Two Short Pieces

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arcana, Celtic mythology, Elaine Stirling, free verse, Law of Attraction, mediocrity, poetry, quantum entanglement, Selkie, sonnet, The Corporate Storyteller, vibrational reality

the husbanding of poems

around certain
poems communities
gather around certain
poets worlds

some verses promise
a soft place to land
others shock and stop
the heart and may
not start it up again

you’ll know
the nature of the
communal poet by
the imitation that
surrounds him
and the maker
of worlds by
his space

in every instant
that I hold back ink
command its flow
upon the page or in
the reader’s eye
I lose my rights to
claim the title poet
fall behind to join
the ranks of free
verse tyranny

~~~

Selkie’s Final Word

Do not bring your weather to me, do not
share your salt-spray summer days, your basking
slathered bellies on bare rock. What you’ve caught
with net and reel is for private screening.

I’ve cut the lines you wrapped around my throat;
their length, at length, you may require. Measure
doldrums while you lament your creaking boat,
catches strung, digested for your pleasure.

“To know a man,” says the poet, “is to
be that man*,” but what you did not know of
you became my albatross, a weighted two
that nearly drowned us both. That was not love!

We keep alive what we resist, so fade.
Through my embrace may come fresh winds of trade.

(*line excerpted from “The Sail of Ulysses” by Wallace Stevens)
~~~
© Elaine Stirling, 2013
–Image of Selkie, artist unknown, from
celticanamcara.blogspot.ca

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St. George & the Dragon, Redux

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acrostic poem, arcana, Barcelona, dualities reversed, Elaine Stirling, La Dia de Sant Jordi, mythology, narrative poetry, perspective, self-transformation, St. George's Day, telling a new story, the oriflamme

An Acrostic Poem

Today in our city of roses and books
Here in Las Ramblas you may overlook, while
Eyeing through battered editions of Cid

Slaying Saracens a slender young man
Assisting the hungry and weary and
Ill, not with food or with bandages
Not even a bench but with tales of hope
Told with string and balloons. I can tell you,

I’ve seen him, he dresses in scarlet and black
Silk with a flaming gold cross tattooed on his back.

Drawing from Gothic romances, he stretches the
Rubber balloons and he blows and he twists them
Around to make dragons, the symbol of rapacious
Greed, but our George does not slay them
Or brag knightly exploits; his story is bolder
Now, while he traces the threads of the alchemists’

Gold as the colour of goodness that flows through
Everyman’s heart—stretch, blow, twist—rose, unfolding
Of fear, once were scales, now they’re petals
Releasing the natural flames of desire that
Guide without error through darkness and loss.
Eye him well for the man who assembles the true
Dragon tales disappears for a year at the end of the day.

Happy St. George’s Day, April 23, 2013!

~~~

Note: In Barcelona, La Dia de Sant Jordi, is celebrated on April 23 by giving one’s beloved books and roses.

Note #2: An acrostic is a poem with a “hidden” code that can be read vertically, usually the first letter in each line.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
–painting of St. George and the Dragon
by Paolo Uccello (1397-1475)

The Seven Sisters Mercantilia

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arcana, brave new business leadership, commerce, Elaine Stirling, mercantile theory, Mercury, poetry, sacred seven, sonnet, The Corporate Storyteller, the new economy

Firstborn: the Merchant of Images

The Merchant of Images plies her wares
transacting ‘neath canopies of dragon
fly wings with coinage of silver too quick
for you to count the change; she’ll bide your stares
in exchange for a taste from your flagon,
but don’t be deceived: affection’s a trick
of the eye from a deck she’s stacked with all
that you’ve pilloried, all that you’ve loved; she’s
tested your market, she knows what you’ll buy.
You may try to outfit her like a doll
or outwit and unseat her—she will freeze
until you leave or learn to humbly supply
what she needs. Neither choice will disorder
the firstborn of this familial quarter.

(to be continued)

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
–Image of medieval fair from
sherwoodforesthistory.blogspot.ca

Metanoia

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arcana, Babylon, Elaine Stirling, energy of Source, Gilgamesh, inspiration, ki, Mesopotamia, mythology, poetry

There is a pulse beneath the skin
connects directly to the brush
and pen their flow when limits
of belief like tollhouse agents,
starved of wage and compliment,
abandon their small calling.

There is a place before the senses
jabber where the mindless has its
way with adjective and verb, pre-form
imbued with source of all vitality
to splash upon a page. The ancients
called their perfect timing ki.

There is an epic guarded by the Bull
of Heaven and his variants eleven
where man of Nature, friend to
woman, finds again his kingdom
borderless, he dons the seamless
robe she weaves to consecrate
the chronicles and libraries that
only seem at furthest ends of
wicked, like candle string,
imagination to have burned.

What use have we for limits
of exhaustion and of mourning
when the gates that set us free
have never closed? We only, for
a lark, in one small moment,
turned our backs.

~~~
The definition of metanoia varies, depending on the discipline that claims it. My favourite can be found here, with reservations.

Image: Enkidu and Gilgamesh slaying the Bull of Heaven

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

La Maniobra

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arcana, Elaine Stirling, feminine crafts, intuitive, mythology, nagual, poetry, right brain, the sorcerer's maneuver

image of Pesto Braid Bread from goodfoodnotmuchtime.com

La maniobra is the handiwork
maneuver dedicated to the weave
of leave and coming back, the setting
free by pressing down with studied
grace that to the eye unpracticed seems
like nothing much and to the sordid
ear is mere fantastical; maneuver
leads like meteors, she sings the whale
song in harmony with needle crush
of rosemary atop the braid of Tuscan
bread. La maniobra is resistance ‘neath
the wings of dragonfly, your dreams;
though friction-free, she’ll slam you
like the shock waves of the bomb
should you attempt to stand, tin soldier-
like, between desires and the miracles
she sends to answer them.

La maniobra has no quarrel
with the rational, no mother chides
her infant son because he cannot
walk or speak, and neither will she take
your toys of fear away, of foolish games
she knows you’ll one day tire—but should
you choose to beckon the maneuver and
to wear her cloak, then do so as the man
before the burning bush, with awe; and
when you set upon the road, take care
that every step you take you leave
behind, and every word you utter’s
kneaded thrice before it leaves your
mouth by fingers of the maniobra.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013