Cheat of Thought

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disintegration, expansion, letting be, letting go, manifesting, new love, perception, perspective, re-creation, signs

The string between the cans we used to talk
through snapped and hit me in the eye today

knocked out the scale that enlarged the speck
in yours to timber size & now I find I’m lost.

If I can’t see your flaws or hear the mutters
that once passed for conversation, what remains?

I hold an empty tin, a bit of string;
the tintinnabulation in my ear has ceased.

I catch no words, am cheat of thought beyond
the possibility of shapes of things to come.

A tune I used to hum is gathering
momentum on my lips, I feel the buzz

surrounding me of poets who sing only
of love’s presence, met one yesterday and

couldn’t think of what to say. Too fluent I’d
become in retro-specks. So now’s the time,

it’s obvious, betrayed of thought, to learn
a brighter tongue. So far, I know the words

for get and give, for let and live, and while
the space between us grows and falls away

I witness something tender that accommodates
and has no fear to speak aloud my name.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

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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)

Lyrics by a Figment at 432Hz

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brave new leadership, Elaine Stirling, lyric poetry, Moses and the burning bush, perspective, point of view, self-perception, the feminine principle, The Ten Commandments

Woman, you ain’t nobody’s ground
to be walked on, you holier than that.

The burning bush done visited
by Moses, did you forget your sense
of metaphor? Why you think he come
down that mountain like he be hit
over the head? Why you think
he find all those Israelites dancing,
havin’ melted their hardwon,
scraped-up currency to make
one sweet golden calf in honour
of all we’d suffered in the slave
pits and would suffer—may the
gracious God help us—no more?

Moses, he done smashed those
tablets first time around ‘cause he
didn’t get what that bush of high
degree was doin’ to him, though
if the shaking earth was any indication,
he was having hisself a fine time.
And sure, he took the words down
accurate enough: thou shalt not,
and honour thy mother—and the
Sabbath, you keep her holy now!

But the words
are not the goods
and the goods are
not the experience,
every delivery man
knows that.

Now when our leader went
up the second time, he knew
enough to take off his shoes—
he’d learned a few manners,
but he’d also left behind him
a heap of shame, all that cursin’
at the Israelites (we called
ourselves hapiru then, the
dusty ones). As I recall,
though I was just a girl,
when Moses took a fit, he
stirred up quite a bit of that
yellow Sinai grit, so when he
came down from those celestial
heights with his, “Don’t do this
and don’t do that,” guess what
was waitin’ for him?

Us,
all of us,
the shamed
ones.

I’m gonna leave the rest of
the story for some other time,
but, woman, don’t you be afraid
now of being the sand in another
one’s eyes. The tears’ll clear
‘em out, and he’ll see you
true again—or he won’t.

Either way,
the mountain
and the desert,
they got your back.

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image from bible.ca