sw00030v-2.poem1

Venturings



 At First to Poets


No more!  No more.
The death of rhetoric has lasted too long;
the death of teaching too long.
I will not have the music so,
the ancient delight;
I will not have the laws of love
rot in the ground.

So science shook us
image mad
and bullied us
away from truth;
so fear of sounding
puffed or stuffed
emptied us,
pressed us flat.

No more!

There is a realm that's fully ours,
and we shall rule it,
exercise our sovereignties,
scepter
from their false graves
he whose essence vision is,
she whose life is resonance;
for I am I
and you are you
and not some image others want,
how ever/ zealously adored
that image is,
proclaimed the zeitgeist's gate.

I know we've danced
on the troubled moon;
that silicon
unsettles light;
the geometric growth of knowledge
stuns.

But honor the trees & bushes & weeds.
Breathe.
Savor each moment.
Rule the realm of your gossamer voice.

Serenity.

Such swirls of cities!
Such millions of us!
Yet I alone,
and you alone:
a gift of rhythm:
each one holy,
each one full.

Serenity.

Yeay into cash drawers, crashing coins;
out from streets, seering sirens;
under sweet exteriors, ulcerous uncertainties.

Yeay noise upon noise,
sight upon sight;
thing after thing to touch, touch;
outside, inside, rainbows of smells;
flavors galore.

Yeay shacks, sewers, stock market shouts;
a night of rain,
a day of shinings brisk in the pines.

"Let he who is without sin
cast the first stone."

Let everyone
fashion a part
with which to build the temple again.

When mourning doves coo the dim woods,
a killdeer bobs & skreeks the shore,
the mockingbird splurts arias,
enter.

When murderer & victim cross,
the unfamiliar nears,
a joy smiles,
enter.

Tears, laughter;
laughter, tears.

The woman enclosed
who prays;
the minister
of an empire:
choose not
between them;
each is each
and you are you;
so enter, learn;
choose yourself.

Spitball of pain:
world of spin & counterspin:
crystal ball of ecstacy,
such a wonder of seeming chance
you and every speck & spark,
such a vigorous mystery!

When each new answer parents questions
and often only compromise
enhances life,
who is the self
one's urged to choose,
& choose & choose?

Is one a mere amalgam,
a blur?

How many havesweat
years, years
and gotten but
a dungeon?
How many, oh, absented
themselves?
How many by war or famine
or disease or accident
been forced
from being
vital
on this earth?

Arthur Rubinstein at 20
tried to hang his presence
among us.
"On the shoulders of giants"
Einstein climbed.

And yet, and yet,
not wealth nor fame nor power--
you know:
Uncounted simple ones of us
have grown & given,
and more and more
made radiance
their progeny,
and selflessness,
and courage.



 -
 "At First to Poets" was originally written in my
 Donald Duck Journal on 3-22/23/24-83.
 -

Brian A. J. Salchert