Differently Christmased: A Villanelle

Tags

#icestorm2013, Christmas verse, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, medieval French fixed verse, villanelle

The corkscrew willow bends, a tiny bead
of ice falls to my palm, an ornament
of frozen grass, this season’s only need.

Some choose these days to slip away. Our greed
protests, deprived of habits of slow torment;
the corkscrew willow bends, a tiny bead.

Some bake and fuss according to a creed
passed down from bishoprics; a government
of frozen grass, this season’s only need.

Shoots of kindness rise beyond the screed
of incivilities that would resent
the corkscrew willow bends, a tiny bead.

What nation, church or temple has agreed
to soften and uphold heart’s parliament
of frozen grass, this season’s only need?

Let us, this once, adhere to Nature’s speed
of gratitude, good will, and merriment.
The corkscrew willow bends a tiny bead
of frozen grass, this season’s only need.

~~~

This poem is dedicated to the southern Ontario ice storm of 2013.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

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Castles our Imagination

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brave new business leadership, Elaine Stirling, magical realism, poetry, The Corporate Storyteller

Every room a mansion
we were promised, you and I,
with ceilings high enough
to float, a moat for fishing
and to draw fine bridges on;
vaults of redwood cross
the sky and firepits for roasting
meats and marshmallows
and villagers, communal
thought you’ve gathered who’ll
protect you with their lives—
these are the multitudes
and sum of you, resounding
to the borders and beyond.

You would create? Throw
off that cloak of sad apology!
What need have you of crawl
space? You are human-formed,
upright, and none of us is paid
enough to disabuse you of
the preludes and grim epilogues
you self-allot. Vermin, who would
rob you of your few remaining
crumbs—for Nature, she wastes
nothing—know not where your
treasure or fresh baking lie.

But you, my friend, somehow
forgot, so fixed upon what you
have not. The shadow puppet
show was but an afternoon—
reality’s gargantuan and brings
his own solutions in a bag of
beans. You have no fear
of large, have you?

And so, I send this letter
from my castle cross the skies
to yours, full knowing that
my dragon, freed now from
his dungeon, will navigate
between what clouds of
awkwardness remain or fly
straight through and zap them.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image is of Neuschwanstein Castle
in South Bavaria.

Lit by Grace

Tags

Elaine Stirling, form poetry, manifestation, seasonal verse, sonnets

Upon a mountain, ante-heroes feast
today, pre-eminent—no bullies, wimps,
or past tense lovers. Every element
is here, composed by fire and clay. The least
of us abjures reward and other gimps
like trying to please all. Our testament
unites! Divided hearts fear strategy,
but heroes true, we multiply—the more,
not less, the now, not then. Your politics
means nothing here; it’s positivity
creates, descends to valleys and the shore.
What happened long ago no longer sticks.
Lay down your righteous burdens. They’ve no place
amidst our celebrations lit by grace.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Double Shot with San Timoteo

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Elaine Stirling, ENS, enteric nervous system, nagual, narrative poetry, peristalsis, poetry, wisdom of the gut

Move me through
the rhythms of your bayou
sounding, gut me with
the slantwise look you learned
from gators in the swamp
who glide with mastery
the just-below, do nothing
to prevent you thinking
they’re a big ole log
—until you blink.

A spirit pushes
me along the Spanish
mossy river trails
marimba drips of fluid
hit the flow I used to see
and then forgot, there’s
forests growing in between
these green transparencies.

Borders of the demi-monde
they overcrowd with people
squinting into maps, patrolmen
triple-checking histories. Don’t
bother looking for me there, you
said. The ass end of not knowing
is the only Hydra head you have
to cut to build, to own the whole
dang labyrinth.

Letting go and getting lost,
they’ve never been a problem.
Other people’s had-it-up-to-here,
who made that your care?
The bayou’s silent millions
wrap their slippery boas
round us all and squeeze
with happy pink equality
what otherwise, if left
to stay, would kill us.

So now, canoas of Minatitlan
lie ready to traverse the Gulf
from me to you. I’m told the small
café along San Timoteo’s delta
is open year round. I’ll meet
you there at half past ten.
It’s called the Just Below.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling 2013
Image of bayou from http://www.addictedtorealitytv.com

The Onions Grew Like Lavender

Tags

early influences, Elaine Stirling, homage, Joan Manuel Serrat, Miguel Hernandez, poetry, Spanish poets

Is there any act
of courage greater
than to hold the beating
fragments of a million
disbelieving hearts?

To ride a tensile
tremolo with strength
sufficient to console,
to reach, revivify a poet
jailed outside your time
who could not reach
between the bars
of tyranny to feed
his starving wife
and infant son.

You could have sold
your gifts to low and
tawdry bidders, never
lived to see your music
heaped and burned in
bonfires, glamourized
and opting for a drugged
or alcoholic haze—instead
you sang of onions, all they
had to eat, of war, and
life absent a womb.

I was too young
to understand, my frigid
northern ear pressed close,
uncertain of your meanings,
captive nonetheless, I wanted
you to sing of kisses, but you
gave me only liberty and swallows,
and there was no one undeaf
enough to tell me that our
filaments of voice and cochlea
were binding, so they sank unheard
beneath the ocean floor, and I to
arid lands sailed on to spar with
other poetries and love, and
these I did—but not until the sea
delivered you last night to me
and pressed the poet’s words,
your music, to my lips, did I
remember how we met,
how deep the kiss, and
that the onions grew
like lavender that year.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

This poem is dedicated to the Spanish poet Miguel Hernandez (1910-1942), and Joan Manuel Serrat, singer, musician, poet, and one of Hernandez’s greatest interpreters. You can enjoy one of Serrat’s early concerts here. In future posts, I hope to share some of my own translations of Hernandez’s work.

Border Crossing

Tags

An approximation of Babylonian wisdom literature, Elaine Stirling, poetry, stories of Inanna

The following poem is an approximation of an ancient narrative genre known as Babylonian wisdom literature. Partly story, part didactic, faithful to the rhythms of language and mnemonics, wisdom literature, as far as I can tell, did not trouble itself with distinctions between fiction and history. A story was true because it resonated—that is to say, represented truly the hearts and minds of its speaker and listeners.

I envision the people of Sumer, who lived roughly 4000 years ago, as perceiving no separation between church and state, belief and fact. Sacredness lay at the core of everything and rippled outward with diminishing degrees of awareness. Anyone could find and live within his own center, and it was that freedom that contributed to millenia of near immeasurable plenty, hinted at in passages of Genesis.

The narrator of “Border Crossing” is a female temple attendant, fulfilling her shift at the city gates. Being less than thrilled with one’s job is nothing new. Contents of the following may not sit well with the excessively somber.

~~~

Merchant of hearts, I bid
you welcome. Gates to this
fair city close to none, the
temple walls bright glitter for
the jackal and the jurist, as for
trader and the slave. I am
compelled by grace of Queen
Inanna to anoint you with the
unguents contained between
these alabaster limbs, to feather
out the tangles of your wearied
thoughts with kisses, and betray
no sense between the sweetened
words I must by holy ordinance
deliver, of having known the
vicious nature of your touch.
Sister-peers in Nineveh have
paid the price for recognition
with their noses lopped, ears
for hearing gossip tossed into
the Tigris for the crocodiles.
You are, therefore—on this, I’ll
swear—as alien to me as if
you’d landed with the Annunaki
on that mythic ship they say
delivered Shumash.

But do let this, I pray,
be clear. If you believe
yourself entitled as some
do while in the wilderness
to creep into our woods
of cedar after dark and fell
a single tree, ten thousand
trunks will rise and have
no care for what or where
they might impale.

Climb the spiral
staircase of our most
beloved ziggurat without
Inanna’s sanction, and
you’ll learn the sharpened
melodies of lightning as
she courses through
your bloodstream on
her route to sea.

But if you should, with
circumspect humility
consent to tread this holy
ground disarmed, unshod,
all calcified conceptions
laid to rest, delights as none
you’ve known or dreamed,
abundance to the tenth
degree, with pleasures
and successes guaranteed
await with open arms
and undivided hearts.

Welcome, blessed
traveler, to Bab-El.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Street Mime

Tags

Elaine Stirling, fiction, narrative poetry

Outside the window
twelve floors down from
where I teach pliés
and catapults of word,
an outline drawn in chalk
is all that’s left of you,
who used to throw pretend
geraniums and roll your
eyes and clutch your heart—
all whimsy and delight, while
choosing with a housefrau’s
furrowed brow, invisible beneath
the white, which piece of fruit
from clustered grapes of women
you would seed and suck the
pleasure from that night.

The silhouette beneath
the tape suggests you’re
waving. I wish they’d drawn
a smile in, your crooked grin,
but cops, they are not
artists, after all.

I used to stand amidst
those crowds, an adulant
as fierce as Flemish infantry.
You used to tell me while I sponged
the greasepaint from your face
and hung your leotards to dry
that no one else but me could
hear the poetry beneath your mime.

Bargain basement flattery, I
know—raised to love a deal, I
ate it up! My budget knows few
limits now, but even then I should
have known, while dining on tinned
beans and kippers slightly off, alone,
that what you fed us with those
graceful moves contained
no nourishment.

The rain has washed
your final mime away.
Your widow and her creditors,
by now, I’m sure, have met.
I do not envy her, though
long ago, a silly pip, I’d
wished I was the one
who said, I do.

Across the street, a raisin—
did I say that?—I meant a woman
sits alone upon a bench. I know her
from your fading glory days; she
took my place as adjutant when,
at starvation’s door, my heart
packed up what rags and bones
of self-esteem I still could claim.
Like me, she used to clap and
glow on your behalf and pass
the porkpie hat, an act that
never changed until
one night.

If ghosts are real, perhaps
you saw, amidst the sirens
and the flashing lights, I stole
a bit of tape to hang above
my desk—black letters on a
yellow field: Do Not Cross.

Too late,
my wordless
friend. We did.

The woman on the bench
folds forward at the waist
and rubs her neck. I’m
hopeful that she’s ready
to move on, but no. She
straightens and she wipes
her eyes and giggles at the
moment of invisible geraniums.
She looks to see which nonexistent
rival in a crowd no longer there
has caught them, and her smile fades.

I tear the tape from
off the wall and
shut the blinds.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of street mime in Bruges,
Belgium, by kaydee, 2005

The Shape of Lips

Tags

a poem in the Libertine style, Elaine Stirling, light erotica

I am more vinegar than honey,
more bitters than a cordial sweet.
If cloying be your style, mine
will trouble you; if woebegone
lament and threnodies accompany
your day, my suite of nocturnes,
seldom humble, will appall, or worse.

Between what you ignore and I
explore, lurk imps deploring vacuums,
primed to sketch in fine blue clefs
at crows’ feet and the disapproving
lip, tattoos of hexes that ensure
your paths and mine repel
and never cross again.

If, on the other hand, a vinaigrette
upon a bed of greens doth please
you, a vermouth of high degree
to your dry gin should call to mind
a rendezvous, sublime is what
I can assure, for God in His right
Heaven hath created me and you
in His uniting image, and there is
no procreating goes amiss, except
as those would limit: in the face
of them, my lips, moistened
and intent these many years
upon your kiss, would turn away.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Interlace of Prose and Poem: A Creative Exercise

Tags

creative exercise, Dangerous Liaisons, Elaine Stirling, French libertine literature, parodies of self-pity, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, poetry and prose

Many posts ago, I had some fun inserting lines of my own into Romantic sonnets as a sort of dialogue and voice-practicing exercise. You can find the first one here. I heard later that in the rush of purists trying to escape, a thousand and one innocent iambs were trampled.

Purists, you were warned then. You are being warned again.

The demarcation between prose and poetry, I believe, is not nearly so precise as Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press would have us believe. The best prose always leans toward poetic, and I include here journalism, while line breaks and stresses belong as much to the reader as the poet.

At the moment, I am luxuriating in the aristocratic prose of 18th century French libertines. The word libertine, incidentally, was coined by John Calvin to describe anyone who objected to his view of Life As No Fun At All, Ever, because God sees everything you’re going to do wrong, and heaven or hell are pre-ordained. (I may have to interlace him one day for the hell of it.)

My current favourite libertine is Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, author of Dangerous Liaisons, whose writing keeps me, more or less, in a perpetual swoon. I have selected an excerpt of his prose which I present here, first, in its original translation by P.W.K. Stone. Next, I will rearrange the lines into poetic form, interlaced with my poetic response, italicized. Finally, I will allow my small poem to stand on its own.

~~~

Do not leave me in the delirium into which you have thrown me; lend me your reason, since you have deprived me of mine. When you have cured me, enlighten me so that your work will be complete. I have no wish to deceive you: you shall never succeed in conquering my love. But you will teach me to control it. Guide me in what I do; rule me in what I say, and you will at least spare the terrible misfortune of offending you. Banish, above all, that desperate fear.

~~~

Do not leave me in the delirium
of strangling oak and fen
into which you have thrown me
primeval Nature’s sorest tests,
lend me your reason
beyond the mortal-made wherein I wander,
since you have deprived me of mine,
banished of possession with hopes
when you have cured me
beyond forestalled futile labours,
enlighten me so that your work will be complete:
let my thoughts to higher ground be firmed.

I have no wish to deceive you:
Truth diluted catches at the throat.
You shall never succeed in conquering my love
like watered wine—what is the point of tasteless?
But you will teach me to control it
through neglect of interest in the caged.
Guide me in what I do;
vastness does not shrink herself.
Rule me in what I say,
allow this anarchy of absence,
and you will at least spare the terrible misfortune of offending you
freed of overquotes from gospels of desperation.
Banish, above all, that desperate fear.
Grief has never suited you, nor me.

~~~

Of strangling oak and fen
primeval Nature’s sorest tests
beyond the mortal-made wherin I wander,
banished of possession with hopes
beyond forestalled futile labours,
let my thoughts to higher ground be firmed.

Truth diluted catches at the throat
like watered wine—what is the point of tasteless?
Through neglect of interest in the caged,
vastness does not shrink herself.
Allow this anarchy of absence
freed of overquotes from gospels of desperation.
Grief has never suited you, nor me.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

Advent

Tags

Elaine Stirling, poetry

Slender hopes arrive
in multitudes, in robes of
tattered burlap torn from
sacks of plundered aid.
The tips of assegais score
puncture marks across our
backs, I feel their sting,
the runnels of our drying
blood like camouflage,
like crimson prison bars
proclaim, behold
the stateless ones!

I do not lead.
I do not fall
behind.

What I cradle in
these sticks of arms
whose muscles I once
wasted by the fruitless
toil of a scratching endless
in a dirt that wasn’t mine
requires me to stand
amidst and walk within
a blinding light.

With every press
of sole to crumbling
ground, my nation group
and I, we listen less to
replication of an infant’s
cry; those snaking words
that rattle-hiss of lust
and tragedy, they feed
like manna now and then
a sickly sweet, but
give no rise.

Scarcely do we
glance or taste, so
close we are.

The land that promises
a sea that swells, an air
that clears, these are the signs
we hear and heed, the belly
of the child resting near my
heart contains the fire—Me?
I’m nothing but a refugee,
a void assembled mostly
in the center of
a wandering holy ghost.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of the assegai tree
from jenesaisquoiwoodworking.com