Beautiful Narrow-Minded Poet

I met a poet online briefly.
Gave a compliment; she sent out an x. 
I am getting old, therefore I do not always understand
the shorthand of the young, their codes of conduct
and misconduct.  For all her beautiful words of hazy
borderline mysticism, I noted an imbalance, a dishonesty,
a narrow-mindedness, lush, vibrant words of
poetry, accounts of melancholy, longing for love,
walking outside the exile, but Twitter gave her
away, the narrow camp she followed and who
followed her, her focus on just a prick point
on the earth, her homeland.

Her words 140
characters or less, beautiful random Tweets
that though lovely left an unhealthy taste in
my mouth.  There is something too pompous
and proud there for her own good or anyone's
own good. I would love for this girl of the mellow
beautiful voice and worldly words that trick themselves
into a kind of mysticism to truly open her heart
and not pretend.  Leave the pretension on the
stage. Leave your dolls there before your audience.
Remove your mind from the narrow box it is in.
It may be difficult since I do not know the conditions
you lived under growing up.

You are a refugee,
but open your mind beyond
your group of headscarved females and self-
centered revolutionaries too afraid to die by a
bullet, drawing attention to themselves but solving
nothing.  Speak as this old girl speaks, naturally
and with open love, not all this pleading in the
dark and fear.  Even this aging poet knows when
to turn off the poetry and flowers, not to speak
like a poet all the time.  Take a holiday from
the stage.  To be a poet you have to first be
an honest human with feelings outside yourself
flowing away from the cold rigid princess.

Heaven Lost

There are things we cannot say and dare not say
but if we permitted ourselves to say them
the world would be warmed and caressed
as the sun thawing and melting the snow into
nothingness, water to the arid spirit.  Instead 
of the silence, the words that demand to be
said we relish in fear, anger, sadness, regret
when it is so easy.  Just a word, mine the right
ones disconnected from our egos permitting 
the softness and innocence to return.

Small children are artists with words. Even in their playfulness
and absurdity we see there is no treacherous pretension.
I watch the children on the playground and see the 
wonderland I lost.  I can never choose that heaven
completely again now that I know.  I remember how
difficult it was to learn how to ride my bike. 
A friendly older boy coached me but I never caught
on under his patient gaze and tutelage until one day,
one day I found myself balanced and riding on two
wheels. That boy passed away recently killed and
thrown away by his hidden pain and ignorant decisions,
hurtful that this happened to that patient and kind once
boy that I knew.  Like an old song went If I Ever Lose
This Heaven....I lost it and many more millions 
before and afterwards have.

Dis Poem

As I've said before, from time to time I will post the poetry of other people.  I'm just a beginner poet returning to my roots. I have only been writing poetry for two years now (I had before in the distant past), and I have no idea where my poetry may end up since my ideas are evolving and my bravery as a poet is increasing and maturing. I haven't looked up who this poet is yet, but I think I've heard his name before.  I saw this video on my Facebook timeline.  I like Dis poem.  Enjoy Dis Poem.

Adam and Eve: Or Hard Times

Adam and Eve had a really hard time
like in those old blues songs.
The Forgotten Books of Eden give the details 
of it as so. Adam crying.  Eve being the strong one.
That's the way it is at the heart of it.  
We end up the strong in lush, pregnant,
and frightening reality. See how the men
mostly die before us, or once the sex
ends we end up nurse maids.  We betray
the men and they betray us with our 
painted faces, secrets coiled up in a bottle. 
Someone, an angel, I think, flung a threatening
snake away across the world to halt
his menacing Adam and Eve, The Forgotten Books
say. To have everything given to you, 
a welfare system instituted by God, and 
then to have it all taken away.  Well, Eve
shouldn't have been so curious.  She 
brought hard times.  Do not blame the earth for 
we women and men bring hard times...

To be continued in my paddle-less boat
floating down a river.  The poet is escaping
and does not wish to be found.  

Boubacar

I like the name Boubacar which means "little camel" in Arabic.  I also like the music of Boubacar Traore who is from Mali.  I wrote a poem this week about a fictitious Boubacar. 

Boubacar, coffee flows into the cup.
Coffee colored face. The sun's shadows
strolling along the ground.  In the village
an unsociable goat dozing on her feet
chews through stubble. Boubacar,
granddad of all, long necked, big bodied
musical instrument in hand. Sprinkling 
sounds comes from scattered tree leaves.
Hot winds today.  The feelings are remote.
Boubacar  plucks the strings, adults draw
near, children come close on their knees.
A handmade toy lies on its' side in the dust.

Boubacar, singer and poet. Women with
straight backs balance buckets of water
elegantly on their heads, village acrobats
with tired backs and hips. Babies silent
looking pensive and knowledgeable tied
to their mothers.  Boubacar musician, shining
teeth in an ancient face, sage, once 
handsome. Two beloved wives buried,
six children left. Grandchildren pleading
to know more legends about their 
grandmas. As they sit wrapped in blankets
in the chilly dark evening, the smell of 
dirt, manure and distant grasses, an old
Tuareg friend comes up and whispers 
in Boubacar's ear. Boubacar rises slowly,
frailty holding him back now. The two
old men walk off to talk quietly by the huts.

Bessie Head

The late Bessie Head is one of Africa's most renowned writers.  I just finished reading her novel Maru.  The reading of the novel and what I know of her life inspired this poem.

You walked from there from the brink
from that place of apartheid
to hope for the quiet life
to escape the hell of the tragic life.
My heroine writer and spiritual mom.
One weekend I may have walked on 
the same soil and dust that you
moved upon as an exile with tired feet.
Like you I am an exile from centuries past
and like you I write to find my soul.
The brutality you lived under more blatant
in your face than the far more subtle
riddled one of denial I reside under here.
A quiet Pan-Africanism within you.
The mix breed girl of a white woman
and black stable hand early thrown
away displaced from the black and
mostly certainly the white.
I can see the horrors of that time
even though I was not there.
As an Diaspora African woman
and in a place that without words
forbids me to think, my mind still
treads all the horrors of the oppressed
anywhere. You wrote in Botswana 
to save yourself. Your small novels
of power and a pinch of poetics
are snapshots and paintings of 
the humanity of men and women.
It is all of them, us, and you 
universal pain and longing 
the displacement.  In your quiet room
the lamp on after dusk with pain 
and passion in your soul you peered out
the window at Serowe your adopted 
village and wrote of yourself and outside
yourself.  In Botswana they praised
you to me six years after your death.
To have sat with you sipping a cup 
of tea. To have sat at your feet to learn
the craft of writing the winds and pangs
of beauty and hurt in a land I am parted from.

decisions

too black
too ugly

too fat 
too ugly

too poor
too ugly

you sit on your toad stool
or your rotting throne
dictating, signing
physical and psychological
death warrants for millions

who are you to judge?
who are you to decide?

Gone

When
I look
at this
world
with its'
crusaders
and 
masqueraders 
I become
like my
slave 
ancestors,
waiting 
towards
the sky.

Swing
low 
sweet 
chariot.
 

Why?

Why
do you allow them to humiliate you?
Why
do you allow them to paint their rags on you?
Why
do you beg for crumbs from the slave master's table?
Why
do you allow them to define who you are?
Why
are you so enamored with the one who holds a knife to your throat?
Why 
do you allow them to convince you what reality is?
Why 
are you happy to kneel in the golden chains they put on you?
Why
do you allow them to tell you what truth and beauty is?
Why
do you allow a stranger to write your own history for you?
Why
you put on their ill-fitting masks or any mask at all?
Why
do you allow them to define where the location of your kingdom is?
Why
do you allow them to tell you whom to love?
Why
do you allow them to calibrate your self worth?
Why 
won't you be whole, real men and women again reclaiming
your true essence and walk past this plastic existence?

The Most Beautiful Day In the World

The world was heading for a bloodbath on the most beautiful day in the world.
The coffins were being lined up in the stillness and brilliance of the sun.
The birds sang their eternal and usual symphony of song.

My love and I stood in the countryside, he with the sad and beautiful eyes,
and he confessed he loved me.  Worry lines on both sides of his lips,
tiny rivulets beginning to flow through his hair though youth
still resided in him.  The rivulets had flowed forth
when he was a infant.  
Great wisdom 
and sadness there.

I hid behind a tree trunk and laughed, and he peeked around to see me.
And that day, beautiful day, the world was heading for a bloodbath
in a tiny spot on a map which few knew of or could pronounce,
which schools failed to teach about in its' sterile, pale, patriotic doctrine.
 

Observation

Everyday we walk through 
this minefield of optical
illusions. Can an elephant
become a tiny harmless
fish?  Can a piranha become
a kitten?  They tell us one
thing, expect us to to see it,
and it's not really there.  But
the dancers and eternal teens
keep believing because the
visual and emotional pillagers,
the clowns with all kinds of
cheap, vulgar bells and 
whistles dressed in gaudy
clothes pontificate what is
truth. Pontius Pilate 
asked on that distant day
what is truth?  Yes, they keep
believing here despite nothing
being left except the shiny and
pretty coffins with dead men's
and women's bones, as truth 
flees further and further 
down the road. 

When I Met the First African-American Pulitzer Prize Winner

Despite being busy working on a means of getting bread and butter, I decided I would take a brief break and write this post so it will not be too belated.  Today is the birthday of poetess Gwendolyn Brooks.  I like words like "poetess" because despite being perhaps dated by some, I feel just calling her a "poet" sounds neutered and draws away from what she really was, a great female poet.  I'm just not into the kind of neutered nonsense a lot of people gravitate towards in the culture. For me that even applies to language.  Gwendolyn Brooks wasn't a guy or an it, she was a woman poet, and that doesn't negate her greatness in any way.  

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) was the first African-American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for her literary work.  She was the Poet Laureate of Illinois.  She was also a politically conscious poet.  

And one day in 1984, I met her.  When I was an undergraduate student at The University of Georgia, she came to speak in a small classroom in the evening in the English department.  I remember a very ordinary looking woman who had a giant presence and intellect.  I talked to her briefly and got her autograph and address. Photos of the flyer and her autograph are below.  

She encouraged me to write to her.  I did write to her once and sent her some poems I wrote, but my heart just was not into poetry writing back then the way it is now. I lacked confidence, not that I'm a mountain of confidence nowadays about my poetry, but I have much more than I did in those days.  I believe I still have the note she sent back to me along with my poetry.  I can't find it right now, but I remember she wrote that I had a good imagination. 

Goodreads.com, which I refer to as a social networking site for book lovers, posts a quote of the day which I receive in my e-mail.  Today was Gwendolyn Brooks' turn.  The quote of the day was by her.

Live not for Battles Won.
Live not for The-End-of-the-Song.
Live in the along. 

I also like this quote of her's. 

Writing is a delicious agony.  

Indeed it is.  

(I will be back with more of my own poetry soon.)

 

Revolutionary Lover

Dedicated to the women of Green Libya who died fighting last year, some alongside their husbands, battling against neo-colonialism and imperialism for Africa and the world.

Willfully old-fashioned.
The lover, the brawler,
the scholar, the mother,
the daughter, the revolutionary.
She is a hellion in her beauty,
but in a quiet way.
At times she caused 
earthquakes, other times
she appeared to float beside
quiet streams. Birds nest in
her beautiful locks
and tie ribbons there.
Men stare in awe and 
ponder the realism
and honor of this woman.
The revolutionary lover,
no one can touch her
enter or ravish her mind.
Her power is her own.
The revolutionary lover
is about to come home. 

The Golden Slave Collar

I adore the youngsters of the beautiful mind,
beautiful souls who can gaze into the expanse
beyond the clutter and banality recognizing the 
glorious deception of the golden slave collar.

There are the other youngsters, confused, self-hating,
rapid to erase their history and heritage, traitors
to their ancestors, aiding and abetting the subtle
enemy who has long mastered the art of infiltration. 

I love the first, the children I would have wanted
to have. Even I learn from them despite the gulf
in age.  To have been so brave and poised at 22 to 
29.  Lift the true banner of humanity out of the ashes.

But to the compromising youngsters, the appeasers
who lust after and sleep with the enemy, my pity
stretches longer than the world's vast rivers. The 
golden slave collar is being prepared for your throats.

A Song Based On A Poem by Nizar Qabbani

 I've decided that from time to time I will also post the poetry of others I admire and songs inspired by poems, have this blog with my poetry, but not always about me and my poetry.  One of my favorite poets is the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani.  I discovered his poetry completely by accident because of the video below by Iraqi singer Kazem al Saher. I loved the lyrics to this song so much that I later ordered a copy of Qabbani's poems from Amazon.

The lyrics to this love song are Arabic with English subtitles.  I wish I knew Arabic because I know I'm missing out on the true richness in meaning being that it's in English. 

Nizar Qabbani is one of the greatest modern poets of the Middle East. He was a diplomat and writer.  If he were still alive I wonder what he would think of the so-called Arab Spring and the horrors that are now occurring in his homeland. I enjoy listening to what eloquent and truly knowledgeably people have to say.

Please don't overlook my three most recent poems below. 

It Was Before

It was before the pale rider came,
before my culture was smashed, spat 
upon and lied upon when black meant
wisdom, light, and truth and the element
of things was not reversed and bastardized.

It was before we were kidnapped and chained.

It was before someone wrote we were only 
three fifths human on what was called one of 
the greatest documents the world had ever
known.  

It was before it was thought the entire
world must go only one way, before the power
of selfishness and the belief in only the individual
mattered. We were a proud tribe then before this 
alien belief system.  

It was before me and my sisters were called
ugly and overlooked and there was only one
standard of beauty.

It was before real men who loved and protected
their women and children were emasculated
into weaklings and brutes.

It was before we were not allowed to be 
real warrior women bathed in the diamonds,
wisdom and truth of our continent, our weapons
not visible instruments of death, but mental
weaponry, for the best weapons against evil
and the crooked is the mind.

It was before my sisters and I were told
we could not go down to the crystal river 
in our high headdresses and beautiful 
and bright dresses to listen and wait for,
welcome the captive prince whom we 
had just learned was freed.


It was before that pale peculiar rider came
from the far cold north.


It was all before, and I will always remember
since I am here now exiled from my beloved,
from Africa.  I will get on my horse to go now
and free the new captive prince whom I love
before it is too late.

Your Duty My Duty

There is a person connected to my family
who burst into our home one day prior
to my trip; burst in for ten in minutes
to insult me, but she saw it as good advice
since the voices in her head whispered we
are from God. This person talks and sees
things not there, applying her faults to others,
cataloging all hurts legibly in her memory,
placing stumbling blocks and hypocrisy
before herself which she trips over like
all the blind who leave their own backyards
in disarray. I pity this person at the heart of 
it all. It is your duty and your distortions which 
the sun sets on, my dear, whereas the truth 
and what is right is my duty in the final context.

William Carlos Williams' Black Woman

William Carlos Williams was an American poet who won the Pulitzer Prize for some of his work posthumously.

He called her 
the gentle negress.
Was she once imagination's
figment or a secret lover
before she was born 
like a butterfly in the poet's
notebook, she with a low
and gentle voice, surprised
that he who was pale
could find her lovely and
would bother to search 
her eyes?  Negress 
was an okay term 
in those days for
Williams' soul flowed
into infinity in 1963.
People think I am hard
and strong, but like 
the gentle negress
I too am gentle, 
melancholy at times
and was once loved 
by a vaguely pale 
peculiarly auburn
haired Turk who too 
found me lovely, and 
I was surprised.
 

Lapis Lazuli

Once
I sat and 
watched
a sea blue
like lapis lazuli
undulating
scarves in a
breeze pinned
to ancient
clotheslines;
my mind
expansive
and quiet
in a far
far country.

The lost
princess gazes...

Orphans of a War

And these are the times we live in.
These times we have seen before.

Two little children at night;
Their gowns floating in the breeze.
The smell of smoke, of sulfur,
un-confessed poisons.

Red flashes in the distance behind them.
They hold hands; one little more than a toddler.
His little nose runs, saliva of fear and sadness
in his throat.  His sister leads him across 
a field.


Their young parents lie in the eternal sleep.
They remember an old couple, their only
son and daughter killed as hell's engines
leveled first their son's home then 
the daughter's.

 And these are the times we live in.
These times we have seen before.

Ancient pained land that drifted through
many pains; this the most current.

The two little children remember the smiles
of the old couple, once winked at them.
The old man pinched their cheeks, an apple
for both.  Their young parents smiled, nodded.  
Happier times, before the invader.

They came to the old couple's door, the man-made
thunder recedes.  Dawn cuts a few slits in the sky.
The old man opens the door, wife behind him
peering over his shoulder.  They are taken in.

Days later, the old couple decide to steal away 
with their new treasure.  They move along a road
with many others to another land with hopes,
dreams of peace in their hearts.

 And these are the times we live in.
These times we have seen before.

Nearing the End of a Spring Evening

The drowsy sun sits nestled 
in its personal corner of the 
western sky.

We drive savoring this orange
ball, smoky blue clouds
defacing it in a beautiful
way.

To be defaced and defamed
in a beautiful way takes
much effort.

We fail to find the thing
we sought at the mall,
this evening, so
we leave.

In the distance we see
an artificial beauty
against the evening
sky.

The little carnival has come
back to town for its
annual run.

The Ferris wheel lights,
emeralds and azure
topaz.

The wheel like life turning
slowly until the riders
get off.

50

I never
thought
I would
have lived
to see 50.

50 is a 
difficult
number in
loneliness.

I thought
I would have
flown away
long ago
to the
Elysian fields,
over the
teal thundering
seas towards 
those mystical
misty mountains,
because 50 
is a difficult
number in 
the scheme of
my loneliness.

Predicaments

The crystal glass tumbles over 
splashes to the floor into fragments
diamonds and gold transform to water
that flows into my soul.  I lie and watch
the shadows blot the curtains during
this midnight of the soul. Rising, walking
I move on quiet feet through the dark halls
of this place the long sheer drapes flow
and ebb around me.  I walk in that midnight.

I walk in that midnight to sit on the steps 
of the porch the sky above me a sea
of many stories the stars ancient chandeliers.
These are the predicaments of my loneliness.
The silent loneliness of love. My hand to my
heart, my soul to that other ethereal being.

I Am The Bird That Escaped

I write on the winds. I write on the seas.
I write in the sands. The bird that escaped
the cage, the gilded cage that was set apart
and proclaimed the axis of the world. I am the bird 
that escaped. The others content in the gilded cage, 
a voice that told them, a lying treacherous voice that told 
them fractured mysteries and daintily painted untruths. You are 
the universe. You must rule. You control the winds the earth.
Some of the birds black with broken and tattered wings 
sat among the loudest singers of dangerous and 
selfish songs, the most to be pitied, but I was 
the bird which flew away from the self proclamations, 
the self exaltations of greatness.  No commonality binds me
and those birds in the gilded cage of fake gold and plastic gems. 
The voice, the cage that brought so much cold sadness, the 
death of the genuine, imposed a false existence
experience. But I am the bird that opened the 
latch and flew away.

Stealing

You took them away from me.
You took my clothes.
You took my soul.
You took my last stick of sugared gum.
You took my golden staff.
Bring them back.
Bring them back.
I do not want to search
for you in the reeds.
This is no new Nile.
This is a golden cesspool,
a drainage of many dead souls.
I hear your scornful singing
that you stole my things.
I cannot locate you.
You skipped into the desert.
Gone. My things are gone.
You took my clothes, my soul,
my gum, my golden staff.
I stand and look.
I stand and look.

Love's Request

Would you
please stop
beating around
the bush
that tree
the plain
that plateau
the river
Tell me
what you
want. I am
no prophet...

Things I Love

Things I love. 
Birds writing their way 
across the sky.
The baby that discovers 
the diamond in first words.
Mountains standing their ground.
Seas telling their ancient stories.
Things I love.

Honey Infant

Cute honey hued baby
hair in curls
grape clusters
one eye a large star
the other smaller eye
a star veiled
by hazy clouds
symphonies playing
in your innocent soul
until the wars of life
intrude and attempt 
to suffocate the notes. 

1938: Little Black Girl on Walden Street

I like to walk down Walden Street with my grandma.
We all know each other down there.  Walden Street
is poor, shacks sit there like big brown boxes, the dirt
yards, other little children playing in the dirt, the lucky few
with a big rubber ball or a tiny one in hand with old jacks.
We don't know we're poor though.  We're content.
We're all one big family, including the dogs, cats, 
squirrels, and birds.  Grandpa told grandma to stop 
feeding every cat she sees.  She smiles and winks at me 
because she plans to keep right on doing it. Grandma
even feeds the birds sometimes when she is sad.  
She likes to look at them.  I visit my grandparents
on the weekend.  We sit on the porch and spy through
the cracks in the floor the chickens scratching in the dust
under the house.  I love my grandparents, parents,
baby brother with his forever saggy and soggy diaper,
runny nose, every animal and all the people on Walden Street. 

The Lonely Queen

The queen sat alone in the garden gazing
at her goldfish pond, colors playing over
the ripples of the water and her gown,
holding a rose to her cheek.  Tears.
Her lover had finally died. Birds chirped
in the trees. No longer would he walk
and sit in the garden beside her, gaze
at the pond, the goldfish like golden 
moons stirring and sailing beneath
the water. She had planted roses there,
many colors. She wanted all colors 
available, had more created.  Germination.

She had dared to work alongside two 
servants to create this place, wanting
it to be just right.  Roses, palms,
cypresses, breadfruit, lemon trees, 
baobab, lover's arches, beauty, truth.
The day she presented the secret garden
to her lover, she held a lily in her hand,
crown on her head, blue and golden robes.

The roaming lover, a general and commander
of her armies.  It had been a time of peace
though, much trade, luscious talk, 
glorious actions.  He had guarded her borders
well. The belly of the poor was even full.
No one dared frown on them. Wealth
came to her kingdom like a bird of paradise.
Her lover's soul flew away. We Amazons
and scholars never marry, she thought.

Quietly

Quietly
the water flows
to the turquoise sea.

Quietly
my blood flows
in this failing body
dread.

Quietly
the bird tries to fly
to the golden sun
disk.

Quietly 
the love affair ends
lover's backs turned
sad eyes.

Quietly
I sit in my room
eyes on words
poem ends. 

Tide

Love rolls in
like a tide
a quiet tsunami
the drops pearly
translucent 
blue happy.
It ebbs away
leaving us
quiet and dusty.
 
 

Abba Moses the Robber the Black

This is the final installment of my long poem.

XIV

Eight of the monks and I retreat into
the desert. Rumors of a wild band
of Berbers rampaging, spreading
terrors, stealing, slaughtering
innocents.  If they come,
Christ is sufficient, I tell the brothers.
If we are killed, we will enter Heaven.
No fears.
No worries.

One day we saw the cloud of dust,
rumble heard, the thunder of
horse's hooves.  The whirlwind
came out of the hills to our camp.
I told the youngest brother
only seventeen to save himself
and witness on what he sees.

Brothers, I may die here today.
I refuse to defend myself
because as Jesus said,
Those who live by the sword
will die by the sword.
In my past I spilled blood.
I am a changed man.
This is my destiny.

The Berbers, robes and capes 
flying swept into the camp
like demons, swords flashing,
twirling, knives between their teeth.
Moses stood his ground,
opening his arms as if to 
embrace them. The seven brothers
did the same.  A Berber horseman
flew pass, reached down and 
beheaded Moses.  His head flew
and landed in the sand.
His body collapsed on its knees
and fell over.  Jumping off their
horses they stabbed and cut 
the throats of the brothers,
except the the youth.
He had hidden himself.
He wept behind some boulders.
Goodbye Moses.
Goodbye brothers.
He whispered.
Taking the few goods
the Berbers touched the encampment.
The youth watched in sorrow.
Then a great light scrolled
across the sky. Angel's wings 
appeared. They looked like
specks of gold at first, but then
as they floated from the sky,
the young brother could see
seven golden crowns with jewels.
All seven came down into the
destroyed encampment of death,
the signs of a new life.
Each settled on the severed
heads of Abba Moses 
the once robber the black
and the brothers.  The youth
wiped his tears, smiled,
went back to Sketis,
witnessing what he saw.
Never forgetting.
Never again ungrateful.

Abba Moses the Robber the Black

I'm back, and the saga continues. :)  

X

I survived temptations,
the battering of Satan
on my mind and body.
Once four men came 
to my cell to rob me.
I beat them down,
dragged them back 
to Sketis for judgment.


I am a penitent.
It would be hypocritical
with such a past life
as mine to be the final
judge of these men.
I place them in your hands.


Moses, this is another test
you have passed.


I looked at Abbot Isidore.
The bound robbers
looked at me.
He is that Moses who was
the greatest, most feared
of thieves?
The abbot and brothers
standing there nodded.
If God changed Moses,
perhaps God can change us.
Crawling up to the abbot,
allow us to stay with you.
Confessing their polluted
lives, they too became monks.

XI


Years of spiritual struggle,
walking the graveyards of sin
in my mind, my hair
turned white like a spring cloud.
I became a priest.
One day I was called.
The issue was a brother who
had committed a great sin.
Theft, ran away, and a woman.
Sketis' only material wealth
stolen, a golden bowl.

In my madness for her,
the bowl was taken
I ran off to Alexandria.
My conscience and my
vows forced me back.


Paul, what do you say?
Alexandros, what do you say?
Michael, what do you say?
Dionysus, what do you say?
On and on.
Moses, what do you say?


I say I will leave and
come back after awhile.


In the back of the monastery,
a large basket.  I cut 
a small hole in it,
filled it with sand,
hoisted it on my back,
went inside.


This basket contains my sins
that are multitudes.
They trickle out and I 
cannot see them.
Now you ask me to judge
someone else's sins?


The brother was forgiven.


XII

Abbott Isidore awaken me early.
The roosters barely began crowing.
Come Moses with me to the roof.

Father are you preparing to toss
this old sinner from there?

Now Moses!
He grinned and lifted a skinny finger
in chastisement.


Yellow, orange, blue bands
scrolled on the horizon.
Brother Moses, the rays
of the sun creeps in
and slowly melt away the night
starting a new day.
The same way with the
contemplative life.
Trials like stormy seas.
It creeps into a life until
eventually the perfect
contemplative is born.


XIII


I am an old man now.
I feel my age for the first time.
I am thankful for the work
God weaved in me.
A man feared and hated,
led seventy bandits,
to a man respected and loved,
the spiritual father of 
seventy monks.
A new man.
The coin had flipped over
to its better side.
Only God's love and my
silent suffering and shame
could perform such a change.
All pride was destroyed and
erased in a spiritual sandstorm.
I felt humbled.


(To be continued)

Abba Moses the Robber the Black

(The continuation of my historical poem)

V

One day I went far alone without my boys.

A spirit, I did not understand drew me,

my conscience in pain, I hated myself

in this loneliness.

Why was I going out there alone?

Sketis. A colony of monks.

Oh! I hated such lambs, such easy prey.

I went there to steal what I could find.

It did have riches, but not of the material sort,

the kind I sought.

I prowled the premises, knife between my teeth.

I checked this door, that cell 

until, until, until...

I faced the abbot, a lean man

attired in a severely worn habit and mantle.

He knew who I was, KNEW my spirit.

He showed no fear, no disgust.

Only a serene love came from the calm, 

grey eyes.

I fell at his feet.

He laid his hand on my wooly head.

The wolf had become a lamb.

So it began.

So it began.

VI

So brother Moses are you sure?

Do you want to separate so soon from us?

Go alone out there?

I hardly encourage it, for are you ready

for the solitude and lack of support?

I looked in his gray eyes and said,

Father, I am ready.

Christ is sufficient.

I will not walk alone out there.

VII

I left Sketis.

Went far into the desert.

So much silence.

I was used to noise.

The vulgar jokes and songs of my old conrades

The giggles and flirting eyes of pretty, loose women.

A lone hawk seemed to follow 

and then again guide me to the destination.

The sun like a golden coin in the sky.

I found the place, built my cell,

but the water of life was too far!

I forgot that I must have water or die.

The distance to walk was far.

I lay and worried that first night

under a lapis lazuli sky,

the moon my only lamp.

Then He came to me, the hair of a Nazarite.

Olive skin, large all seeing eyes, 

a faint uni-brow. 

I knew Him immediately!

I stood on an unknown shore with sand

like gold dust.  He walked to me

on a sea of glass.  Huge wings of angels

covered the sky moving back and forth

to a heavenly song.

Holy! Holy! Holy!

Moses do not be afraid.

I awaken.

It was the first day.

VIII

I struggled with a mind long filled with sewage.

I remembered my boys.

I remembered the thrill of striking terror.

I remembered the Alexandrian prostitutes

with their bright eyes and plump bodies,

standing and beckoning before 

their fancy, low doors.

Den of thieves.

I remembered my knife drinking 

the lives of innocents.

I remembered driving off another man's

livestock and livelihood.

And I was ashamed.

Finally broken, I wept.

IX

I changed.

Jesus had mercy.

He had kept His promise.

Men no longed feared me.

They came for spiritual advice.

To sit and talk.

To drink in my words.

To witness my hospitality.

To see a feared man turned harmless.

What must we do to be good and serve God?

No man is good.

Only God is good.

We work, we pray 

to reach perfection.

It is gradual.

Sometimes we die before it is complete,

but God is merciful.

He understands the hearts of those who are evil,

but who long to be good.

He will help us.

Cooked,

cleaned,

washed the feet of others.

I no longer took from men or women.

I gave back.

Welcomed.

 

(To be continued)