And so the Death Mask raises its hoary head
and tries to strangle the green vines
growing in our dreams.
Tibetan monks broken like tiny twigs
beneath the ponderous footfall of barbarian feet,
the ancient sorcerer, with sickle and horn,
molds the unsuspecting populace,
discredits the passive emanations of chanting voices
and the delicate prayer wheels
that spin too infrequently in the minds
of humanity.
Oh you eater of flesh and the emerging petals of Peace,
you madman stumbling through the ruins of temples
and the intoxicating non garden
that is devoid of lavender and songbird.
You whose voice resonates like a mute god,
you who proclaims the idiot to be a wise man.
You who perpetuates the tragedy
in cradles and wombs,
who stains the saffron of the morning
with the blood of the acolyte’s guilt.
Do you really expect me
to swallow and digest your rancid political pablum
and not experience some form of regurgitation?
I look out across the pus filled landscape of your history
and see only a bleak surrealistic painting
decorated with the stretch marks of abject cruelty,
with the severed heads of saints
and the diminishing return
of century upon century of undivine fruit.
You roll like a corpulent despot
inside a festival of shame and greed,
your brain, your heart tinted
by the immediacy of a wine that is unpalatable
and decaying in goblets of mortality.
Oh I shrug your sceptered weight from my shoulders,
discard your shipwreck of jeweled glamour
and blackened sails,
the aborted veils that try to keep
the lanterns of hopefulness
from being alive and glowing.
The dramatic fable that you try to continuously ignite,
with licentious, pompous phrasing
inside the ears of the human species,
it will not last forever.
It will be summoned before the hearth of the heart
and unfold like an irritant text,
menial and only befitting the eyes of the numb minded.
Ah . . . our cry, our subterranean wail
will rise up from your serpented violent sea
and it will sing with the consecrated throat
of a forgotten dove,
all illuminated and without spasms
or confessions of global prejudice.
So Death Mask . . . I blaspheme
your mumbling mouth of marbles,
I unite with the whispered secret of all galaxies
and sing forth in a voice
that attempts to echo the sacred.
* * * * * * * *
Oh blessed be this miniature corridor that my life
wanders through,
Blessed be the lullaby of neglected monks.
Blessed be the cricket in its satoric state of moon song,
Blessed be the ever depressed stranger and the leper
and the dispossessed.
Blessed be the fallen tree and its banquet of termites,
Blessed be this internal interview with Truth.
Blessed be Judas moaning over a blood stained hill,
Blessed be the whispered psalms of the mute.
Blessed be the calculating eye of the eagle,
Blessed be the rabbit and her burrow of escape.
Blessed be the warmth of my wife’s forgiving body,
Blessed be her understanding during times of literary
madness.
Blessed be the innocence inherent in every cradle,
Blessed be prophetic anticipation.
Blessed be the titmouse in its tiny stature,
Blessed be the salamander with its head above the water.
Blessed be the one million hosts whom float across
the ever moving sands of impermanence,
Blessed be the late November rain.
Blessed be the possibility of a better hymn,
Blessed be the Bardo Thodal of language.
Blessed be the black dog who sits brown eyed
at my feet,
Blessed be the owl in its nocturnal grace.
Blessed be butterflies who dream of past cocoons,
Blessed be the symphonic voice of a new dawn.
Blessed be the enormous blank page of the Universe,
Blessed be the ethereal cry of the divine eye.
Blessed be the mushroom with its crimson warning,
Blessed be the pinecone as it drops to the ground.
Blessed be the slowly growing rumor of serenity,
Blessed be its sensitive rupture in the minds
and hearts of the many.
Blessed be portents of racial unification,
Blessed be the aftermath of oblivion, the renunciation
of greed.
Blessed be the bison, the bear, the elk,
Blessed be the forest that encloses them.
Blessed be the footsteps that lead to a new threshold,
Blessed be the changes and the quietude that it promises.
Blessed be the palmed fingers of the Buddha
And blessed be the stained hands and feet of the Christ.
Blessed be the worm and the robin’s hungry beak,
Blessed be the bee and its one dimensional purpose.
Blessed be the lovers with their limbs entwined
in appreciation,
Blessed be the impregnation of hallowed thought.
Blessed be the eventual consecration of the Earth,
Blessed be the demise of the dynastic tables
of the unthinking.
Blessed be the mule and his slowly waving tail,
Blessed be the flies that distract his reverie.
Blessed be the all seeing terrestrial eye of Creation,
Blessed be the azaleas blooming at midnight.
Blessed be the sanctity of a metaphysical heaven,
Blessed be the eradication of illicit concepts.
Blessed be the spider with her dew spun web,
Blessed be the manna she captures daily.
Blessed be the poets and prophets of a psychological
exodus,
Blessed be the return of angels and wandering holy men.
Blessed be the embryonal cord of the macrocosm,
And blessed be the blood, the spirit that flows back
to the SOURCE.
Oh blessed, blessed . . . blessed you, blessed me,
Blessed circumference of this slowly spinning globe
and all who breathe upon its surface . . .
But most of all blessed be the children
for they bear the indispensable hope
that we will alter our destructive course
and begin to truly see the universal uterus
of the future.
A contest entry
- Enter your last posted poem by whispernthedark.
425 points, ended March 22, 2008, 45 entries
Bronze trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - LOOKING FOR NEW FAVORITES!!! by Auburn Sunrise.
600 points, ended March 25, 2008, 27 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 18 of 18
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And congradulations!
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Reading this poem was strange timing. I came upon it accidentally while looking at this contest, and saw your name in the winners. As I began to read, I felt close to tears as it speaks of something not only horrible but disturbing in its deep shame..that we do nothing and many people know nothing of it. The unjustice happening in Tibet as we speak and only recently has the media really been convering it..and only because of the fact that Tibetan monks are strking back with violence...
Its something that I have been wanting to write about but could not find the right way to approach it, and now I have read this and I am grateful for finding it. It is an excellent write and as I said brought me close to tears. More than anything it brought me renewed drive in the subject.
As for the second part it is both inspirational and beautiful, I appreciate you sharing it. The children are the future yes...and I truly hope that they will be wiser and more inclined to compassion more than any before them.
Best wishes!
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all i could and bow...
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Blessed be!!!
LOL!
Sorry, I couldn't resist!
Definitely a poem full of a contagious sort of hope and enlightenment. Brilliant and high-spirited!
I love it!
Thank you for entering the contest, and good luck! -
A voice of light and hope
And that voice is what I admire about your poetry, about the light of soul and compassion that shines from everything you write, Marc. You give a voice to the "disenfranchised", to the monks who suffer at the hands of cruelty, and most of all to the children for whom we are trying to save this world of ours. Truly magnificent, soulful poetry... bless you for writing this and for the way in which your voice carries the voices of earth, of creation, of what's right, of what is both big and small!!!
~ Nicolette
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Thank you Nic . . . understand that I have worked with very young children for most of my adult life . . . thus I am sensitive to the tragic mess we may leave to them when our generation passes over . . . I guess I can't help but be rather loud sometimes, perhaps even overbearing to some, but I will not be silent and I hate politics, so poetry seems to be my only avenue of expression . . .
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Amazing. Thank you for entering the contest, good luck.
♥
whisper
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thAt U was supposed to be an I
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I was more impressed with the benediction in the second half, but still quite impressed overall. good work!
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Part #1 (which was my favourite) was breath-taking in its anger and its sense of disillusionment.
The images created by "corpulent despot" were absolutely perfect for the context. I read that section three times because of how great it was.
So, nice job.
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I do so enjoy your 'howls' but I feel the exhaustion of the soul, the ignorance and turned back of those who do not understand them, I will howl to the moon with you Marc, tis the only way I know how. Love, C
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And I know that you will be there Cheryl . . . I heard you the other night on the nearest ridge and your voice was powerful and oh so strong . . . peace, sister . . . Marc
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Superb
I'm not sure that I agree with all of your premises in this write, however, that does not matter because I find this to be one fantastic expression of all types of things that can often go wrong within organized authoritarian religions (and perhaps others as well).
Extremely well written indeed, just as it is.
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Wow, this was one long piece
Although I can say it was well worth reading. I like the images it conjure and it makes one think. Good job of it 
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How coincedental that I was reading,
Howl, Parts I & II by Allen Ginsberg this
morning. You are a genius in your use of anaphora;
excellent, as it's not as easy as it looks. lol
I wish I could hear this read out loud in a setting
like this:
(An early Ginsberg reading):
"Wine flowed freely from jugs and crowds cheered during the reading. It was in this energized atmosphere that the 29-year-old Ginsberg, having published little up to that point, unveiled an early version of his poem, "Howl," to a mesmerized audience whose relentless cheers of "Go! Go! Go!" brought him to tears by the end of the performance."
This is true, meaningful poetry hon. Please keep it up.
Kathleen
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Thanks Kathleen . . . I have had Allen's Howl embedded in my brain since the early 60's. He, along with Kerouac and a few others, showed me how to use the extended line length, the use of the breath in such pieces.
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And you do it so well.
Kudos.
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breath taking in it's depth and breadth once again, as a lament and a prayer. My father used to say 'leave the dragon sleeping, if it wakes the earth will tremble.' We can only pray that life , in it's eternal quest for balance, will prove the gentle strength of the Dalai Llama and his followers not to have been in vain as the World watches.
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