WINDWHEELDED
Poetry by Blake Steele
(FILE 2, Opened 4/8/98)
A...
A DISCLAIMER OF GOD FOR GOD
A DOO-DAH DAY
ANOTHER MORNING
A POEM FOR A CERTAIN LIL
TO REMIND HER OF HER DIGNITY
A POEM IS A PLACE
A SUPPLICATION
AUTUMN DANCE
B...
BEAUTY IS MY WORK
BE CRAZY WITH LOVE
BUDDHA'S SONG
DÉ
C...
CAFE SANTE
F...
FOR
LILLYBUD BLOOMING
G...
GRACE
HÉ
I...
IN EARLY WINTER
I
WISH
P...
PONDERING THE LAMB-LIGHT
S...
SANITY'S RHYTHM
SOMETIMES, A SLIGHT SHIFT
T...
TO TAKE THE HOLY TUMBLE
THE LAMB-LIGHT SHINES
THE LAST AVERSION
THREE LEVELS OF BEING
LAST POEM IN FILE: TALKING TO THE SON OF MAN
TO TAKE THE HOLY TUMBLE
I would be a poet of the wild
and wide world,
but time and time
again
I must return to my own heart
and strive to be real--
to write this transformation,
to expel black thorns from my brain,
to turn again
in the free flowing loops,
to take the holy tumble
into God's bed:
happy and naked,
vulnerable and blameless,
blood splattered,
and sleepy,
sinking
into
a silent
shout.
IN EARLY WINTER
I was feeling down
about the state of my life
when
I read an Oliver poem
about barely breathing and thinking
you were alive...
So I went out naked into
a winter's grouse of wolf-wind
and raised my arms up silently
towards the silent moon
and all the stars that praised you
and surrendered open again
as the wind whirlabouted
to bristle my hair and prickle my skin.
Then I turned back indoors
to my cluttered little workshop
which
was suddenly a warm and welcome nest,
and brimming with thankfulness
knew I was alive.
A DISCLAIMER OF GOD FOR GOD
There is a dead way to think about God,
a way of oppressive connotations:
a baggage ladened, bickering, constrictive way;
a gray way, all pinch-nosed and guilt riddled,
of an angry old man in the skies
or of three prudish guys--the status quo
we've institutionalized.
I would like for you to set all that aside
if you can, and consider with me a second way:
A
way of glacieral freshness,
of deep belly laughter,
of love's naked longing,
of star spattered vastness
and the eruptive white spume of whales--
of delirious songs
of birds drunk on berries.
It is about the greatest freedom you have ever known;
the wildest abandonment in beauty!
and a light that melts you
every time you see it shine in a human eye.
It is about the repose of a rose garden
in a face you instantly love,
and the greatest fairy tale of sacrificial love
come true! It is a Voice
that captures your heart forever...
Or being electric with life!
shaking your head in a dance
refusing oppressive existence,
breaking open
until
you are brimming with life--
being crazy with love--
spinning in wild circles, singing
for no one--not even yourself!--
just because you must sing to say it
and
move in it, the eternal spume,
the gurgle in the gut:
drunk and giddy--
angry and blatantly sober--
snapping the chains!
passionate and flaming,
thirsting and howling,
green and all growing,
falling and flowing,
forgiving and free--
like a river.
*
When I
mention the God name,
please know that I'm referring
to this second, more primal way.
FOR LILLYBUD BLOOMING
This huge beauty of love:
a
woman-child
once lonely in her longing
for something of substance,
some wakefulness to wonder,
some fresh fountain through a face,
some
words that dance in the mind
and birth a sudden joy,
this scamp-child of lilies and roses
dances softly before the eyes
of a dying man
to lighten his spirit
for the long journey into brightness;
then slips a cloth angel
into the little girl's pocket
who watches her father's anguish
to leave
his body for ever.
Drifting in a haze of love and grief,
someone she has never seen
leads her into an adjoining room
where a man labors to die
alone. She rubs his arms
and whispers promises in his ears
that angels will greet him
and sing him into lands
of love and beauty
he has always secretly languished for.
This is the unfolding
of a tight pink bud
into a lavish bloom
that perfumes the world.
This is birthing!
How the heart longs
to be slathered with love!
How the feet long
to
dance in rose petals.
It all unfolds
in creative compassions.
The sick and lonely and dying
draw out the bloom
by the power of their secret sun.
The rose dies open
in a simplicity of flame.
THREE LEVELS OF BEING
My body eats the grape.
My soul suddenly awakes
in gratefulness for the miraculous gift.
My spirit senses the divine
beauty of God's thought
of a grape
and
I am amazingly clear!
though drunk with light.
A DOO-DAH DAY
(Psalm 96)
Today, the trees seem very, very happy.
Perhaps it is as the psalmist foretold--
they are clapping, they are swaying,
they shimmy and clang!
they feel God...
If they could pull up their roots
they'd dance on them--I'm sure of it!
because when I feel God--all fresh and lissome,
frolicking in green--
my spirit shimmies, like those trees,
in an inspirational breath--and I want to dance
from an essential urge bursting from my core!
To throw back my head and howl!
like those trees surge back:
clattering and trembling,
ecstatic and shimmering,
rattling with sky in a wind!
THE LAST AVERSION
There is a white ship sailing
over beautiful waters:
it shines like
a simple flame
or a star.
If you ever saw it,
you would run at once
towards it
into the waters and drown.
But,
like most,
blinded and averted of eye
when it comes,
you hear the water lap
against its bow
and fear it! struggling
to climb up
an impossible cliff
to familiar land,
until, at last, too weary,
you fall back into a dark sea
where
the boat will assuredly find you:
your face shining like a simple flame
or a star
after you drown.
BEAUTY IS MY WORK
Beauty is my work:
to labor in spirit, letting life spill into words
which might move your mind
in ways that release that light
I'm love-drunk for: the
light of the truest you,
all wet with wonder--fresh I mean--
a wise and wild child shining
through the intricate maze
of your soul; through your eyes,
all awake and wanting nothing but love
and loving; peering out your face,
beautiful with joy like the sun,
innocent as a breeze,
or calm with repose, like a rose,
soft and sleepy on a summer's day.
SOMETIMES, A SLIGHT SHIFT
I have seen sunlight fragmented
on the ground, fractured by the trees
into innumerable fluid, yellow bees
spluttering as the trees moved--
the light altered by wind.
And I have looked up
as trees parted,
wind-shifted to another place,
and all things changed, the thousand lights
coalescing to a single fire in the sky
that burnt my eyes.
*
Sometimes, the slightest shift
is all the difference
between standing next to a person
or slipping into them.
CAFE SANTE
There is a cafe
where love is the main dish.
It is in our town--
right
between the beautician's parlor
and a lake where swans
effortlessly glide.
All my life I have ached
for what the world could be
if
it awoke to the task
of birthing beautiful visions,
if it carried in its heart
the ecstasy of angels.
In this particular cafe,
the
waitresses are the angels,
serving an infection of love,
healing the human spirit
with warm, deep hugs,
cups of smiles,
platters of
beautiful words.
The world is so hungry for love,
--not soulless selfishness as sex--
but love that opens your chest into
a great spaciousness of light,
or instinctively lays hands on your head
for a moment of blessing.
It is love that opens our eyes
to spiritual visions that have fed us
for thousands of years.
And it is love that calls us
to the great task before us:
the hard work of joy,
the descent into the dark
to transform our souls
until honey runs in our blood.
There is a cafe
where joyous freedom
is a thousand times
tastier then its savory
dishes.
It is in our town:
right between the cracks in the sidewalk
and an eternal dream.
BUDDHA'S SONG
God
fell between the fingers
of that prince who trembled
high in northern mountains
amidst the cold fragrances of April.
Hands wide open:
gold
coins dropped
into gold bearing streams,
silk garments thrown upon the grass,
body dipped in the silver flow,
beard glistening with pearl drops,
ears soothed in bird song,
heart welling with angels--
the great loneliness slipped away
as the meaning that could not survive
in temple or palace
streamed through his mind
to ravish his heart
like spring breezes thrill
the emergent bud.
And so he returned barefoot
to the warmth of southern lands
with almond oils flowing from his fingers--
naked amidst the naked ones,
poor amongst the poor,
to
sing in bareness of breath
the core of his soul
from earth to sky,
from bud to blossom.
THE
LAMB-LIGHT SHINES
The Lamb-light shines
when her heart smiles through her eyes.
Nothing is as clean and beautiful:
not pure gold, nor mountain streams,
nor scoured linen flapping in ocean breezes
on a wild island.
This is the scampish wisdom
of restored innocence.
It is the laughing light of lilies,
a soft rose glow
in the essence of her spirit--
the joyous grace of the primal Christ.
Though the world may sully her,
grind
her up in its beauty factories,
muddle her, dispose of her
in a land of illusive shadows,
nothing shall defeat that light!
She will remember.
She will come home.
A SUPPLICATION
I desire
the One Cause--
the great primal Life
of all this beauty--
to be poured forth
in one form:
one wild woman,
one wise and passionate child
who is my muse,
my longing,
my heart's delight,
my ecstatic song.
We have been in each other
since the stars were born,
and shall be loving God
in each other's soul
when the last star fades.
Perhaps we are apart
so I might write
about this longing--
its beauty and its pain--
until we are together
to celebrate it.
Other then this
I do not understand
the
mystery
of our separation.
ANOTHER MORNING
Another morning
to throw the heart open
to the mystery of lamb-light,
to the one silent life
busy with intelligence,
singing through delicate, red leaves,
bursting from the tiny jeweled fire of seeds;
the ants in
the grass.
Another morning
to drink forgiveness:
to gulp it down shamelessly
into the belly and the heart
until my whole being opens
in the intoxicating beauty
of love's innocent light.
Another morning
to receive the invisible,
who's influences we see
in a love-lit,
open-souled face
and in the good story
and song of their life.
Another Morning...
GRACE
We can believe
in the naked influences
of the silent flow--
sensed, not in the essence
of itself,
but in its effects
and inspirations:
the glorious Lamb-light
rising as joy in a human eye;
the spontaneous expressions
of love;
the emergent sensitivities
to beauty;
the graceful way the body learns to move;
the passion to radically forgive
and make ourselves
and others free.
PONDERING THE LAMB-LIGHT
I love the thoughts
and feelings
that open me
unto the joyous
Lamb-light.
I love the silent flow--
pregnant with
Love to live.
How beautiful the eyes
of Christ must be.
How rich with countless feelings
that flow through them.
How whimsical and innocent
the humorous joy of them.
I
have glimpsed
the eyes of God's Lamb
in the eyes of my Lilly
when she is happy,
or eager in wonder,
or tender with sadness.
I have glimpsed the eyes of Lilly
in countless eyesÑ
a sudden shine,
an unmistakable gleam.
And when I see
her eyes shine
I would fall into their light
and be found.
BE CRAZY WITH LOVE
The earth bears
every sorrow of the
lost,
those who see life through the pain
of their anger, their bitter blame,
their insatiable greed--
those who afflict the innocent with hatred.
Be crazy with love!
The Earth cries out for your jubilation!
You who have rent your heart
that the primordial, infinite sheets of Light,
--the young joy of God--might shine.
Look up. Ah the blue sky!
It is a canopy of paradise.
Look down. Ah! The green earth
beneath our feet.
It is
Eden waiting to be restored.
Look around. In all things
is the Miracle of miracles!
Here is the face of God!
Be crazy with love!
SANITY'S RHYTHM
When we rejoice
with a child's complete joy
and pour forth our wonderment
in praise
we forget the miserable ones.
It is not possible to do otherwise.
So, we must keep to the rhythm
of ecstasy and compassion:
the first, like rain-slicked petals
slipping into a silky sea;
the second, a gleam of light
squeezed out of dark, hot
visceral organs--love's ooze--
pure in the melt down
of self,
ashamed of its frivolities--
though free
to drink nakedly of whimsy
and forget again.
A POEM IS A PLACE
A poem is a new friend
that was an old lover you'd forgotten.
It is written to be companionable:
even
if it jerks you upside down!
It's a spurt and a spout,
a prink and a dazzleÑ
moistness in your pants.
Or, barking dark in God's light!
a ribbon of silky smoke
unwrinkling in the sky;
a spacious place to pass into:
like a opening soul...
or
lithe wind hidden in a stone.
It's a room without walls
and a ceiling of spattered stars.
It's a slow excretion of color in your mind
as
the universe in you sings.
It's your own primal voice speaking
from a simple flame of empty silenceÑ
the naked Christ.
*
Enter a poem's heart with your heart.
When you come to its wordy doors,
throw yourself open!
A POEM FOR A CERTAIN LIL
TO REMIND HER OF HER DIGNITY
Sometimes I wear a crown
and walk with wide-eyed women
in places of the heart
that are beautiful and
free.
Sometimes I swim with sharks
in quiet lagoons
and make them my friends.
This happens in the country
where wild and passionate children play
and are never afraid.
Where spinning on their toes
with the feel of innocent delights,
they
would sooner spit out the sun
as betray the speech of birds,
the watchful messages of deer,
or the long, eerie cries of whales
singing
to their young
of how the whole creation is waiting
for human beings to let love
overwhelm them.
I WISH
I wish
I could fly like a swallow whenever I needed to be happy: twisting, and
spinning, twirling and diving, and that all the bugs I ate were made of flying
ice cream.
I wish
that trees had secret doors in them that led to paths that wound around roots
down into the bright world of fairies and gnomes. I wish that every fairy and
every gnome knew my name.
I wish
that every once in a while you would meet an animal that could talk.
I wish
that it was as easy to love and be loved as it is to drink water and
breathe
air.
I wish
that mushrooms were made of chocolate and that chocolate was the
healthiest
food in the world.
I wish
that whenever you sang a very sad or very happy song from your deepest heart, a
beautiful angel would appear.
I wish
that whenever my heart was especially filled with love that birds would come
and swirl around my head.
I wish
that whenever I walked in the woods that deer and bears would walk with me.
I wish
that if someone was very sick and your heart was full of love for them,
that
your fingers would shine like candles, and when you touched them they
would
be well.
I wish
that I could secretly breathe water whenever I wanted.
I wish
I had a small white cottage surrounded with lush gardens and a
beautiful
woman to love and love and love and to write poems about and to
paint
pictures of and sing songs to under the stars. And we would dance with
the
owls, and all the plants in our house would be huge, and birds would fly in our
windows to chatter in the rafters, and children would come and dance and sing
before our fire every night.
I wish
I could speak French without the hard work it takes to learn it.
I wish
my poems would go all over the world to make people happy and to help people
see that God is wild and beautiful and good.
I wish
that bad things never happened to children.
I wish
all love's wishes would come true.
AUTUMN DANCE
(To Native Americans)
Old Tom danced,
dressed in rough skins,
dressed in flying feathers,
dressed in wisdom's garments
of nakedness:
until the partridge and pheasant
fled into his dance
and chipmunks chattered amongst themselves
how this man was supernally
turning the seasons.
And
Tom skipped and spun!
And the deer listened
then leapt towards high plains;
the hawk heard and gyred away.
And Tom collapsed down...
then jerked his knees up, strutting,
circling, mumbling the many deaths
until flowers folded stiffly inward
upon their seed-empty bellies
and trees pulled at roots,
losing momentarily their old patient
acceptance of limitations:
longing to lift tree roots and twirl;
longing to stretch their branches
to scratch the ominous gray
belly of the sky.
Then Tom spun again, arms stretched wide
while the trees tossed their gold leaves,
out in spreading circles
like silent songs caressing the cold.
And the chattering chipmunks marveled
at man's power
as awe sang on the winds.
But Old Tom knew by naked wisdom
it never was him that did a thing,
but
the immanent music
that moves stars and things...
and his body in the dance.