Pope and Pentameters

This one's for you, Pope ... happy date of birth, brotha!

 

Of Warfare

Dedicated to three incredible, incredible poets: Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, and Joyce Kilmer.

The Trenches 

They held with horrid hell their lines 

Til shells dispelled their noxious fumes 

Then through the labyrinth there fell 

A myriad to Earth’s gray womb 

A thousand summers ere that day 

Those fruitful fields were green and bloom 

What once were luscious, lovely plains 

Are now a wasteland and a tomb 

-jwm

Of the Poem (A Brief Comment):  

I apologize for that gruesome picture of dead soldiers along that trenchbed, but war is real, and as disturbing as sights like this may be, we need to remember that this is what we do to each other.

I hate it- I can’t stand that we war. But whether it’s for remembering a noble cause (if such a thing exists), or acknowledging the inherent evilness of it, or even simply to weep at its existence, we cannot and should not look lightly past the fact that we war with one another, and that warfare is one of the most heinous, one of the most brutal and cruelest, one of the most unfortunate aspects of human reality.

Never Mind

Here's the poem, done in blank verse, that I read for poetry night last night (it was fun, fun, fun):

Too Much Mind

It is within the heart, where Spirit dwells,
That the seat of heaven, both pure and fair,
Abides unoccupied by most of us.

We clutch and grab and struggle to survive
In this world. We feel offense and give it.
Ceaseless ambiguities flood our lives,
And emotional fortitude fades fast.
And so, we take up residence in mind-
Because “it is our mind that brings us peace.”

This is false. Our mind, like spinning daggers,
Cuts everything asunder- rips through flesh
Like a rapacious wolf dying to kill!
Mind divides, mind isolates, mind severs …
… and it must! Mind must dissect, and must know,
Must analyze the details … mind must judge.

And judge we do. We judge each other from
The cold and callous depths of abstraction-
Seeing obscure silhouettes, not people.
We judge as if we were beyond reproach,
Sinless monks sipping green tea, wearing white.
But we deceive ourselves. We are like Borg:
Hardly human at all- reproachable!
Machines removed from Life’s inner myst’ry.

It is from that abject state of being that
We shun and accuse one another, we lie
And steal and rape and kill for sport, we war
With the intensity of roguish brutes,
Set aflame entire countries, and will starve
Anyone to death just to prove a point-
Indeed, when we vanquish a people … joy!

Mind brings no peace- just deep desolation.
It is within the heart, where Spirit dwells,
That the seat of heaven, both fair and pure,
Calls us to compassion and empathy.
Empathy and compassion will bring peace …

Not mind. Mind fears vulnerability
And shrinks in self-complacent lack of trust,
It cannot endure the thought of Spirit,
And will not cater to heart or heaven.
Abandon that residence! Shun that lie!
Rebuke that belligerent hoax! Rebel!
Mind brings no peace- only desolation.
Shut it out and let God reign again-
Stroll the sacred cobbled floors of the heart;
Be brave, and enter that inner sanctum
And seek out in that temple heaven’s throne …

And follow heart.

-jwm

Poetry and Art

Um ... interesting? According to NPR, Expressionist artist Edvard Munch wrote a poem on the backside of one of his most famous works, The Scream (in it he describes the eerie and dreadful encounter he had during one particular sunset). 

Here's that work: 

'The Scream' 

I was walking along the road with two friends. The Sun was 

setting — 

The Sky turned a bloody red 

And I felt a whiff of Melancholy — I stood 

Still, deathly tired — over the blue-black 

Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire 

My Friends walked on — I remained behind 

— shivering with Anxiety. I felt the great Scream in Nature.