I – In Truth Lies Fiction Fact
If words like powerless should lurk within
your day’s vocabulary, if life feels
like a three-penny opera that no
one wants to pay to see—the jerks! and win
equates to loss, you hate your boss, the deals
you thought were watertight fall through, I’ll show
you something different, a map that moves
you over grooves, a slam without the damn
that dynasties who knew a thing or two
about prosperity hooked onto. Clues
have always lain around like desert sand;
agendas sinister have strewn them few
and far between. Well, here’s the all of All—
the gig, no bites, the rise without the fall.
II – Above Below, You Are the Envelope
The gig, no bites, the rise without the fall,
she’s already happening, the higher
you expands toward ever more perfection;
it’s the puny mind that falls behind, all
caught up in the past with proof! The flyer
of the gods, great Hermes, with pure gumption
set it up. You are hermetic, sealed, an
envelope with higher thoughts and lower,
and these cannot for long fly separate ways.
The skank can’t run from diplomat; to ban
the coward from the bro disempowers
both. And by the way, you’re on full display—
the best, the worst—which may initially
strike you as far beyond reality.
III – From Inside the Insidest
Strike, you, as far beyond reality
as possible! This is the stretch that’s asked
by Infinitely Smart, your future best
that calls to you from Love’s supremacy
where every answer brings the question, tasked
to fire up your passions and interest—
listen up!—then brings you strange new people,
some are cute, some acutely scary. They,
with fine detail, arrive to pave your road
with all you’ve stored nucleically—feeble
or forthright, it’s your clay and mortar. Say
what you like, friend, but blaming will corrode
pipes and dreams. Seeing mostly failure, then
you would be right, the worlds of crime and sin.
IV – Adapt: Dilute or Strengthen
You would be right. The worlds of crime and sin
will never let you reach the bottom where
the body lies, though they’ll happily let
you chase those paths of misery in
ratios of your choosing—where is the care,
the love? And finding disappointment yet
again. Ta-da! So look the other way.
Everyone’s well-meaning, doing their best;
their means may not accord with yours, but it’s
not your mess to straighten. My inner ray
of hope shines just as bright as yours. The test
is each to see and find our own; our wits
mirror belief, no more. Let’s overhaul,
for once, forgive, forget, for what!?—are all.
V – The Great Big Inside Family
For once, forgive, forget, for what!?—are all
the beads that loop you through the string of life
and leave no residue. The addict’s pull—
I want it now!—the thoughtless, inner brawl
contains the speed, but unaware, brings strife.
Your multitudes, when leaderless, are fools,
an arrow with no head, bandwagoneers.
Throw off your fears, and penetrate those thoughts!
Allow no whine to perpetrate, for once,
and then again, a third, and persevere
until you feel the loosening of knots.
This is forgive, and it’s for getting! Fronts
of old resistance will march through, you’ll see,
designed to offer upward lift, to free.
VI – Nothing Till it Hits the Earth
Designed to offer upward lift, to free,
the density of conflict is the cold
that rises heat, the solar you. Avoid
the trollish need to join the fray, the fee
is too high. Frogs trapped in a well grow old
and croak, stay sadly until death, unbuoyed.
Until you can fulfil the rise, the fall
is mere excuse, a laziness—here’s why
I can’t. Or won’t. Oh my, the litanies!
Poetic rants, a stomping folderol
when lunar cool, STFU, would dry
the swamp to peat & fuel; then hopeful breeze
must spark the flame that rises you and me,
and not enslave you to conformity.
VII – Be Fussy Who You Play With
And not enslave you to conformity,
Uriah Heepfulness, a sickish kind
of helpfulness, so terrified of debts
that fawn and scrape replace true amity,
your word becomes a roadside stall defined
by crappy goods. No need for these regrets!
Receive friends with real appreciation—
first done by being one. Priceless worth comes
from me esteeming me, then you, rising
through my eyes, we reap, no deviation,
bounty of the flooded banks, mighty sums
together. Ahead would be surprising
in the ways of gain, taint-free wealth, not lack,
if you would just drop tit for tat, leave back.
VIII – Winged Heels and Free Fall
If you would just drop tit for tat, leave back
in cluttered halls what you’ve been taught about
longevity and her twisted sister,
growing old, ride in Mercury’s backpack,
you would see the multi-lie turned inside out,
for growing ever young is the twister,
pathway of the gods and giant ages,
way beyond paltry strains of villainy,
the plod of sacrifice, lives mounting joy.
No one deprives you! Cells know all stages,
and what you like to think is tyranny
reduces thought to loss, a sad deploy.
Our body-mind remembers, so leave stealth
behind, go only forth. You’d find the wealth.
IX – Keeps the Bedbugs Away
Behind, go only forth, you’d find the wealth;
fly life out like a kite string, hand over
hand, obedient to currents outside
thinking’s limitation. Inherent health
resides at the cleft of thought. See clover
or dung, bloom or decay; in both reside
potential joy. Resentment brings the rash,
unpleasant itch, with as much misery
as the shrinking heart can hold. Are you bold
enough to make peace with power and cash?
Can you swim through the greater mystery
straight to success, accept its blessings, fold
its curves into yourself, become the lea
of kings and true democracies, a sea?
X – No Such Thing as Solid
Of kings and true democracies, a sea
divides the potencies to islands of
precise individuality. That’s
you, my dear, and me, and everybody
limpid, clear as glass, composed of pure love,
and from this heightened state the former flats
of sadness show their ephemeral selves
as mere topography, lines carved in sand,
no need to trip, much less to grieve, that sleeve
where sits your heart, little tailoring elves
wait eagerly to stitch the rips, your hand
is firmly held by all above, believe
till you can see us in our anti-black
of pure prosperity, goodbye to lack.
XI – All of This, my Doing
Of pure prosperity, goodbye to lack,
hello to glorious states of wonder,
no heavy lids, all wide-eyed here, doing
what we came to do—create new worlds. Back
there, we all made fun; today, stand under
majesty’s umbrella, Tree of Being
in full bloom and giving fruit, forbid to
none. At times, you are the bark that scratches,
I, the root, that digs around until you
bite. The games of chase go on, your catches
love the being caught, and you’ve stopped dropping
them at my door. We know each other’s hue
from blinding floods before the rainbow’s wealth,
that crazy stressful enemy of health.
XII – Wondrous Continuous
That crazy stressful enemy of health,
that scourging, false humility who wails,
I am not worthy, yes I am, but you’re
not, to compost has been turned, death blow dealt;
the body-mind precisely tuned regales
in nothing less than plenitude, well-shored
by evidence of pure design and form,
from which above-below can spin the whole
of you to match the Heaven scent of Earth.
This is the dance of Love, the Court reborn
and effortless the steps, a caracol
whose speed like stillness feels, painless rebirth.
To have, to hold becomes I know, I’ve got.
Pick up your bed and rise alive, why not?
XIII – Three in One, I’ve Won
Pick up your bed and rise alive, why not?
Let possums who play dead attract their own.
Three-fold Trismegistus has arrived, winged
feet in every word, now and then, a spot
of silence to absorb the beauty grown
within and out, serenity, her ringed
magnificence the banner that uplifts
medieval to full good arrived intact,
of ever after happily, the truth
we sought is here, my dear, we won the gifts
that fairy tale and myth sustained, our pact
with joy all colours of our spectral youth
we may employ the love we freely sought
for fun is why we came, to thrive, our lot.
XIV – The Solar Truth & Nothing But
For fun is why we came, to thrive, our lot,
and this is all of Thoth I’ve come to say.
My lunar friends, the twilit souls, you are
as I am, where you choose to be for now.
Our residence is change, movement the plot
of every tale, and now this peacock’s play
is done, I fold my tail. You will allow
some small affection to remain, I hope,
though I shall not come back this way again.
The spiral road does not repeat, we climb,
we soar and drop, but what we’ve done to cope
before is born afresh, and what this pen
sets down cannot be chased. Some other time
we have already laughed and would begin,
if words like powerless should lurk within.
XV – This Crown, Forever Yours
If words like powerless should lurk within
the gig, no bites, the rise without the fall
strike you as far beyond reality,
you would be right. The worlds of crime and sin—
for once, forgive, forget, for what!?—are all
designed to offer upward lift, to free
and not enslave you to conformity.
If you would just drop tit for tat, leave back
behind, go only forth, you’d find the wealth
of kings and true democracies, a sea
of pure prosperity, goodbye to lack,
that crazy stressful enemy of health.
Pick up your bed and rise alive, why not?
For fun is why we came, to thrive, our lot.
~~~
Author’s Note: This 15-stanza poem is a Crown of Sonnets, also known as Sonnet Redoublé. Constructing such a piece is great fun, for you get the chance to travel a theme with 14 opening lines that fold up to conclude with the 15th, crowning stanza. The theme I borrowed and interpreted is the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, which has been translated into 13 or 14 tenets—perfect shape for this form. I’ve used the rhyme scheme ABCABCDEFDEFGG, for its combing effect. I am grateful to John Donne and various poetic academies, now lost to time, who conceived the form and left for us an invigorating challenge.
© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Hermes Thrismegistus from various websites,
original artist unknown
