thedevotedpoet

[thedevotedpoet]

“Let’s lay it right on the line. Bigotry and racism are among the deadliest social ills plaguing the world today. But, unlike a team of costumed super-villains, they can’t be halted with a punch in the snoot, or a zap from a ray gun. The only way to destroy them is to expose them—to reveal them for the insidious evils they really are. The bigot is an unreasoning hater—one who hates blindly, fanatically, indiscriminately. If his hang-up is black men, he hates ALL black men. If a redhead once offended him, he hates ALL redheads. If some foreigner beat him to a job, he’s down on ALL foreigners. He hates people he’s never seen—people he’s never known—with equal intensity—with equal venom. 

Now, we’re not trying to say it’s unreasonable for one human being to bug another. But, although anyone has the right to dislike another individual, it’s totally irrational, patently insane to condemn an entire race—to despise an entire nation—to vilify an entire religion. Sooner or later, we must learn to judge each other on our own merits. Sooner or later, if man is ever to be worthy of his destiny, we must fill out hearts with tolerance. For then, and only then, will we be truly worthy of the concept that man created in the image of God–a God who calls us ALL—His children.“ 

— Stan Lee (1968 essay)

[thedevotedpoet]

Isn’t it strange how silence can leave a ringing in your ears 

[thedevotedpoet]

Let me stay a little longer, 

even if it’s just for ever.

____________________

Please stay a little longer, 

even if it’s just for ever.

[thedevotedpoet]

I am often shocked, 

when I look back at myself 

How I walked through the day unconsciously unconscious of you 

Never wondering before what you were doing, what you were thinking of or looking at 

But now I am shocked at how unconsciously I am always wondering, always wandering back to you 

[thedevotedpoet]

I wish to remain  Undisturbed So, slip away and close the door behind you  You have no business here

Because soon now I shall have my invention ready  Have you gone yet?  No, don’t answer that Don’t say a blessed word

For I need solitude; A chance to collect myself  Without finding any trace of you 

       I want no words with you 

(13 June 2017)

[thedevotedpoet]

Since thou and I sigh one another's breath, / Whoe'er sighs most is cruelest, and hastes the other's death.

“Valediction: of Weeping”, John Donne (excerpt) 

[thedevotedpoet]

Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle.  Everything I do is stitched with its color.

“Separation”, W.S. Merwin (1960) 

[thedevotedpoet]

“But we loved with a love that was more than love—    I and my Annabel Lee— With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven    Coveted her and me.“ 

[thedevotedpoet]

Your stillness makes me still;  It makes me hold my breath,  it stops my step so 

I can only look.

And still, inside me nothing is still. 

[thedevotedpoet]

Cutting sweetness

[thedevotedpoet]

Delineate and recall the edges of the mountains the massive marbled rocks And smooth away no rugged side or the sharp peaks of their summits

Measure your steps and omit neither the dips nor the rise of the hills Weigh the earth in your hands and let the sand fall through your fingers

Toss a stone to the lake that I may hear it skip on still water or  hear the current carry it away

Squint up at the trees until you see their canopies so I may stretch my arms to reach their heights

Tell it all to me in words of wildest hues that I may also hear and see and touch that I may be wherever you have been

13 June 2017

[thedevotedpoet]

Intermission when her lashes drop their thick satin

He waits for the curtain to lift that he may see again the dark expression of her eyes

And chase the flashes that dance with playful ease across their shining stage.

13 June 2017

[thedevotedpoet]

Stenographer

His ears ring with the heavy strokes of the typewriter each sounding like another gavel hammering his sentence into stone And leaving no stone unturned

14 June 2017

[thedevotedpoet]

Seasick and shipwrecked on Unchartered land There’s too much silence, too much space in between, too much air- So much that I can barely breathe, I guess I never learned how to be alone

13 June 2017

[thedevotedpoet]

With flushed face and lumped throat I pushed myself up with all the courage I had left To face myself again

[thedevotedpoet]

Untitled 3

This must be a dream I feel outside myself,  beside myself,  I’m not myself 

Am I out and looking in?

Looking at a still life A still of my life Thoughts and warmth and blood suspended

This must be death A cold and damp and empty room Except for the hanging frame on the wall that holds me in

the still life In the stillness of life A still of my life

​

[thedevotedpoet]

Doctor

From the waiting room, you can hear my heart

It is sitting in my chest, beating, beating, beating

You are sitting in that cushioned chair, writing, writing, writing

Things I cannot read, things I cannot understand

I am sick without and within;

Sick heart, sick limbs

Reach into that miserable file fat with secrets

Pull out the archive, my hieroglyphic life scrawled from corner to corner

What needles, pills, thick syrup, what words do you have with which to heal me?

Just tell me what this bleeding ink means as I sit in

This office of prescriptions, stamps, candy, be a good girl