poem – Page 16 – The BeZine

Only Collaboration

Appalled by the devastation, the slaying and liquidation
wise men devised a plan for peace.
Nations formed alliances, worked together to supply
allegiances, harmony
traded, worked, improved the lives of all that joined
in years of building peace:
whatever tint a skin, whatever tongue all prospered
and were welcomed in most lands.

Just as in the borderless time of the Dogger Bridge or the Pangea planet
we prospered, travelled, worked and played
for we were young, fearless;
ready to build a word of peaceful, prosperous peoples
respecting laws, discovering
each other’s ways, each other’s tongues, and each other’s lands.

Now fools have come and sowed the seeds of strife
with promises unattainable
stoking fear of strangers, hopes of empires long defunct
wealth, health for the working man
believing and following these empty tenants they raised their flags
gave them power to break bonds.

Now children die by gun and knife, the poor die untended
food banks litter once wealthy lands
as humble workers labour night and day for pittances
and the planes of war,
fear of strangers tear the treaties our fathers signed
in bonds of friendship
as the wealthy thrive behind their walls of privilege.

From the fools spawning wealth on empty air –
Take back power, take back belief in peace, collaboration
those gory empires advocated
have crumpled;
the Dogger Man runs in the blood of all us,
Pangea pleads for rescue.
Only collaboration builds peace and plenty, rise – raise our children
safe in sustainability.

The Totem Stump

A local landmark, taller than a man,
it stands as if on guard on a Roman road
where a path takes off between trees.

Hockney picked out this character, painted it
as a rugged torso in magenta and blue
with scar circles which could almost be eyes.

It holds out short benevolent arms, seems
to give audience to saplings on striped grasses
and people who travel from afar to pay homage.

Who came in the silent night with a chainsaw
and can of red paint, sweated to butcher it,
strewed the remains round the raw stump?

No way to resurrect the hefty trunk. Minor,
this piece of vandalism when violence
blooms every day but its slaughter haunts me.

from Myra’s latest collection, Lifting the Sky (Ward Wood Publishing, 2018)

Open Door

Come in. My door is open
The windows uncovered
Be you friend or stranger
The enemy of ignorance
My table, round
A circle of friends and strangers
Enemies breaking bread

I´ll pour you Italian espresso
You bring the baclava from Beirut
We will discuss the differences
Of olives
Big and small
Green and black
Let us chew on the options

You be the Muslim
I´ll be the Jew
I´ll poem, you sing
We shall dance before an open window
For all the world to know
That we can

I shall follow you
To your city
To your house
I carry flowers
A curious manner
A wish to know
Your tastes, the aromas of your kitchen
The chatter of children
The photos you hang
Faces of they whom you carry
In your heart
An old man dies
A child is born
You tell me stories
I tell mine

Both of us discharging the shit
Of our lives in a world gone mad with itself
Spilling our laughter and pain
When evening descends
We find ourselves
Alone in the still ambiance
Of a solitude shared

When I take my leave of you
I will carry your voice
Your soft eyes
Landing in mine
My breath in halt
In that moment of
Wordless silence
Of discovery
We share the grace
Night birds call
To waxing stars
All the world around
The grace of peace

I will carry your city
On the map of my memory
Carry your voice
In conversations on the bus
I will carry your smile
As a work of art
We shall both
Be changed
For the rest of time

From my grave to yours
We shall rise in the heat of battle
To run on the waters
Fly on the winds
To the heat of battles
Angels of deliverance
Summoning our descendants
To lay down the fear
Pick up the torch
That lights the way
The way we had trod
To the crossroad of
Fulfillment
Complete and calling
All the children home

The Irony of Plowshares

In the Middle East
If you want to prepare for peace
You must first prepare for war
Because peace must be waged
With the same seriousness of intent as war
And there are as many obstacles and pitfalls
On the path to peace as there are along the path to war.
A weak man cannot forge peace because
His weakness tempts his enemies to attack
And weak are the saber rattlers
Hoping to frighten their enemies
With simulations of disproportionate force.
Their fears and uncertainties blind them
To the path of peace.
Only a strong man is confident and sees clearly.
He walks calmly along the path
Narrow as the razor’s edge.
The path to peace meanders through Gaza
Where we’ve been eyeless and
Our plowshares will be made out of swords,
Neither flowers
Nor gentle breezes.

This is from Mike’s online collection, Uncollected Works, Bemused

Drop the Guns and Let Us Be Poets

“A poet’s work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.” Salman Rushdie

So let us say
for poetry has value, it pays
I did say it does not, but I now say
It doe, in one or another way
so let’s be poets for a while-
So let us say
poetry has value, it pays
perhaps not money but sweet
verbal soothing honey
let truth and trust prevail
let’s be poets for a while-
So let us say
poetry has value, it pays
can a link joined in heaven, break ?
Can the earth without His Will, shake?
Let thoughts reveal let ideas guide
let’s be poets for a while-
Let Romantics Rise, Dreamers unite
Wordsworth, Iqbal Pope William excite
there need not be a cell number as
talking takes place even in slumber;
so let us with poetry, abide-
let’s be poets for a while-
I did say that distances beguile
But no more, just step across the stile
one does feel a presence, the eye
does drop a tear, know it is just fair-

When the heart sings the birds sing
Such joy and peace they bring,
they can see the smile
And carry it over on their wings
Nature’s love makes serene,
from sadness and sorrow , free-
So let’s be poets for a while
let truth and trust prevail
let the words in peace, sail
let the song fly, the clouds may
carry across the sky, overtake the
red horse, peace in rain, no hail…
– Anjum Wasim Dar
Copyright CER Regd. 2019

Your Freedom Eyes

Behind your eyes you lived and in your legs.
It was as if your spirit had emulsified
It was as if your body had let you down
Lover dying fighting for freedom in Spain.
That bridge in Zaragoza, guns and fires.
Wires cutting and cutting, searing bone.
Your body’s blood crying in a bad transfusion.

You had to spin your language to sharp, your mind to pun
And spawn your odd oracular silence
which kept us all quiet, so your mind could play its ways
You lived in a utopia all of your own
You had activated heroes and heroines.
The rights of man singing with Paul Robson, Burl Ives, Pete Seeger
Malvina Reynolds, Miriam Makeba, Joan Baez.
For the average man and woman. Your eager brilliance
You kept under wraps, under your eyes.
A woman of many secrets, you longed for
That outrageous freedom, where women can let loose
To be without any precedent or precedence to slow her,
You broke through roles to model a glowing chance for freedom
And you always told me in your shaded eyes to go deeper:
deeper and further that anyone says, you can stay.

Feathers of Grass

Whenever feathers lying in the grass I spy
they remind me of my dwindling days.
For all too soon I too could fall and die
and how would you know I passed though this maze?
Each quill is the scar of a leaving behind,
the remnant of some bird’s flying away.
And when I find one I hope Life may be so kind
that you might find mine when I fly one day.
So I leave these feathers of a heart taken wing
and a soul that never found a nest.
They’re dipped in black and songs they sing,
so you might know my soul’s at rest.

Whelm

The snake fell from a branch into his canoe

inside the open lid of a wicker picnic basket

of tuna sandwiches, potato chips, and pickles.

The police arrived en masse at the homeless shelter

to pick up a man with a false ID wanted

in four states for sex abuse and one officer injected

out-of-date Narcan into another man in a coma

from an overdose in the restroom down the hall.

The plumber-son lives upstairs

in his mother’s house while she frets

over garlic mustard in her garden

and another overnight guest who gives

her gifts of sauerkraut.

An old man tries to sing farewell to his wife

in a hospice room. She whispers behave yourself

as he sings the words they made up

to dance to.

A woman named Hope excuses herself

by saying she told white lies for the President

as if whiteness makes her trumped-up story

something other villainy.

You Tubes of puppy tumbles, a parrots tango, kittens hiding

in boxes, the calf who fell in love with the blind bison, and a pig

scratching his hindquarters on a table leg collect millions

of likes and oh, did I ask what happened to Hope?

Making White Flags

As if this was a ballet
of a dying white butterfly,
there it was,
surrender-fluttering to a draft
that had creaked uninvited
through the door ajar.

You’ve choreographed my name
across the envelope,
but those fake swirls
are so full of fiction, and mendacious
love and affection,

as ghosts of kisses shoulder
into cold corners; attitude;
pout; pirouette twist everything
you ever said,

‘cos the note was arabesque
in capitulation
that your lips had been fraudulent
over so many sweet nothings.

Standing Out in the Straight

Haunts of people intense in spring light,
Straw fields and thatched roofs,
Wood fences standing at a slant.
The strangeness of people surge.
Your pale hat whiter than the hills and the sand.
The white of uniqueness. An unsullied tone,
Like you were, holding on to my red shirt
Your body planted firm in my mind—
Woody Herman swinging with Django Reinhardt.
Soulful on syncopated. In that strange balance
We made, standing out in the straight.

Stone Love

She believes in stones,
their tales of megalithic glory
told by the silence of the ancients.
At Avebury, spiritual omphalos,
she rushed to greet them,
hugged them like long lost friends.
Warmed by the sun
they breathed, they were alive,
they hugged her back;
Princess of Albion.

Seated in the Devil’s Chair
I watched her, pink hair,
zips and leathers a warrior queen.
Many silver bangles sung
as she danced, wove a spell
through the avenue of stones,
standing waiting for her
for thousands of years.
At last! she has come home;
Princess of Albion.

From the temple’s sanctuary
hand in hand along the ceremonial
avenue across Malborough Downs
to Silbury Hill, and why they were called
the Downs when they lifted her heart so
she couldn’t understand.
Having stepped on Neolithic footprints,
we kissed in a Druid circle of flowers,
this was when her laughter became sunshine
daughter of Mother Goddess;
Princess of Albion.

Landing

The cave beyond the edge
lies in the land beyond attachment.
I didn’t know that the cave beyond the edge
lay in the land beyond attachment.
I didn’t know that the cave beyond the edge
lies in God’s Heart.

How little I knew.
I didn’t know that the swimming
would be so rigorous,
the need for fitness so great.
I swam there.
I climbed there.

I didn’t know that the cave beyond the edge
would require so much vigor.
I stayed there.
I prayed there.
I waited there
in all the silence.

Now, how glad I am
to have swam and climbed there,
to have stayed and prayed there,
to have waited there,
in all the silence,
for amidst it all,

I am glad,
to be in the cave beyond the edge,
in the land beyond attachment.
O Gracious God, how glad I am
to be here, where You are,
in my heart, here.

For I hear,O Gracious God, I hear
Your Voice rising from the silence.
“Thank You,” I respond, “Thank You
for the freedom, the choice,
of entering here, with You,
into this deepest chamber,

this deepest living space
of my heart, Your Heart,
where together we live in peace,
in the joy and jubilation of knowing one another
and all others, heartfelt, in harmony,
together, in LOVE.

Illuminating

You, the inadmissible light of my soul,
You are a dark flashlight,
illuminating a way
I cannot see.

Dense Flesh

Arms, legs implode.
Head retracts.
Breasts explode.

Dense flesh,
flesh dense,
densest flesh,

let Spirit enter.

Songbird

All of these thoughts

Flood my mind

I see a flock of wild birds…

“We are coming for you.”

Wake up songbird

We want to hear your melody

Start singing

You’re not in your cage anymore

Bound by your shame

Swept up in the sky

In flight, soaring higher

Gliding over trees

Darting here and there

Free

Leaving behind the shame

Sailing away from fear

Singing my sweet song of joy

Above it all knowing peace

This songbird awake

Princess of the Sea

Princess of the sea
Looking out at her realm
Its vast breadth
Its immense power
Her handmade crown
Her gentle touch
Her rule
Humble reverence

Log Cabin Quilt

St. Ambrose University, Davenport, IA

Similar to the crazy quilt, the log cabin is also an old pattern. . . . the difference is the structure of the patches; the pieces are cut into straight patches or “logs” and organized around a center square. Some speculate the pattern developed as the woman’s counterpart to the man’s building of log cabin homes years ago.

Or the shape of a Quaker meetinghouse,
benches ranged around a hollow square.

Or the hollow square deeper within,
where I learned to watch what stirred,

and called it God, or breathe with it
now and call it something else —

only what is. I remember my own
past, or the past long ago, easier

to imagine gracious, as if its suffering
were a progress though a stately lane of oaks.

Breathing through the summer morning
while the world falls apart, and a friend

says she can barely hang on with it,
destruction invisible but so close,

obscene. The wish then not only to
resist but build, hands aching in the lap,

to make something fit to last, to live
by. Sunlight moves on the eyelids,

as on the floor of a meetinghouse,
sifted through oaks past a window I imagine;

logs of light then, angling on the ground,
each one a line, a line, a line.

Lit Up With Your Warmth

I can feel the rhythm of your heart

beating in tune with mine,

and the sound of the song

erupting beneath my chest

creates a symphony of perfect peace

that I can smile to

throughout every hour of the day.

I can taste the heat of the sun

on the tip of my tongue,

and I know that every ray of light

pouring down from the sky

was birthed by your precious eyes.

I can see for miles into the distance,

and these bright visions of the future

involve you cradled in my arms,

your lips locked with mine,

your fragrance filing every room,

your love washing over my soul,

and your voice leading me toward bliss.

I want to swim with you, sweet swan,

through the vast ocean of life,

synchronized in every step

as the dance we both have dreamed of

is made manifest upon the earth.

I want to worship you forever, divine goddess,

with respect and adoration,

with the warmth of my admiration,

with a promise to comfort you always,

and with a vow that will never be broken.

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