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Tag Archives: Alain C. Dexter

Two Zero One Nine, Do You Read Me?

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Alain C. Dexter, Canadian poet, Elaine Stirling, glosa, medieval Spanish fixed verse

~~a glosa~~

We stand on the far promontory of centuries!
What is the use of looking behind us
since our task is to smash
the mysterious portals of the impossible?

—“Futuristic Manifesto”, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti
~~~ 

Everything’s progression. You and me,
we’re both respective tips of blades
made sharp—or dull— by “Father looked
at life like this, and mother that, so I…” 
And if we die sans heirs, we all still
influence. Creation grinds our vagaries
to dust beneath my feet and frees
me from the appetite to disagree.
Keep up or don’t. Like Etruscan sentries,
we stand on the far promontory of centuries,

contributing with earthy bits and pieces
to terroir that grows a wine particular
to you, I find abrasive or a sickly sweet,
and yet, I’ll creep at night to taste again, in case
I missed some subtlety, and by a single peep
my concave/convex lens adjusts. It grinds us
into sharper focus or like plates tectonic
grates and makes distinct new continents:
Pangaea, panacea, panegyrics, all blinds us.
What is the use of looking behind us

if dread and praise have lock stepped 
so that nothing good I say to you
is heard, and every unintended slight
cuts to the bone? We’ve split apart 
and there’s a fact that oceans of affinity
will never trouble to correct. You dot, I dash,
we are a code no more in vogue, a set
of peeves like kitchen knives whose history
provokes no interest, even less of cash.
Since our task is to smash, 

as far as I can tell, the misbelievers
of their woebegotten truths so there’ll be
less of them, it stands to reason that by leaving you
to tilt your mills and me to grind my axes,
some third construct of our selves will
circumlocute to an axis made more plausible,
dare I say fun, with extra-sensate lubricants.
Meanwhile, the new year, like a chariot, rolls in,
its wheels, friction-free, making audible
the mysterious portals of the impossible.

~~~ 

Filippo Marinetti (1876-1944) was a poet and founder of the Italian Futurist movement. His work is brash and energetic and crackles with outrage. If Marinetti were alive today, social media would be all over him, and we’d be making or breaking friendships based on our alliance. Love it or loathe it, Post-modernism, too, will be history one day.

The image comes from a deck of inspirational cards called Art Oracles. This glosa proves to me they work. 

© Elaine Stirling, 2018

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A Habit of Living

19 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Alain C. Dexter, Canadian poet, early feminist thought, Elaine Stirling, medieval Spanish form poetry, poetry of New Spain, Sor Juana de la Cruz

~~a glosa~~

To perceive you so exalted
does not impede my boldness;
that there resides no certain deity
upon the arrogant sole of thought.

—“My Divine Lysis”, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

I’ve made a habit of living
in beautiful places
of the mind, eschewing
bored walks in favour
of weathered planks along
a beach. I have been faulted,
as have you, for over-stretching
what is plausible and then go slack,
however much I wanted
to perceive you so exalted.

For a time, it seemed,
we held each other’s fondest
hopes like plover’s eggs,
my palm in yours, so trusting.
Life outgrows itself. I grew,
but you took coldness
as your guide, descending
to a squalor that, by living low
proves wrongly that I love you less
does not impede my boldness

in these words I write
expecting you might stumble
in this season to a glorified
and kinder reason.
Sweet decay of all that’s ill-
conceived by gravity
will one day rise again
in freshening your pessimistic arc
some god will tip and know with levity
that there resides no certain deity

for certainty, as every dancing
angel knows is diamond tipped,
a needle, while your camel’s eye
toward bleak and arid one day
must allow for rain and joy and hopes
for humankind. That’s all we’ve got
for now, my love. Fare well. I long
for you to hear the bells I ring,
conceding what you’ve wrought
upon the arrogant sole of thought.

~~~

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695) was an outspoken mystic and scholar who lived in New Spain, present-day Mexico. The form of this poem, a glosa, honours a quatrain excerpted from her work. Glosas were popular in medieval Spain, and I’ve been in love with them for about eight years now. I wrote an entire book of glosas, which you can find here if you’re interested.

A note on her title: Lysis is defined as disintegration and decline. Assigning divinity to what might be perceived as negative speaks volumes, I believe, for de la Cruz’s worldview. Here is the selected quatrain in its original:

Que mirarte tan alta,
no impide a mi denuedo;
que no hay deidad segura
al altivo volar del pensamiento.

Merry Christmas, all!

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2018
Translation of Sor Juana de la Cruz, “La Divina Lysis” by Elaine Stirling
Image of Leuty Lighthouse: photographer unknown

The Tangled Sea

23 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

≈ 6 Comments

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Alain C. Dexter, Elaine Stirling, medieval Spanish fixed verse, narrative poetry

002

A Glosa

He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat
against the stinging blast;
he cut a rope from a broken spar
and bound her to the mast.

—“The Wreck of the Hesperus”, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In the moribund night of a waning moon
on the crags of an island known as Doon
o’ Fara, moves the shadow of a weaver
from thatchéd hut to cliffs of spray and salt.
By day she spins and knits complicated
garments for the discerning and remote.
By all accounts, her wealth cannot be touched
or measured, though she started life as
property of one they called the Stoat.
He wrapped her warm in his seaman’s coat

and circled her, resentful, day and night.
Whate’er she thought or dreamed, he knew.
He brought her sprigs of violet and skeins
of tangled wool to while away her hours.
He filled her head with tales of dread and
disappointment that sealed her like a cast.
You are my legacy, he’d croon. When I am gone,
you’ll carry on my song of life’s depravity,
wrapped firmly in the wisdom of my past
against the stinging blast.

The weaselly man he traveled far, indulging
endless appetites. To ease his welcome home,
he filled the holds of ships with ivory bits and
wooden masks in such vast quantities that
Fara could not move inside her thatchéd prison.
Some folk say she clubbed him with a bar
of solid gold; others say he met his end
in polar realms—who knows? One day,
she hired a young man home from war.
He cut a rope from a broken spar

and built a sledge, and together they expunged
all traces of the dark controlling Stoat. With every
discard off the cliffs, her mind became more spacious.
The young man went his way, and she, devoted
to the doon, mastered patterns of abundance from
the roiling wind and sea. Eons since have passed,
and only in the darkening moon are glimpses of the
weaver seen. But on certain icy twilights, you may
catch the whiff of him who, loathing freedom, cast
and bound her to the mast.

~~~

You can learn more about the medieval Spanish form called glosa here.

© Elaine Stirling, 2015

there are no lost amigos

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by elainestirling in Poetry

≈ 5 Comments

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Alain C. Dexter, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, glosa, Jack Kerouac, medieval Spanish fixed verse, poem for the New Year

Lost Amigos

~ a glosa in three parts ~

contact between you &
God means no church,
no society, no reform,
& almost no relationships,
& almost no hope in
relationships—but
kindness of hope inherent
in that what is good,
shall live & what is
bad, dies—Your
flesh will be a husk,
but yr. soul a star—

—from Jack Kerouac, Book of Sketches, Oct. 31, 1952

~~~

I

I see you’ve lined up
yr bottles for tonight’s
obliteration, hoping for a
hit, some kind of catapult,
another dis-appointment with
old friends & lovers banned
from sobriety. Let me tell you
now, friend, there are no
lost amigos, only grand
contact between you &

incomplete, you say,
without that special someone
every day a seek
& almost find, that time
in Jalisco if you hadn’t been
blind drunk, the search
would be long over, yeah?
insatiable she was,
only her crucifix made you lurch
God means no church

but enough about me—
how’s life treating you?
Have you learned yet
to take a compliment,
or does that old leather
strop torn
from its nail in the woodshed
still reek of bay rum?
do you still bleed his scorn?
no society, no reform

I’ve been there, I know.
All that shit between pretty
covers with my name
on it, I scrounged hard
from railyards—rusty
I-beams and wet pine chips
for a bed, alone
now I’m practically a saint—
all those women, a few drips,
& almost no relationships

II

so here’s the thing—
there are no dead poets
there is no dead anything
sure, mountains are melting
& a certain green salamander
won’t be unfurling her thin
pink tongue for termites anymore—
but it’s not yr doing; she’s done
here for now, a slow grin
& almost no hope in

wishing your fellow man
were not so immune
to yr discontent.
Life seems easier
when you can stir up
guilt in yr little grass hut
like a pot of beans
on low simmer—
hell, you can’t shut
relationships—but

you can confuse yourself
over & over like those old wooden
paddle toys with rubber ball
attached—k’bonk, k’bonk, k’bonk,
what’d I do? what’d I do? what’d I do?
short answer: nothing. A fine gent
you are, always will be.
Inner space, same as outer,
nothing lost, mis- or unspent,
kindness of hope inherent

but you’ve heard all this—
smoked it & wrote it
& sold it to a few
worse off than you. Maybe
it’s time to clear off those
shelves. They’ve been yr hood,
yr holy armor, for how long now?
No one wants a soldier with flat
feet. Letting go’s the only rood
in that what is good

III

So. Make friends with emptiness.
Yesterday’s om and a planet’s
worth of mountaintops
won’t save yr bored soul.
Practice saying, I am deep
& meaningful, leave the biz
of others to others
never ask them why
believe love and genius
shall live & what is

is. There’s no other
tense and no better
way to let go the tension.
Stop gluing name tags
to intolerance—gluten, lactose—
give up keeping score;
everything you look at
multiplies—boom, ka-ta-boom!
ignore
bad, dies—Your

the one in charge
of what comes around
& who stays away
but still,
we’re amigos to the end,
bro, through love & lust—
throw out the dishwater
from yr last best date—one day
you’ll smell, it’s not a healthy musk
your flesh will be a husk

I have to split soon.
You got tons of visitors
cuter than me lined up. I just
came to oil yr valves, give
the silver in yr irises a gleam.
The New Year isn’t far;
it’s continuous New Now. We’ll
meet again soon. You’ll see
that nothing leaves a scar—
but yr soul a star!

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Image by Kara Bobechko, © 2014

The Problematic Existence of Lydia Nogales, Part II

16 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by elainestirling in Essay & Poetic Translation

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Alain C. Dexter, Elaine Stirling, heteronyms and why we use them, Lydia Nogales, poetic mystery, Raul Contreras, Salvadoran poetry, Spanish to English translation

lydia nogales image

Penumbra

The sister with no name, the sister
who crosses all paths,
she told me once that flesh
can never be converted to essence,
that only the spirit succeeds
in ascending to the altitude that dreams,
that in every hidden pain
a star ignites the crying out,
that pure crystal of the deep pond
is broken thus in curling waves,
yes, beneath the shade of forest
early leaves kiss each other,
that some days are curdled by shadows
and nights that blind.
The sister with no name, the sister
whose hands are made of wax
told me that at the sound of rain
sick roses grow delirious,
that wind, cloud and sunbeam
seek each other, touch, and are ignited,
that the river who loses its banks
at the end of the road finds them,
that in all things is hidden
a divine and eternal soul,
that there’s something better than forgetting:
the cold quietude of the stone,
that the sleeping water of the pond
ignores the thirsty sand,
that only while in form
does sojourning light palpitate.
The sister with no name, the sister
who affirms and denies all things
spoke to me of eyes without light,
she spoke to me of steps with no path,
of loathing returned to ash,
of the pallid kiss that freezes,
of a nocturnal sunrise that only
clear pupils contemplate,
of the interior howl, of the teardrop
fallen to earth.
The voice of the sister with no name,
her red eyelids burn me,
my hands, dyed by the moon
tremble like bird’s wings;
my mouth is knotted to silence,
the crazy question seals me.
What happens after anguish?
Who lays out his sign in the fog?
Where is life extinguished,
and where does life begin?
Behind the invisible curtain,
what is there to hope for?
The sister with no name, the sister
of momentary silken contact,
the sister who knows everything
does not know how to voice her reply.
An echo of sad music
smudges the blue of her absence;
a faint tick-tock in the shadow
pushes the rolling hours.
Prison that holds my anxieties!
Dread of the night that’s coming!
I don’t see the sister with no name,
but she is nearby…
The dawn, the dawn, the dawn!
I felt her opening a door…

The poem you’ve just read, published in El Salvador in 1947, was written by a woman who didn’t exist. Her name was Lydia Nogales. As her poems continued to land on the desks of befuddled editors at La Tribuna, her identity took on flesh. She was being read, her name spoken across Central America and in Argentina, Peru, Spain. Men and women of letters were accusing each other of being Lydia Nogales. Some poets claimed to have seen her in person, this woman who didn’t exist.

While months of debate turned into years, the Spanish-speaking world was reaching consensus. “She has to be a woman. She can’t be a man! She writes like a woman…so feminine!” El Salvador’s esteemed poetess, Claudia Lars, wrote a tribute in verse to her poetic sister, adding, “Lydia Nogales lives and will live forever in her magnificent sonnets. By virtue of her verse, she has taken her place, definitively, in our poetry and in the poetry of America…in the field of true art (and I, too, entered that field barefoot and reverent) there are no rivals or competitors. There is inspiration, beauty, a message from the divine or the occult, a broad light or small for this stubborn night of the world…”

How strange it must have felt for the creator of Lydia Nogales to stay silent while people claimed that poor Lydia lay dying in her home near the volcano Lamatepec. How strange it must have felt to watch his literary reputation eclipsed by something that began as a lark, a trick, perhaps, to play on his local compatriots. For Raúl Contreras, a 51-year-old poet, staid, conservative, a member of the Salvadoran Academy of Language, had created a being greater than himself. He had created Lydia Nogales.

Not until November 3, 1954, seven years after the publication of her first sonnet, was the identity of the poetess revealed. Hugo Lindo, her first champion, spoke at a conference in Santiago, Chile, of “the beautiful reality” that finally, after years of debate and speculation, has culminated in the absolute affirmation that Lydia Nogales is Raúl Contreras.

Contreras, for his part, quietly admitted to the authorship by submitting an anthology to his publisher, which included a sonnet by Lydia Nogales, entitled “The Useless Journey”. Whether there was rancor or humiliation in the wake of the disclosure, I don’t know. Some time later, Contreras described Lydia as “someone who existed without existing”. He called her his spiritual daughter.

I’d like to close this piece with two thoughts. One, I feel a kind of sadness, knowing that Lydia Nogales can never really take her place among the great female poets of the twentieth century, even though, for seven years, she was one. Then again, I realize that Raúl Contreras must have been a magnificent man to be brave enough, in a culture larded with machismo, to rise above and find his Lydia Nogales. We all move within a greater version of ourselves; not all of us are able to give it voice.

Finally, I would like to leave you with the tribute that Claudia Lars wrote to her poetic sister, when Lydia Nogales still breathed and vitalized the world. English translation first, followed by the original Spanish. You will also find the Spanish version of “Penumbra”, enneasyllabic and sublime, by Lydia Nogales.

Girl of the word of pure water
open rose, sudden and weightless;
lonely sister, the colour of snow,
changing your whiteness to live flame.
I am here, with your initial sweetness
with your age and no yesterday, perennial and brief;
and within the interior heaven that your voice disquiets,
I raise the palm branch of virtue and height.
Giving my golden bee, my dense grape,
I left by blood the immense land
suffering the question and the throb.
Does the ash in what has died illuminate?
Strange bride of awakened love
I am the lover of love that sleeps!

Niña de la palabra de agua pura.
Abierta rosa, repentina y leve;
hermana soledad, color de nieve,
cambiando en llama viva su blancura.
Estoy aquí, con tu inicial dulzura,
con tu edad sin ayer, perenne y breve;
y en cielo interno que tu voz conmueve,
alzo la palma de virtud y altura.
Dando mi abeja de oro, mi uva densa,
fui por la sangre de la tierra inmensa
sufriendo la pregunta y el latido.
¿Alumbra en la ceniza lo que ha muerto?
i Extraña novia del amor despierto,
yo soy la amante del amor dormido!

~~~

Raul Contreras (1896-1973)

Raul Contreras (1896-1973)

Penumbra

La hermana sin nombre, la hermana
dijo una vez que la carne
jamás se convierte en esencia,
que solo el espíritu logra
subir a la altura que sueña,
que en cada dolor escondido
enciende su llama una estrella,
que el puro cristal del estanque
en ondas rizadas se quiebra
si, bajo la umbría del bosque,
las hojas tempranas lo besan,

que hay días cuajados de sombras
y noches que ciegan.
La hermana sin nombre, la hermana
que tiene las manos de cera,
me dijo que, al son de la lluvia,
deliran las rosas enfermas,
que el viento, la nube y el rayo
se buscan, se tocan, se incendian,
que el río que pierde su cauce
al fin del camino lo encuentra,
que en todas las cosas se oculta
un alma divina y eterna,
que hay algo mejor que el olvido:
la fría quietud de la piedra,
que el agua dormida del charco
ignora la sed de la arena,
que solo palpita en la forma
la luz pasajera.
La hermana sin nombre, la hermana
que todo lo afirma y lo niega,
me habló de una fuente imposible
que calma las bocas sedientas;
me habló de los ojos sin lumbre,
mehabló de los pasos sin huella,
del ascua tornada en cenizas,
del pálido beso que hiela,
de un alba nocturna que sólo
las claras pupilas contemplan,
del grito interior, de la lágrima

caída en la tierra.
La voz de la hermana sin nombre
los párpados rojos me quema;
mis manos, teñidas de luna,
como alas de pájaro tiemblan;
atada al silencio, mi boca
la loca pregunta me sella:
¿qué sigue después de la angustia?
¿quién traza su signo en la niebla?
¿en dónde se apaga la vida
y en dónde la Vida comienza?
Detrás del telón invisible,
¿hay alguien que espera?
La hermana sin nombre, la hermana
de leve contacto de seda,
la hermana que todo lo sabe,
no sabe decir su respuesta.
Un eco de música triste
empaña el azul de la ausencia;
un fino tic-tac en la sombra
empuja las horas que ruedan.
¡Prisión que retiene mis ansias!
¡Pavor de la noche que llega!
No veo a la hermana sin nombre,
Pero ella está cerca…
¡La aurora, la aurora, la aurora!
Sentí que se abría una puerta…

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2015
The beautiful painting of a Salvadoran woman is by the artist Karlisima.

Elaine Stirling is the author of the novel Daughters of Babylon and the novella Dead Edit Redo. She is also the creator of the heteronym/pseudonym Alain C. Dexter who published a book of glosas, medieval form poetry, called Dead to Rights.

The Walls You Think You See

09 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by elainestirling in Form Poetry

≈ 6 Comments

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#bringingbacktheglosa, Alain C. Dexter, Elaine Stirling, glosa, medieval Spanish fixed verse, narrative poem, poetry

ancient wall

Now be silent. Let the one who creates
the words speak. He made the door.
He made the lock.
He also made the key.

—Rumi

A tale I tell three times removed of one
who tried to sell his wares of hope and light.
To every town he went, the guards outside
the walls announced: We have no market
here. The light you shine no one will buy,
goodbye. The merchant saw the gates
were high; he knew no way of scaling them.
With options spent, he brushed the dust from
off his shoes and prayed. May he who irritates
now be silent. Let the one who creates

sketch me the plan of where to go with
these, my wares. One helpful guard had
said, we know what sells. You’ve none of it.
Consent to boredom, though, and near despair,
you’re welcome to come in. I’d sooner eat my
sandal straps, and oftentimes he did, so poor
he was, except for hope and light. By these alone,
he built more wares, then storehouses to keep them
safe, dreaming he could hear beneath the floor
the words speak. He made the door

in such a way that no one with a feeble
or despairing thought could enter. Then
the droughts arrived with floods and plague;
the people who survived fled from the dying
cities knowing nothing of the wares of hope
and light the gatekeepers had blocked
for all lay dead, save one, who with his final
breath confessed: A merchant once I turned
away. His wares, I feared, would cause a shock.
He made the lock,

I’ve heard, to stores of wealth an easy
thing to pick. They bulge with light; you
cannot miss them. So, heavy with despair,
the people traveled to the realm of him
they never met and found great vaults with
wares resplendent, lying unprotected, free
to seize. Yet not a one could reach beyond
the signs that read: Enjoy what you desire.
Who built these walls you think you see,
he also made the key.

~~~

Those of you who’ve been visiting Oceantics for a while may recognize the form of this poem as a glosa. If you’d like to know more about this medieval Spanish fixed form, or if you’d like to experience an entire book of glosas, compiled by Alain C. Dexter, please visit Greyhart Press here.

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Photograph by Alistair Laming/Alamy
from Wikimedia Commons

For Writers Only

29 Tuesday Oct 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Form Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

#bringingbacktheglosa, Alain C. Dexter, authenticity, chasing markets, discipline, Elaine Stirling, Emily Dickinson, glosa, medieval Spanish form poetry, writer's craft

business-woman-writing

Superiority to fate
Is difficult to learn.
‘T is not conferred by any,
But possible to earn

A pittance at a time,
Until, to her surprise,
The soul with strict economy
Subsists till Paradise.

—Emily Dickinson (#1081)

~~~

“The art is not the person,”
says a writer I adore
as much for his career
as what he pens in crevices
between celebrity. It’s hard to take
oneself un-serious at every turn
and still enchant, and not keep
fan-slaves penned out back, whipped
to not admit your writing’s fit to burn.
Superiority to fate is difficult to learn.

Today is garbage day, so I’ve thrown
out a metaphor gone saggy at the knees:
the one about reflections—I’m a mirror,
you’re a mirror, everywhere a mirror,
mirror—fairest, squarest, cock-a-doodle—
worst excuse there is for taciturn
refusal to let go of people,
places, memories that grind you down.
The healthy, gorgeous self discerns;
‘tis not conferred by any, but possible to earn.

I knew this guy shortlisted
for a Pulitzer who spent his days,
not writing but elbowing those, like me,
who didn’t care much for his work.
He didn’t win; contracts dried up
and so did he—before my eyes,
from plum to prune he shriveled. Chasing
markets, dangling your pretty bits are yard sales
of the pseudo-soul that, masquerading, dies
a pittance at a time, until to her surprise

she learns she never had to try
so hard, except—oh, damn!—the writer’s dead.
Your option, if you’re serious and not
just putzing for applause is to die alive
to expectation of the muddled kind. Pay full
attention to determination to feel better. Size
up that in words—begin, if need be, with,
Once upon a time… “True enough” will
fast become your truth. From shining eyes
the soul with strict economy subsists till Paradise.

~~~

I’ve borrowed a two stanza verse from Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) to write a glosa, a poetry form that first appeared in the courts of medieval Spain. Strictly speaking, glosas originate from quatrains, but Emily’s work is far too electric to fall nicely into brick-shaped lines. So, I rearranged her eight to four, allowing that she often wrote on envelopes and curved around into margins, and probably wouldn’t mind.

If the glosa form intrigues you, you can find a whole book of them written by my heteronym Alain C. Dexter, here.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

The Outer Law Does Not Need Me

01 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Form Poetry

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#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

SIMORGH

“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

What I Do is Me: For That I Came

15 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by elainestirling in Form Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

#bringingbacktheglosa, A Circularity of Glosas, Alain C. Dexter, Dead Edit Redo, Dead to Rights, Elaine Stirling, form poetry, Gavriel Navarro, Gavriel's Muse, Greyhart Press, Law of Attraction, medieval Spanish poetry, PK (Patricia) Page, Tim C. Taylor, vibrational reality

First up, confession. I did not create the title of this blog. It is the ninth line of a famous poem by 19th century English poet and Jesuit priest, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Four more lines can be found below in my tribute to the Anglo-Canadian

PK Page, Canadian poet (1916-2010) from whom I first heard the word, glosa

PK Page, Canadian poet (1916-2010) whose book of glosas, Hologram, sat quietly on my shelf, brewing mischief.

campaign—with a few other countries swiftly joining—to #bringingbacktheglosa.

You can learn more about this bold resurrection of medieval verse at Greyhart Press and Gavriel’s Muse. At both of these sites, you can also read exceedingly kind words about Dead Edit Redo, my newly published novella of horror and good medicine, and Alain C. Dexter’s accompanying Dead to Rights: A Circularity of Glosas. These books are now available through Amazon and Smashwords, print and e-format.

Alain and I could think of no better way to celebrate the release of our new books than to collaborate on a new glosa. Such affairs are never solitary, and this one is no exception. Once you’ve read our books, you’ll understand how truly I mean that, and why I’ve posted a photograph of our beautiful Canadian poet, PK Page.

And now, without further ado, the glosa.

What I Do is Me: For That I Came

Bow swung finds to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells.

“As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame”
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

~~~

When from the center of the flame I see my
name writ large by candle stroke too quick
to read, I turn from clarity to glance behind
where daimon paternoster with the googly
eyes to whom I’ve learned to genuflect
reflects his fleshy disapproval—what a game!
To think the back can read the front, or past
my future tell; to seek from others lost
in gloom a match for me, I must disclaim.
Bow swung finds to fling out broad its name.

The epoxy that we’ve learned to call
intelligence is swift to set; thus glued,
we cannot move toward bright and brighter
still. Instead, we dim with every misperception
of a sun that seems to disappear. We’re balls
of light, smooth casters, not one of us to blame.
But if you clank against me like a tinman with
no heart, I’ll roar, and I’d expect no less from
you if, thoughtless, I should cause you shame.
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same.

Selfish is as selfish does, the best of me
arrived intact in search of touch and taste
and feel to know what more of All There Is
I want. Obstructions have their place, but other
words that start with O have more appeal, like
octopus and org…an grinder, so if you, my bells
don’t ring, don’t call. I am no altar offering. I burnt
the book of martyrs at a barbecue, which gave
the ribs, I’m sad to say, a taste of sulphury hells.
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells

in his or her own pocketry of what feels good,
and this is good—might even be, it’s God! He/
She did not make of us a bleacher crowd of images
computerized, we are dynamic flow, so let the
process of success into your blood and bones
before you croak, which like the bullfrog tells
us from his pad will never be the last. I’m here
for me, for that I came, and you the same, for
you. Take happiness down from those high shelves!
Selves—goes itself, myself it speaks and spells.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

It is my pleasure to introduce…Alain C. Dexter

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by elainestirling in A Few Small Words

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alain C. Dexter, Dead Edit Redo, Dead to Rights, Elaine Stiring, Fernando Pessoa, form poetry, glosas, Greyhart Press, heteronym, humour, poetic conceits

Alain C. Dexter. You have your own author page, congratulations! After all you’ve been through, dear friend, could you have ever imagined this revival? Probably not.

Photo by Kara Bobechko, 2012

Photo by Kara Bobechko, 2012

Some things…maybe most things–heck, probably all things are imagined before they turn real. Even better, we can re-imagine reality anytime we land into a brand new moment.

“Internal unity promotes trade.” Some wise guy in one of your short stories said that once, and I kept it tacked to my wall for pretty much the entire time I was battling a strange (to me) new craft. They call it poetry. You led me to some actual poets in your inscrutable way who have become friends, and I’ve learned invaluable lessons in mob control. Seriously, though, the publication of our twin books is an honour, and I’m counting the days until I hold your Dead to Rights: A Circularity of Glosas alongside my novella of horror and good medicine, Dead Edit Redo in these humbled hands.

Much love of self to you and others, bro!

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