Or found within the common leaves
of books written by common men,
discovered by those literates who read.
Truth is simple, now and ever been.
I stumbled on such a prize
In Dana's autobiography;
of common men on common seas
living truths of common humanity.
** Dana, Jr., Richard Henry, Two Years before the Mast, World Publishing Company, 1946, p. 283
1
Like a moth to a candle flame
I pondered the perceived right
of those of wealth, culture, piety and fame
to control and lead the common blight -
(the average, struggling and forsaken souls);
yet have never descended to the lowly station
to learn the culture of these earthly ghouls,
their dreams, their pleas, their damnation.
As gods atop their cloud draped mountain
how dare they, in their empiric quackery
force the masses to their impure fountain
to drink of the laws and life that they decree,
yet having not trod the tracks of the plebian path,
having never felt the sordid plebian passions,
but worshipping instead their comfort and wealth,
adorned in decadence and richly clothed fashions,
how can they govern those they do not know,
minister to anguish they have never felt
or heal their sickness of body, heart and soul?
How can they play the cards, to them never dealt?
Are they leaders, statesmen, kings and lords,
or simply counterfeit men full only of themselves,
vainglorious peacocks, strutting hordes
deceiving not a common man, only just themselves?
We have them here, in this land of the free,
politicians, preachers, corporate men and judges.
None have suffered and worked, you see
yet dare to rule, when by common men begrudged.
Form:
Glowing days that were once red-cheeked and ripe with promise,
Are narrowing like tall candles in a church window,
Tapering from the golden stand and the sturdy base,
To the glorious flame and the ever fading light.
The final birth of dreams that was once distant and cold,
Is now close, closer, ever closer.
The imminent darkened clouds of doubt, that haunt the wise,
Are now gathering close to form a ghostly shadow,
That will create a vast tempest, in a quiet place,
And a mighty torrent that will quench the firelight.
Unyielding waves of fear that are rising in the old,
Are now near, nearer, ever nearer.
To have once coveted the blue from the autumn sky,
Embraced the fallen leaves of a giant maple tree,
To have jumped into water without wondering why,
Leaped joyfully in the warm sand near the emerald sea.
Having playfully chased off the petulant sea gulls,
Broken twigs to build a fire against night’s attack,
Held tight in your strong hands the soft feathers of eagles,
And kissed a beautiful girl on the nape of the neck.
To have laughed at the tetchy clock ticking in the hall,
And smoked each distressing regret like a cigarette,
Knowing it would certainly give cancer of the soul,
The narrowing compels the pining heart to forget.
When forced to consent to the lessening of a day,
And to accept the waning of a moonlit heaven,
To wonder if the path taken was the only way,
Is to live in mortal fear inside a peaceful den.
To be ordered to find gratitude in the calming,
And to find a moments peace in the resignation,
Is not the purpose of the dancing and singing,
This game is but a trial of the imagination,
God has left the beautiful forest unattended,
There is no lesson, design or celestial rule,
To search for meaning is to invite eternal dread,
It takes a saddened, embittered mind to be that cruel.
An elegance can be found in the narrowing,
As memories line together like a pearl necklace,
And clouded moments vanish and amount to nothing,
And all are gently buried with red velvet and lace.
Love the narrowing, set in a purposeless blue sky,
Not because winter nights have become less frightening,
Or the smoldering summer days have now lost their sting,
But as there is no truth in the trumpet or the drum,
It is just a walk among the flowers of freedom.
And a laughing stroll through the narrowing of wisdom.
A difference between compassion and sympathy,
between co-empathic passion
and unilateral YangPatriarchal-empathic,
ego-empowering intent,
Compassion matures passion FOR
into shared passion WITH.
This same emergent fluidity
cannot be said of sympathy
for suffering of Other,
who remains another dissociated Other
Exempted from democratic inclusion
in further considerations
of constitutionally appropriate applications
of Golden Rules
to those who remain
in darker xenophobic shadows
more appropriate for retributive reaction
than restoration to peaceful justice response.
This same contrast and compare
may also apply to political empowerment
and more of the same
competitive economic investment,
to global enlightenment
and more localized, and often nationalized, pockets
of self-enrichment,
to recreative cooperative love
and to recreational competitive lust
Now that some of us
revolutionaries and evangelists
of the ecological 1960s
have been given this great green gift
of old age wisdom,
what on Earth
shall we choose to do with
such awesomely sacred/secular
private/public sectoral
nonpartisan WisdomCircle responsibility?
Settle for fading sympathy,
gradual depressive loss of sensory health awareness,
of physical consciousness?
Or, Reconsider ways to optimize active compassion,
compassionately lively communication,
fragrantTrue and savoredBeauty,
bicamerally touched
and binomially felt Pos/Neg/InBetween
1/0 double-binary positive polyvagal neurological
systemic health structure
[Wow! That was a lot to dispassionately ask. Sorry.]
non-violently heard
and green revolutionary 20/20 revisioned,
Co-passionate DNA/RNA EarthTribes
currently in living residential relationships
growing hotly combative climates
of anthro-privileged salvific empathy,
Seeking more cool green Wisdom Circles
of democratic sacred energy discernment
within and among consensual multicultures
of ecosystemic health-sensory consciousness.
How is universal EarthWealth
compassion
different
yet often felt the same
as unilateral LeftBrain EitherEgo/OrEcoSystemic Health and Safety
RightBrain Truth and Beauty
in sacredly holonic
CoPassion
with great transition gratitude
for this Old WisdomCircle
healthy democratic gift
of revolutionary evangelicals
in cooperative multiculturing redevelopment.
May it not be uttered and may my lips be sealed. I don't like how it makes me feel. It gives no thrill. It has no appeal. So often, it does not heal and seldom closes the deal. Early this morning, I took the time to record a few lines of muse about a word I don't like to use.
I have often thought about the people I have met and the places I have roamed and made my home over the last 50 years. Many are the things, people, and places that have proven to be most disappointing and have wearied, worn me out, and caused me doubts. There've Been dejections, rejections, and questions, but as I look back, I see no regrets.
I have used a 7-letter word so often that it has become a dreadful thing to consider its usefulness. I should think that heaven is the only place such a word is forever forbidden. Presently, that word is NOT WHAT I'M SAYING to you, you, or anyone else and hope to never find it necessary. But if by chance or providence it should be used relative to anyon9 Ie, it would be among the hardest words I ever uttered to living mortals. I've been as far east as the Big Apple but not to stay; and forty years ago, I came with my wife and kids to live in the City by the Bay. I hasten to say that I've never lived longer nor loved stronger than here in the River City where I only want to say the the 2 lettered word 'Hi' but never the 7 lettered
woord, "Goodbye". I can say "Hi" with a smile, but "Goodbye" only makes me cry.
People say that home is where your story begins, but I've never been one to be bound by what others might say. I only know that the place where I was born was never home to me. I tell you, I did not have to look long and far nor think Hard and deep to figure out whom I might blame for the calm, peace, and poise that I am feeling where I live today. Yes, there is something very special about the people and this place where I'm living today that feels like home to me, and I suspect that The Lord has everything to do with it.
042620PS