The Juniper Prize: Between the Known and the Unknown
“The Juniper Prize: Between the Known and the Unknown”
That man built a house
of straw and sticks
and the stories that burned within -
all consuming the titled prize;
like a bird
sings a song
the metre repeats and sticks.
yet, another banner,
belies an untitled grimm feast
for sore hungry eyes -
ravenous writers
devour their characters
easily mindful, with or without consequence,
like true cannibals -
then once swallowed, reborn,
like burning birds in a story, their wings
downed freedom, or clipped
find a way to rise phoenix after phoenix
from within the fire of their depths,
to sing you sweetly back in,
into their throats, so, to speak,
repeating feasts, softly sponged
with treacle and tar, the feathers still stick
they spread their lives, like legs,
such trifles, such small delicacies
small crying poesies pop out and up
like strawberry jam in a dream
sliding out between alabaster abstracts,
transparent bodies of work – birthed
then,
the abysmal,
the assigned ghostings;
in absentia ashes like white feathers
like snowflake flags surrender
a fragile laced life released over the see
to take flight upon the salty breeze
then up into the dissipating clouds
moving open like a gate
the ghosts below, heart-blown
watch on, assessing
their time alone;
youth undressed
falling secrets, wanting,
Love blooms, the pretty song sings
later,
adorned in golden autumn leaves
still glistening with shining woody dew
begins bending seductively
towards the thin vain branches
of Winter,
melting into its conditional frosty eyes
of granite hewn blue
towards that true forest of communion
teasing catch-me-if-you-can-you,
then a cold warning – all is glass,
all is new manna
a clear feast
for sore hungry eyes,
feathery dreams of the heart,
pure and pristine, but
the mind
has a will all of its own making,
its own devilled considerations to succeed
the imminent emissary;
as snow-drift eyes are read
one melts like Jarlsberg
over their thorny hearts
into the arms of the marauding angel
the scent of violets and rose petals
and laudanum elicits tranquility
from the approaching storm -
the gurney on wheels
hushed urgency rolling fast
down well-lit dissinfected corridors
the distant sound
of intubators performing
their task like well-oiled automatons
needles and pins
count back from 100
oh for a decent hamburger
a much-wanted last meal
the hunger remains for it all,
it holds on, it holds on
let us make it gently
through that place
in between
the known and the unknown
one considers what
follows in between
bowing heads
let us take
a moment of silence;
the cold dream falls
upon the best and worst of us – all,
we take a little sleep
some of us do
and some of us don’t,
welcome “It” in
this is not a simple Frost falling,
even the straightforward is complex
and in the many words the unfound remains hidden, at best;
bleeding hearts are read
cored like fresh green apples
a large bite taken,
bittersweet moments
the red letting necessary
the green taste of youth
bites us back, untrusting;
That woman built a house
of straw and sticks
and the stories that burned within -
all consuming the titled prize;
the mind boggles
mysterious tomes
strange words
it’s all Medusa heads
and bluebeard tales,
heads begin to roll
very green very read
such strange words
enable us to transcend;
in the end,
the dead
by all means
find a way to sing again
through the lips
of others
speaking their words
they are passionately kissed
like the cold heart
of a Rose
seen through glass coffin
they are,
summoned,
awakened,
again
brought back from the dead
Candide Diderot.’25
“I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.”
(“A Minor Bird”/poet, Robert Frost)
“Though I have never caught the word
Of God from any calling bird,
I hear all that the ancients heard.
Though I have seen no deity
Enter or leave a twilit tree,
I see all that the seers see.
A common stone can still reveal
Something not stone, not seen, yet real.
What may a common stone conceal?
Nothing is far that once was near.
Nothing is hid that once was clear.
Nothing was God that is not here.
Here is the bird, the tree, the stone.
Here in the sun I sit alone
Between the known and the unknown.”
(“Nothing is Far”/poet, Robert Francis)
“She is as in a field of silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To every thing on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.”
(The Silken Tent/Robert Frost)
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
(Excerpt, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, Robert Frost)
see (is spelt as I want it spelt).
Copyright ©
Candide Diderot
|