Monday, December 4, 2017

Journey to the Center of the Heart (Mark 6:8)

I know U've been hurt before
I can see it in your eyes
And if U just close the door
I would not be surprised 
   Prince

Amazing that this title has barely been used before
(just in a romance novel by J.M. Snead),
heart being an anagram for earth, and all.
Pat Boone was in the movie, I remember.
There was a scene way down at the bottom
where a hungry man was chasing
a very scared, quacking duck.
On our journey to heaven blah,
isn’t there something complacent and entitled
about the assumption that
we are on this journey
to the “land of heaven” blah where we will be speechless
with gratitude.  But, yes, in our routine lives,
we do journey from point A to point B, don’t we?
Sea lion woman, sea lion,
She drink coffee, sea lion,
She drink tea, sea lion
And a gamble lie, sea lion.
“A cold coming we had of it,’”
says Eliot in his Balthazar beard,
“just the worst time of year for a journey, and such a long journey”—
with the luggage carriers getting drunk
and “wanting their liquor and women”—
probably Eliot’s very worst line!
So I am driving down to Lake
and Hennepin in the snow tonight
to sing Sea Lion Woman,
and some others, like Red Dirt Girl
by Emmy Lou Harris, and Jolene
by Dolly Parton dressed in white, sea lion,
Sleep all day, sea lion,
And-a ball all night, sea lion.
Shopenhauer says that all those people who talked
and were excited together,
in ancient Athens, say,
have not really journeyed on,
because they are the same people who are here now,
talking together and being excited,
on this Lawless Poetry page, for example.
Schopenhauer also says that the concern
of a person about to be hanged
for their pet dog who will remain behind
proves that the dead do not really depart.
And he called unto the twelve,
and began to send them forth by two and two
to practice radical mercy;
and gave them power over unclean spirits;
And commanded them that they should take nothing
for their journey, save a staff only;
no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse;
But be shod with sandals, and not put on two coats;
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you,
when you depart thence, shake off
the dust under your feet for a testimony against them.
And he also said not to rehearse your words,
but, at the moment of contact, be speechless;
let the Spirit speak.
On our journey to heaven blah,
when we embark on the Ship of Death
for our journey to oblivion.
But then the cruel dawn’s pallid glow,
turning to rose, and the body, like a worn sea shell,
emerges strange and lovely,
to quote David Herbert.
I know a man named Michael Finnegan.
He had whiskers on his chinnegan.
The wind came up and blew them in again.
Poor old Michael Finnegan.
Begin again!
I guess James Joyce beat me to this one.
By the Lord, sea lion,
And a rooster crow, sea lion
Then she go back home, sea lion,
Then she go back home, sea lion
Journeying from point A to point B,
the origin of the mango’s rind, said Wallace.
The bells in the ruined chapel ringing—
all the bones in the world singing,
I’ll have a new body,
I’ll have a new life.


Poems for Advent 2017