Post Iarus ad Didascalicum
For free, handing out poems on the street,
E’en the reading man disliked my stuff:
“When all is black it’s y’all who lack sight’s ability,
For nothing has no hues, like sterility.”
He suggested a medium treat
Meant of all that which I love.
The musician who in underemployment wallows,
Reveals his enjoyment such as follows:
Beauty, though whole, is expressed in privational difference,
So I love all poems, even libational limericks.
Beauty’s true identity is metaphysical music,
So I love communication absent language, flesh lucid.
Even film, writing, fashion–beauty in sounds and images
Are music too when their power isn’t viewed as limited.
So I love art, especially the finest work of them all–
The world! God’s gift to himself, wherefrom the clench of evil’s jaw
Was birthed. Without it we could see no good. Made separate from God,
We only see beauty limited. We (not Him) have a job.
We of two natures, being and not, have choice of life or death.
Most choose the latter, scared of what crouches in between breaths,
But this is foolish. When death dies life goes back to where it’s from.
If life and death are love and fear, it’s clear to know which to want.
So I’ll tell you what love to love, it starts within the body–
Walking, dancing, shouting; muscles aching and noses snotty;
When the heart beats so fast that it is felt inside of the head,
Or the calm serenity of limbs working to make a bed;
Tripping and falling and breaking the skin while playing a sport,
Or granting legs mobility by in summer wearing shorts.
Whether cooking or eating, in pleasantries or pain, know this:
Inside all the sensations of the body is where love is.
Next comes language–mindless nonsense as the philosopher knows.
Into the heart and not the brain do spoken and written word go.
Schizophrenically, sounds are thought to have a concrete meaning;
Really, they lie prostrate before us as a mirror gleaming.
What is intimated to others as hateful derision
Can bring joy to another listener; it’s their decision.
“My left toe respires as watches the wall friend Mary Sue,”
Could drive one to suicide, to another is “I love you.”
So hear as you wish. Speak from the stomach. Remain undaunted.
If love is in each word, evil loses his rhodomontade.
Whereof nature–plants and animals and flying and creeping things,
Mountains and valleys, the ocean and creeks? All together sing.
The sting of a wasp can be read as a novel encounter.
Flies can be released from your house without death or disaster.
Trees rustling and creaking in the wind is a song made by two,
And if he caves in your roof be glad that nature has touched you.
The sun beating down on a crow which makes him scream and holler
Also drives you to the store, buying beer with your last dollar.
And I hope you didn’t think that we were outside of nature.
There’s no demarcation between those whose lack the same crater,
For we all spend our days extracting desires from planet Earth.
Even the machines are singing, because they know well their worth.
Have you ever heard of “Landslide?” It’s a song by Fleetwood Mac;
It’s a cover of the same song rocks play thrust down mountains' backs.
You have permission to love violence, for it resides in us all.
There is no good and evil, right and wrong; there is only law.
When God made the world He put no evil in it, just difference.
Fullness is forbidden in this life–don’t you try to spin it
Into some nasty narrative about getting all that you want.
Pain is the cost of enforcing distinguishment. Being blunt,
There is no purpose to feeling despair–everything is art,
Which is really the first link in the chain, acting as a start
From art, which is beauty, which is music, which, indeed, is love,
Which is life, which is being, which is our God above.
But there is that which I love most of all: those poor in spirit.
Who read and saw the Word but never had the chance to hear it.
Those hurt, taken from, found in circumstances unrequested.
Those on whom violence has a toll but go on unmolested.
They will inherit all the knowledge to see that which is love,
Which is the Earth, which is God, who is the stars, which is enough.