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brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, free verse, inclusion, Law of Attraction, moving past cynicism, poetry, resistance, revisioning literal, The Corporate Storyteller, vibrational reality
I stare till my
words cross at
the slashing divide
between all I have
renounced and the higher
ground that waits, brightly
winks and beckons at
the other side of loving
what I’ve left behind
to denounce is
a half step, single foot
hovering, fig leaf that
covers arrhythmical
truths pushed as
literal by dealers
whose fault lines
are all I can see
to debunk locks
my Spirit, keeps
hostage alive like
pearls in a safe, like
butterflies pinned to
a board in an archive
defunded and closed
to the public for private
and lecherous eyes
and no other
what good my
partial nay? what
service to beauty
can I render when
instead of bedecking
unclothed what is me
with fumbling yet original
thought, I drag like an ox
a strongbox of lead that
holds the debunked, the
discredited pounding inside
with a heart fully loaded
and holstered and eager
to fire when the outermost
shows to my stuttering
visage all that’s
unwanted
within?
Do I care what
you’ve said, what
you’ve bled, what
you’ve read? Not
so much. Can I
stop when the flare
in my heart starts
to rise, and I fancy
a cause and the
fig leaf of shame
starts to flap and
the thought of my
loins being judged
in a public melee
sets a flame to
my tongue and I
ruin the game we
were playing
so well?
maybe
I look across
the great divide
with softer eyes
and start to lower
the foot now fatigued
to believe that I’m
seeing the only way
over to promising
land is to cast
every word to
the wind
except one
yes
~~~
© Elaine Stirling, 2013
–Image of Elora Gorge from
commons.wikimedia.org
This is really nice Elaine. You’ve mixed great geological imagery that is continental in scope with lots of early historical pictures , thrown in a little Biblical allusion and wrapped all of that up to make a statement about your artistic method and motivation. Each read reveals more of these subtle links that show the discerning reader glimpses into the mind of the dealer who poker facedly reveals to you your cards. It’s a privilege to sit at the same felt surface with you. Your varied line and stanza lengths help keep the interest level high as to what comes next. You have a very tricky way of dropping the last thought onto next lines that alters the direction of meaning. And your choice of the concept to retain is one I look forward to seeing more of the results of–yes! (Please excuse the composition of the last part of that sentence.)
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Thanks, Russel. One of the (many) things you’ve taught me re. poetry, via a pet peeve of yours, is to resist the temptation to write from the collective “we”. It feels safer to do so, to imagine that we’re all, lemming-like, trotting along with the poet’s screw-ups or whatever–but it’s FAR more powerful to own it with an “I” voice. Once that’s in place, the nefarious poet can then work in the occasional “you” and “we”, and the reader won’t put up much of a fuss. It’s conscious technique for me now…and a litmus test. If I can’t write in first person, the poem and the poet are not ready yet.
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To me
among the sweetest things of all
is someone saying
they have learned from you;
among the sweetest things of all
is knowing what you
have learned from them.
D. Russel Micnhimer 5-18-13 (Paraphrasing Stuart “Sid” Lyman)
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