Sunday, January 03, 2010

one word palm: shift

wiltern
wilting
our dreams
into the night
I would not ask

for the daggers

the simplicity
of
release
I felt
the cold

in your night

this was
the rest
we measured
the rest
we
failed to take
I was near joy

you were near me
the asking
was not

favored, flavored

by myrrh
our fallen
treasure
cast in night's
pall,
bleakness
castaway
castles dreamt darkly

wisdom lost
fearfully
seven times

the matter

the cherubim
of failure
i will not follow

twas green we
left
blue we filled

black we labored

quietest night

civil

the twilight's exhaust

to be

to see
walk that line

fear that sensitivity

you will have

the voice

the mother's voice

you'll know the water

the depth of the well

we will pass

the darkest ways

consecrating loss

as the gods
their yearning.

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11 Comments:

Blogger Cloudia said...

Flaming spirals and sparking words!


Aloha, Teresa's Friend


Comfort Spiral

8:43 PM  
Blogger Teresa said...

Really haunting, but quite beautiful. I love the picture, but I'm not sure what it is.

9:53 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Cloudia: Thank you for dropping by. I've been quick-reading some musicians' bios, all of which involve some periods of significant loss and bewilderment: this poem felt as if it were channeling a lot of that.

5:21 AM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Teresa: In the video of Teddy Pendergrass performing "Joy" live, he's at the Wiltern Theatre in L.A. The photo is of an architectural feature at the Wiltern.

5:24 AM  
Blogger Teresa said...

It is a really cool detail! And it fits with your words. Nice work.

2:28 PM  
Blogger Dee Martin said...

bleakness castaway
castles dreamt darkly
wisdom lost fearfully
seven times
the matter
the cherubim of failure

those lines - I want to curl up around them and get warm.

10:06 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Dee: Strange bedfellows: lots of Teddy- and Joni-sentiment mixed into these lines.

6:09 AM  
Blogger Dee Martin said...

jumped to Neil Young and Castles Burning but the line "cherabim of failure" seems a story unto itself - Neil Young was/is another favorite. I completely wore out two copies of Harvest.

8:57 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

Dee: I surely did like "cherubim of failure" when it dropped through the roof.

Had the pleasure of seeing NY's film "Year of the Horse" in an Austin theater for my birthday years ago: I was the only one in the theater, but this was in the days when that chain had instituted a pre-movie "greeter" who'd come out and welcome the audience: this usher walked out and welcomed me to my private screening of the film. Loud. And good.

9:10 PM  
Blogger San said...

I really like the way all of this, the yearning, drops into "the depth of the well," tossed by one who knows that depth.

12:09 PM  
Blogger murat11 said...

San: I liked this whole thing when it dropped through: I was in search of, for the moment anyway, a deeper well.

2:12 PM  

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