Sufficing

Tags

abundance, desire, Elaine Stirling, happiness, knowing, Live in the Momentum, nagual, poetry, romance, sexuality, socialization of genders, trust, vibrational reality

There is a kiss that reaches
men who carry hopes for happiness
that women dare not speak of
truth that compasses a gilded
agelessness that spins above
our clouded heads, and all
our slings of shot and pot
to puncture to the sun beyond
fall short, the youth that grows
and glows in darklessness cares
nothing for the squabble or
the whip. And so we lie, with
and to each other, reason-clad,
I cling to memories of a kiss
that fell apart, a book I read,
wise man I heard. What
did he say? No clue!

There is a kiss.
There is a kiss.
That’s all I know.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013
Image of Rudbeckia, black-eyed Susans,
from my garden

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Chautauqua

Tags

adult education movement, Chautauqua, Elaine Stirling, inspiration, moving past kneejerk response, nonconformity, poetry, trust

Is there one among us who has not
a front row cheering section made of
trillions, audience renewing and eternal
tuned to lines of meta-script we pen,
assigning tragicomic roles to volunteers
we like to think devote themselves—and
some they do appear as such—to
each and every feeble rewrite?

It’s not that one should be opposed
to fans—they pay our bills and cool us—
but there is a gap between the things
we do and what we’ve yet to think, and
too much of the pressing in, though sweet
at first, deludes and all those trillions
notice long before the playwright that
the mix of oxygen and hydrogen’s amiss.

Is it just me, or is the air becoming stale?

Everywhere I turn are tents
in stripes of ketchup, mustard yellow,
center stages occupied with players
of formerly great calibre now looking
more like seals trained to clap
at scent of fish.

Trouble is, the fish are rank and fake,
mere words held up and waggled, and
the roars they propagate from audiences,
not the trillions but a digitized and
calculated few, they make me ill.

I stagger from the site to navigate
between the beggars who subsist from
scrap to scrap of Photoshopped approval.
These are not my plays, I know. There
is a tent somewhere, an auditorium
with curtain calls that never end, a stage
illuminate, precise; a sound man and
a casting coach who understand
these words not yet coagulate.

I let the noise distracting fall away,
evaporate, until the dizziness has
passed. There’s nothing in my midst
except the center of a tiny, not quite
visible approximation of a cell,
six-sided with ascending tears.

It’s then I feel a thrill, a filament
that pulls and multiplies, divides
and turns me right side up again
to flashing lights, a stage, a roar.
Encore, encore! the trillions shout.

I look around at former roles,
they’ve parted left and right, a
crimson sea held back for me.
I know the word, I know the
line. The audience is hushed.
It’s showtime.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2013

–Image of Chautauqua tent from
christianschautauqua.blogspot.ca,
photographer unknown
–Image of audience from campusschool.dsu.edu, photographer unknown
–To learn more about the chautauqua movement, click here.

Crenelated Man

Tags

dysfunctional relationships, Elaine Stirling, inner voice, poetry, traps, trust

Harlech Castle, North Wales

I knew a man who for a piece of peace
of mind did sell the language of his heart
to his embattled self who wants and gets
then wants it not and now he marches like
a sentinel in epaulets and brass
around the outer ring he wears to keep
encroaching women from the places where
he hurts and thus in exile keeps himself
aloof, a donjon tower with a view.

This male Rapunzel, fairy tale reversed
lusts for the darkling princess whose despair
in eloquence expressed appeals, in hopes
she might from his imprisonment unspring
his wintry heart and free him like the harts
of old to leap through wooded dells and chase
the virgin and the innocent again
for crenelated man knows naught but on
and off, of open, closed, and thus he’s locked.

You’ll know you’ve met the man of whom I speak
when in his presence you experience
a weakening sense of beauty, losing words
that once came easily, the smile that lit
your eyes grows dim, convinced you are that what
he doesn’t want from you is what you lack.
It is a trap of shadows that no light
can penetrate; the battered ram must find
his own release; he has the means, not you.

And scarce attention pay to those who crowd
his cold abode, they are the moat, well stocked
the bait that feeds the memories of his wounds.
Upon your road ahead keep both eyes fixed;
the language of the map within your heart
will see you safely through, the fates they will
refashion all you learned from him who taught
you prison’s way, and in the brightening dawn
you’ll smile to hear the free man’s joyous song.

© Elaine Stirling, 2012

A Storyteller’s Christmas

Tags

Christmas, creativity, Elaine Stirling, holiday season, inspiration, letting go of politics, poetry, trust, writer's craft

artwork by Leonid Ivanovic Solomatkin, 1863

Friends in every corner,
in every dip and knoll,
the characters you’ve come
to love, the ones you’ve
yet to know…await you,
storyteller, in the vales of
Christmas time regardless
of the names you hang on
God the father, son,

for story does not circumscribe;
the crescent moon, the candles
lit, return of light belong to all of
us, and dialogue that’s truly spoke
the muses offer joyfully—agendas
and false claims, though, she will
nine times trample with more vigour
than those weary steeds of yesteryear
whose revelations cease with
every moment fully lived.

There is no greater danger here
nor will there ever be to storyteller’s
page than politics; it is the Herod
king, the tyrant of the writer’s
soul, desirous only of the murder
of your firstborn, tender words,

so banish all interpretation, friend,
your knee-jerk reflex, let the heralds
bring instead with angel voices
infinite the merciful blank page,
for given space, they’re fashioned
well to sing with you of fearless tales
whose twists and turns and frights
delectable will muster you to
boldly stand and say:

Get thee behind me, tragedy,
for I’ve a romance in the making
here—I’ll travel every word on
sleighs of ink and nib, discarding
with my happy wake the agitation
of your concretizing reigns of hell
while flow surfeits my veins and
carries me as lovers do to
snowy mystic realms;

and when the New Year greets
us with her precious infant smile,
we two shall look upon the wintry
hillsides where your audience, well
gathered, toasty warm with flasks
of chocolate and brandy, wait ready
to receive the story of the gladdest
tidings yet, sweet born and seated
on this noble Christmastide.

© Elaine Stirling, 2012

The Silhouette

Tags

Elaine Stirling, first meetings, poetry, romance, trust

Image from Dimension 11:11

I have read many poems
of silhouettes. Some melted
me, others confused and threw
me into tailspins, but when I saw
yours—when I saw the crisp clean
V of you circling my space, I recalled
those New Year’s dreams before you
had a name, a form, and knew there
is a kind of poetry that breathes
and walks and speaks my name in
your voice, only yours, with all the
proper arcs and covenants; and as
you and I begin to fill these spaces,
one shy and awkward gesture, one
uproarious laugh at a time, we shall
be convinced, before the year is
through, there were never any
rough, no errored drafts; it was
always God sketching us
in His own perfect time.

© Elaine Stirling, 2012

Who Killed the Dove?

Tags

consciousness, deeper self, Elaine Stirling, epiphany, innocence, poetry, trust

I dove in a dream last night

to a court of letters where Love

artist unknown

stood trial for the crime of pride.

Salty rain was pouring in through

glassless windows so I moved

to stand under a canopy of

rushes, hoping to understand.

~

Prove it!  Prove it!, the prosecutor,

a great black pelican, was shouting.

Judging from the wobble of his wrinkled

pouch, he’d had enough of a trial

that was taking him nowhere.

~

While a bright red cardinal chirped

in defense of Love who sat quiet

in the witness box, I spied with my

little eye that the audience were all

letters—that’s right, letters…of the

alphabet. There were jays and kays

and double you’s, esses with small

pees asking their smartly-dressed

upper cases, y r we here?

~

Silence!  squawked the goose

who was judging the proceedings.

He craned his long sleek Canadian

neck toward Love. If you cannot

control your entourage, I shall

ban them from this court,

forthwith!

~

Love, the defendant, said nothing.

~

A dove hovered over Love, and no one

seemed to notice or care. She was a

hologram, maybe—no, a holy gram!

Ha, ha, crowed my witty dream self.

A holy gram, transparent and

weighing almost nothing, yes!

~

His Honour the goose glared at me. I gulped

and moved further back into the shadows.

~

Where were you when you last saw pride?

demanded the pelican.

~

At a bar, said Love, in Toledo.

~

Ohio?

~

Spain. I had brought my sword

to the blacksmith on Perfidia Street

for sharpening and felt need of a drop.

Love, too, thirsts.

~

I smiled. I was beginning to like

this guy Love with a bird above his head.

~

What was pride doing in this bar in Toledo?

~

Trying to be noticed by a raven-haired beauty.

~

In what manner was pride trying to be noticed?

~

The usual method, by swelling,

by rising to his glorious, full-thrusting—

~

Chirp, chirp!  chirped the cardinal for the

defense, which I took to mean, shut up,

Love, you are making things worse!

~

The pelican shook his saggy, disapproving

pouch. Please tell the court what happened next.

~

The beauty, said Love, looked over at pride,

and he . . . and he . . .

~

Love could not or would not go on.

The dove above him fluttered, flapping her

wings as if she had landed in something tarry.

~

I felt a shuffling to my right and turned to find

the letter X standing beside me. Letters don’t have

eyes—well, I obviously does—but I’d swear, X was

looking straight ahead, pretending not to see me,

while at the same time hoping to be seen b-y m-e.

~

All right. So Beauty looks at pride,

the prosecutor said. Then what?

~

Love looked out upon the court of letters,

and so did I. The letters were shifting,

changing places in the long wooden benches.

Neither the cardinal, pelican nor goose seemed

to notice, so silent were the members

of the alphabet.

~

To the prosecutor, Love replied:

Beauty, whose full name was Beautiful,

gazed upon pride, and he fell.

~

Fell where? Witnesses say he disappeared. No one has

seen pride since that night in the bar, where you were.

~

X moved closer to me. I could feel my shoulder

touching the upper tip of his left stroke. It dawned

on me then that Love was not on trial for the crime

of pride, but for the crime of killing it!

~

I felt a stabbing in my heart and noticed that the rows

of letters had settled into place like Scrabble tiles.

~

PROVE LOVE

PRIDE DIED

~

Love opened his arms and spoke

to the entire court in a voice so quiet

that even the salty rain stopped to listen.

~

Pride fell into me.

He will not be seen again.

~

At that moment, two things happened.

X leaned over and kissed me on the cheek

~

and the dove flew away.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2011