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Carlos Debattista Poem
To a perfectly perfect stranger
met on a time on the river bank
I asked a simple question,
“How should I live my life
and live life to the full?”
He smiled at me, His eyes dark, wise and weary,
hair of a time weathered gray,
his life charted across his face.
In a voice coarse as the shifting sands, He said
Let your heart be as the wondering wind,
that passing over lands and seas,
mountains and deserts,
takes unto itself the flavor of each and all
yet never surrendering itself to any,
never staying to dwell in any part
but rather giving freely of itself to all in equal measure.
Bearing with it seeds, to bloom,
taking with it a taste of all that it might touch.
Giving of itself freely but
taking only that which is freely given.
Laughing, sighing, roaring and singing,
growing and changing yet at heart always the same.
At heart, be as the wind, He said.
Let your soul be as the deepening seas,
vast, unfathomable, its’ darkest depths unreachable.
A place of mystery and wonder, terror, despair,
yet golden and glittering when touched by the sun,
with silver fire burning, when touched by the moon.
At times at peace, at times full of tumult,
your cradle, temple, your grave.
To every shore reaching, that which is of itself,
being everywhere, and all the rivers and streams of the world
shall, in time lose themselves in it, and become of it,
and it shall grow, and broaden and deepen,
its temperament governed by the wind,
but always it shall mirror the unchangingskies.
In spirit, be as the seas, He said.
Let your mind be as the open skies,
that know no bounds, that ascend ever upwards,
that dwell on all that is, for all that is,
is but a part of them or hangs within them.
For having no beginning and no ending, and
knowing no definite boundaries,
they can lay claim to all, and they sustain all
or are themselves sustained by all.
The stars, the moon, the sun,
sky and more sky,
and the more that is revealed of it,
The less of it is known and seen,
and the grander the scheme of things.
For it is not only that which is known that must sustain you,
but rather that which is yet to be discovered
In mind be as the skies, He said.
But in body, be as the earth
that holds a something of all that is and was, within it’s bosom.
And of all that shall become, it is only too eager to learn.
Be as the earth that in humility suffers all to thread
upon her breast and is ever smiling at the skies,
enduring the whims of the wind,
the wrath of the seas, the ever changing mood
of fickle seasons, ever changing, ever passing.
Humblest and lowliest yet mightiest.
Holding together the fabric of all that we are
or might ever possibly become; a home, a sanctuary.
The holiest of temples, the lowliest of dens.
Mirroring us, sustaining us in all our guises.
In body be as the earth, He said.
Then go, seek out a pool of clear waters,
Deep and clear, dark and still.
Therein shall you see the truth and learn,
For then shall you stand as an oak tree in a forest,
tall, proud and mighty! Magnificent
Your head held high, to the skies reaching.
Your arms stretched wide into the winds, far spanning.
By rivers swift sustained, tumbling and rolling,
Chasing the unending seas,
Yet always, firmly rooted
In Earth
Carlos DeBattista
30/08/01
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
Cry Wolf
Searchingly,
I peered into your sky painted eyes
without fully understanding what I might find,
but finding that which I might never fully understand.
And now,
My heart is adrift,
like flotsam ,hopelessly adrift.
And the wind that blows is cold,
and the wind that blows is heartless.
And it is governed by circumstance and prejudice,
and fear and scorn and anger and regret and guilt.
And yet more fear, more scorn, more and more of all
that we are not.
But alas, as sheep we must follow that dark shepherd,
though in truth he be but the piper and we be but mice.
We can see the sun setting beyond the jagged headland.
We can smell the sharp scent of the seas.
We can feel its’ cold, cutting spray on our faces.
We can feel the ghastly chill crawling up towards us.
All these things we know, yet still we follow
like sheep and mice.
But Oh, were I but a Wolf.
Then gladly would I hold you as my Moon!
More beautiful than the stars.
Brighter than the sun when the sky is day,
but only to me that gladly shuns the sun.
Oh to be as the wolf, you my Moon,
Smiling, taunting, mocking me,
Unreachable, untouchable, unapproachable,
But There! There and always there for me to sing to
To rage to, to cry, to howl, to weep to and to sing to, there, there,
There; mine though not mine but there for me.
But in truth I am as the Wolf,
And my world is now a heartless Tundra.
I that must thread over ices chill,
through vast open meadows that end only in sky,
ending where they first began, leading me nowhere.
Threading over vast empty spaces yet going nowhere,
For I am a searching soul,
I am a Wolf,
Searching for a moon that no longer shines,
But rather stands painted in a sky tainted by the sallow
Glow of her own dim indifference.
Like the liar’s moon she sits
guarded behind the ethereal shawl
Of her self spawned convictions.
Safe, safe in the false notion of numbness.
Safe in a sanctuary of rosebud expectancy.
Awaiting only the rising of the Sun,
Hoping that with the Sun, she may relieve herself of the sky,
So that the searching Beast might search for her no more,
yet not realizing that only by searching,
might He find himself,
And only by gracing the darkness of his heavens,
may She, the Moon know the true joy of full purpose.
For it is purpose which nourishes the human soul.
It is the mead of the spirit, like soil to the seed,
sunlight and rain to the sapling oak
that must needs grow to the heavens.
For what is love other then a fullness of purpose?
The will to surrender all for but a smile,
A willingness to waste away knowing
That the reward shall be but a sparkle
In a beloved eye.
I am a Wolf.
You are my Moon, and forever shall it be so.
But I will not lay claim to love,
for that I have done before though rashly.
Foolishly and perhaps too eagerly,
When as yet too young, too little knowing of
That which too little understanding,
I was too little in giving, giving too little,
If little more then none at all.
Bur this I can say, and shall say, as must say
with full conviction. With an open mind,
A clear heart and a soul all for you to,
hold, to heal and if you will to scorn!
I am a Wolf,
And you hold within yourself
The fullness of my purpose.
In you I am completely complete,
So completely dazzled by you as to
Stand in complete wonder of you,
A smile on my face, a tear in my heart,
A river in my soul, though around me be only
the cold, barren mountains.
Above me,
Only the starless sky,
Within me,
But a longing for the Moon.
Carlos
31/08/01
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
Analysed
In pieces,
A broken mirror
Splinters of reflection leering at the sky,
Dry and lifeless,
Gasping, drowning in a dingy flood
A river, a tempest, a storm
Forlorn.
'You are the fragile one' she told me,
you smiled and clutched my hand.
'You are the fragile one' she said,
I smiled as you clutched my hand,
Did you understand?
Fragile?
Me?
Yes but in what sense?
Glass is fragile, and so is crystal,
Porcelain too and so are you.
Was it not you that cried,
Was it not I that died, inside.
I tried, God knows I tried,
I tried to be there for you and us and her,
Unsustainable, improbable
So sad inside,
So black, so oppressive
Nowhere to hide
From the beast within.
But remember Niagara?
You chased squirrels through the lens,
In a sense, we were happy then,
Juts you, just me.
I remember the garden, I always will
The rings at our fingers,
Were a light burden then,
The flame wreathed eye
As yet unaware of our meagre presence.
I miss you and what we were or could have been,
I see it in her eyes, the last shreds
What little remains.
I can almost here you laughing still,
When your laughter was that of a girl
And the woman in you was but
a butterfly drunk on pollen and sky,
why?
Why did it have to be this way?
Was it all my doing?
Was it me to kill the light of you?
Was it my darkness that thrust you into shadow?
I cannot say, I do not know,
but I feel it to be so.
And that hurts,
And it is worst when I see her,
So happy, so free,
So much of you, in her,
So much of me.
Afraid.
She might become too much like me
Or too much like you,
Ideally let her be like us,
The better part of us and what we once were,
The better part of me, the better part of you,
In her.
Carlos
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
A Pilgrim
(A song for 'Dia')
I come here at night's edge,
This parlour of hidden shadows
Questing for
Some measure of solace
From the bible black grind
Of mundane despair.
She is wearing white,
Tonight,
My Magdalene
My source of wonderment,
Thunder child
Storm raven
My crucible of momentary Eden
We are all searchers in the end
All weary marchers
Down the long winding road
From the cradle to the grave
Lovers poets fighters and slaves
Lords at midsummer
Winter's bedraggled paupers
God you are even more beautiful then I recall
The Raven woman
Speaks in tongues
Many faced
Multifaceted
Her magpie soul
Joyfully treacherous
Am I the fool
Prowling after true love
In this tangle of thorns
Where carrion children
Play and frolick
Over the bones
Of heroes fallen
And hope forlorn?
Tonight the storm child
Is screaming
My heart pounds a battle song
My soul sings the dirge
Of princes
Bereft of kingdom and country
Queen and cause.
What have we come to my brothers?
I love this sweetly rotting humanity
This slowly withering dream
That aspires to utopia
But falls short on emotion.
I am the lost soul
No harbour no anchor
No star to navigate by
drifter storm tossed
My back has been broken
My spirit quelled
The poet in me muted
Dead in life
Diminished.
Valletta
City of a thousand echoes
City of heroes
In the dead of night
Streets are silent
Empty, pristine
Clean
In a fractured sort of way
So perilous as to
Chill the clear heart
And scar
The unready soul
And her name
Is mystery
Wherein lies her power!
Carlos
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
(To the Spartan Queen)
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra via
Mi inoltrai in una selva oscura
‘They drive horses down this hill’
She said,
‘They take them to drink down there, that pool, there’
She said it as though it mattered
As though I should care,
And it was dark and it seemed deep
And I thought,
‘I wonder if it is safe. ’
Knowing that it was not.
She played with a shock of hair,
Jet black shimmering
Turning it round and round
Coiling it about her finger
Pulling at it, tugging it to shreds
My heart, about her finger
As though it had been hers to tear.
And her eyes were all smiles
And her smile was jagged
And I saw myself falling
Down steep slopes to where
The horses were drinking
Knowing I should not be there
Not wanting to be there
Too near, too near the water.
She stood on the banks
Gazing at me with a frown
Petulant and childish in her scorn,
Wrathful like a storm brooding
Behind sunshine smeared on blue
Me and her, and you
But where are you now?
Where were you when I needed you?
The witch looked at me and smiled,
‘Are you afraid of me?’
She asked,
I smiled, I lied, well I tried,
“No, I’m not, certainly not”
She smiled, held it for a while
as a flight of gulls slid across the sun
vanished behind the moon
losing themselves
a brood of angry cloud came by,
‘You lie’ she said, ‘I see it in your eyes’.
Alexander the great reached India
Only to die,
Flow away without a trace
Away to immortality and oblivion.
Not all his men could save him,
All the king's horses all the kings men
Could not put Humpty together again.
'what are you thinking?'
Her voice is like a death knell
In her eyes the pall of squandered yesterdays,
how I did waste it all.
'What are you thinking?'
'Nothing much'
'That is not what your eyes tell'
she lifts her hand to her face,
a sable cuff rolls down arms like alabaster
skin like the grave,
fingers, ash stumps from depleted cigarettes,
on the verge of snapping and breaking,
so frail.
'Tell me what you're thinking?'
she persists, I turn to her, fix her with a stare,
'I am thinking of this moment, of how to escape it
and you, all that you are and all that we can never be,
all that I want and cannot have,
all that I have but cannot want,
all that is you,
all that is me
all that you and me can never be
where there is no us,
all is lost when found
and found only to be lost again!
There, now you know',
I said.
She is gone,
Faded like mist fades
Washed away like an easy stain
The smell of rain and pine,
When she was mine,
Rain falls on dark waters.
What nonsense
What bland, absolute nonsense,
This poem, this emotion
Humbug.
They drive horses down this hill,
To drink;
One fell, broke his legs beneath him
and died,
at least for a little while.
Carlos
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
Lost
She is all purpose this one,
Desperate in her passions
Wild and perilous
Moods akin to seasons in extreme
Her humor, an ocean
Roiling, rolling
Continuous movement
Treacherous
False faced and abysmal
Hearty and splendid
Terrible and opaque
Yielding nothing
None of its deep seeded truth
Beautiful on the surface
Shimmering
Golden under sunlight
Silver in moonshine
But dark, deep,
Seething and terrible
Beneath.
She sells sea shells on the seashore…..
And throws a tantrum or two
Eyes of sky
Turn to ice
Poetry, to venom.
In the garden she walks
midst the multicolored beds
of slowly wilting flowers
the serpent ever watchful
while her hero sleeps
blissful and unaware
happy in his ignorance
mighty in his folly
king of his world
dismembered by his own Member
upstart idol, cyclopean god.
Rage lends her beauty
And her wild fury
Madness.
There is futility in her ways
Like a reed to every wind
This way that way
Swaying
I see no truth
Only lies on lies
Until
Standing at the height of a pyramid
One sees all but knows nothing
Only murky horizons and gloom laden skies
In her eyes
I see reflection
Upon her tongue
Sits a stranger.
To Babel I came
In the noon hour of spring
And they all spoke in tongues
So there was no understanding between us.
Yet in the first we were like brothers
Knew one another from a crowd of millions
Chose to walk astride each other
Against the flow
Braving the tide
Until wearied by toil
We were washed away
And lost.
Carlos
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
This island rock,
Heart unbeating
In cold stone entombed
Where nothing grows but the endless gloom
And the glimmer from a distant flame
Is all that remains
Of the day.
We come to you
With a restlessness in our hearts
A nameless yearning
A wondering eye
A questing soul
We come to you with questions
That have no answers
But are in themselves
The beginning and end
Cause and effect
Of all that we are and do
Aspire, fear, yearn for and spurn
We see it in the mirror
Every day it is there
Staring….empty eyes, silent lips
Hearts;
Deadened into mute surrender
By the droll of unthinking existence
And the grind of unrelenting time.
We come to that which is beyond the grasp of time
You that belong not to this age
Though in many ways
We are one of a kind
You that gazed out from ramparts tall,
Before the tears, before the fall
You that wept, you that rejoiced
And prayed and raged and stood firm
You that sired over all
And as the day fell to twilight
And the day failed as hope did fail
You alone stood tall.
Carlos
03/06
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
I’d fallen in love with my own innocence,
With the memory of all I had been
With the prospect of all that I could become.
And she was much like a raindrop,
Akin to fire, and waters swift
And for a space I was her ocean
And as a raindrop to an ocean,
She lost herself in me and I in her.
But come the rainbow,
To the heavens she returned
From where her eyes might feast
On all the world unbound.
And from that distance even an ocean,
May seem but a shallow pool, nay
A puddle, depthless and dirty.
And from that distance even a mountain,
May seem but a little more than, sand upon sand,
And from the rainbow, she saw the sunlight,
And sunlight fell upon distant shores,
And glimmering with golden fire
New waters shimmering, filled her eyes,
And I, her ocean, who now dwelt in shadow,
Was lost to her heart.
And from the rainbow, her heart in wonder,
Was lost to me, forever.
And only now are my eyes finally open,
Never an ocean, only a puddle,
And come the sun, the golden sun,
I shall fade away and be no more,
I shall quietly pass, and chase raindrops no more.
Carlos
23/08/01
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
This hole in my breast
Hollowed out
by the pointless drilling
of empty thoughts
that go nowhere
and lead to nothing.
Shapes dance before my eyes
Ghosts from a stolen moment
Wraiths of smoke and cold air
Echoing the cradle, heralding the grave.
It feels like I'm walking over broken glass
Shoeless and without direction
Going round in circles upon broken glass
My life.
My life is this,
A slow crucifixion
Screws in place of nails,
A slow churning and grafting into meat.
I, unwilling messiah
Must bear the brunt of sins
Trussed upon me by the sinful
Trussed upon me by those that came before
Slammed the door of hope in my face
Left me cold, scalded and blinded in the dark
Of their failed hopes and stunted dreams.
This hole in my heart
Is my humanity;
It defines me
And makes me definite.
Carlos
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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Carlos Debattista Poem
I come to my senses a little every day,
to lose myself with the morning.
I have no country and know no flag
My morality, in body bags
lies at the foot of the stairs,
under the sputtering oil lamp
my grandfather first lit in infancy.
A tiger moth flutters,
Beats its wings as it beats its forehead
Hot glass, burning flame, searing light
Gloomy foot steps echoing down the corridor
Half closed doors, half open windows
Half told lies, half buried truths
As the wind blows through
A song of echoes, a hiss of regret
The rain, the rain
Cleanses all, changes all
Seasons.
Autumn comes,
the brown fog of a reluctant morning
in the wake of recalcitrant night
under the jibes of the moon
the scorn of the sun
taunting.
Haunting, everything so haunting
So tauntingly inviting
So indifferent to anything relevant
Relevant but distant
Distant and transient
Everything real but not real enough
Like a dream that is not a dream
But a misted reality
Under the brown fog of morning.
My heart is a red rock
My soul is waste
My mind, bridging the Styx
A paradox of simple complexity
Bridging worlds inside worlds,
rooms without windows, doors without walls,
fields of scarecrows to scare away fertility
'Mother, oh mother why have you forsaken me?'
Is this it? My legacy, my Eden?
A field of burgeoning mushrooms
A grove of wilting vine
Mine, mine, mine,
A horror, a nightmare,
But mine.
Carlos
Copyright © Carlos Debattista | Year Posted 2013
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