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#bringingbacktheglosa, #GreyhartPress, Alain C. Dexter, brave new business leadership, circularity of glosas, Dead to Rights, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, glosa, Law of Attraction, moving beyond duality, perception, Rumi, The Corporate Storyteller, vibrational reality
“If there’s an abyss between what you promote and how you live, chances are, you’re screwing up both.” —Alain C. Dexter
~~~
My wailing is heard in every throng,
In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.
Each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings,
But not one fathoms the secrets of my heart.
—“The Song of the Reed Flute”, from the prologue to Book I of The Mathnavi by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (trans. E.H. Whinfield, 1898)
I could make it easy, pretend it was a dream;
those who fear fiction, you can think I made it up,
my meeting in the city with a man who brought a cup
nearly empty of its content and a page for me
to sign. Your yea or nay, they matter not, you’ve
earned the right to see what’s left, not wrong
or right but true. I looked inside; the granulated
residue of some disgusting potion lined the fine
bone china. The troubled feeling I had grew strong:
my wailing is heard in every throng.
Each of these bits of grit are what remains
of argument you think you’ve won by pressing
hard, suppressing. In the instant you believe
you’ve proved your point, its opposite springs up,
empowered by the deep and unexamined that
is no less you but learns, by need, to creep;
it lives denied, a madman seething in your attic.
As you strut along, laying dynamite to bridges
you still need, he conspires while you sleep
in concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.
So can we throw them out, these grounds,
I asked, grossed out, or do I have to drink them?
Neither, said the man, unless you harbour still
a taste for non-digestibles. The document he
pushed at me appeared to be the index of a billion
unresolvables: violence, corruption, slave rings,
romances unrequited, thoughtlessness, not
knowing what I want and settling for less. There
was no end, and I was having trouble breathing.
Each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings.
This list is yours? I hadn’t noticed until then
his nose looked rather beakish. They are
mountains made of glass, he said, caused
by lightning hitting deserts over time, for every
better feeling you’ve neglected kills the green.
I am in charge, but so are you, electric part-
icles of change. So will you sign them over
to me now? God, yes! I took the pen, he smashed
the cup. His final words before he flew shook me apart:
But not one fathoms the secrets of my heart.
~~~
If you enjoyed this glosa, you might enjoy an entire book of them, compiled by Professor Alain C. Dexter in a most peculiar way. Take a look here.
© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Simorgh, bird of divinity, from The International Conference of Quality Managers website
Oceantics 
Masterful!
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Thanks, Mikels!
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The glosas I’ve read from your pen hold such magic! Each hosts an ever-expanding universe for exploration no matter how many times I read them.
Thanks to the wizardry of words you have shown, I find myself searching and collecting 4 lines of verse from various poems, wondering which set will cradle a poetic story I haven’t yet imagined. My search so far seems predicated primarily by combing the poetry I read for the 4 lines that deliver an energetic zing.
Realistically though, are there other bits of criteria you have discovered relevant as you identify the poetry lines you will use as a foundation for your glosas? Am I right in assuming you would always extend the meter inherent in the original verse as the pattern for the lines you write?
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Creative, I’m delighted to hear the glosa has whispered in your ear too, and thank you for your kind comments. That search you are describing for four lines that give you an energetic zing is exactly the process. It’s as though you find each other across the years and centuries.
As for meter, I’m an intuitive poet who couldn’t hear iambs for years. I don’t do any formal counting in the glosa. Once I’ve identified the required rhymes for lines 6,9 & 10, I have my “blueprint”. If you’re well read in your master poet’s work and you have a first line for your piece–or even a few phrases, you can trust that your voices will harmonize. It’s an extension, after all, of that first zing.
I’m not well read in any poetry; prose was my stomping ground. I find, though, by spending a little time with a selection of your master poet’s work, you’ll pick up his/her rhythms–and their internal theme. Reading bios of them is helpful too. Once you have a 3-D version of them in your mind, it truly does turn into something like conversation or dancing..
I wish you great joy in your glosas, and please keep me posted.
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