For my beautiful friend and fellow poet Andrea Grenadier. I wish her the best of health--the intervention of the Elohim--and pray she recovers soon from her painful back surgery.
You´re foundering in dead words again.
My life just appears that way sometimes.
There´s no way out, the way you´re going.
What makes you certain, oh holiness?
You don´t write lists in the cool mornings.
I swear I´ll scribble one down tomorrow.
You´ve gotten used to saying, ¨mañana.¨
I refuse to believe I´ve detoured that far.
Look at you now. No hope. Good luck!
Are you wishing me a last goodbye?
Always I remain your guardian protector.
Thanks for the two wings up, Gabriel.
Even when I least enjoy my assignment.
Strong words for such a late night exit.
Never meant more comprehensively.
You´re tough on me, angelito mío.
I´ve yet to intimate the true disaster.
*Angele Dei: Angel Of God, invoked in the traditional Catholic prayer to one´s guardian angel.
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Thank you for posting to our group. You are now featured!
xxx
a
I, the universe
as one who had studied heaven and hell
The tenderness and strength both human and divine
Their diabolic dialogue as real as fine wine
and the thing that puts this cherub to bed
is unknown future implicated with dread
I'm pleading now on bended knees
Let me feature this on Poet's Weekly Muse
Please!
To assist in your healing when the surgery is done
I thought I dedicated a poem to you...but if I haven't yet I will!
Blessings and best wishes in abundance both to you and dear Andrea - S.
Featured in the Triple Name Club.
This is a side of John F Walter that I'd like to see a lot more of!
It is worth far more than the ten stars I'm allowed to give.
I've had a quiet word with Big G. and asked Him to get on your case.
o angele dei meus,
o deux ex vatis!
o proverbe à la nuit de l'âme,
que tu me bénisses,
que tu me blesses avec
ta poésie paradisiaque!
il faut que tu guérisses car
le monde a besoin de
ta belle gorge,
ton cœur fort et faible,
tes paraboles, tes rages!
nous sommes à toi, belle ange,
nous sommes à toi, maîtresse
pour que tu sois entière
pour que tu ne connaisses plus
la peur, que tu fleurisses
dans ton jardin de graines sacrées
ces mots qui t'attendent
ton doux retour parmi eux,
angele dei, douce déesse,
nous sommes à toi
n'importe quoi viendra.
dans la paix et l'acceptance
de notre bonne chance
alors, danse, andrea, danse
entre lumière et noir
danse comme l'ange
que tu sois. danse!
et n'aie pas peur de rien.
~lt xoxoxoxooxoxxo
John, this reminds me that angels are still on this earth.You're a true person.
The poet feels at a dead end, "You're foundering in dead words again." That language is no longer alive, that inspiration is lost. The conversation with the angel is almost as if with an earlier voice of great promise, along with being a type of conscience of the poet, who feels he's perhaps putting things off too often, ¨mañana,¨ and not even writing those cursed morning pages that are so beloved by The Artist's Way crowd.
Is it just me or is the angel somewhat accusatory... how very like a Catholic angel, if you don't mind my saying. Now a New Age angel would not behave that way! :grinning: ::ps I'm not a New Age type::
In this piece, then, I detect despair, a poet's despair, which is of a particular kind that revolves around words and their aliveness, a stark angel who offers no soothing compassion for the word-ravaged but still guards the man because, well it's his job, and a sense of ending that is incredibly dark.
In this despair I sense a comment on the New Age la-la happy-happy angel singing because the 'reality check' is that it's not very nourishing or sustaining in the darkest hours. I feel a description of a 'dark night of the soul' that's very moving, if bleak because without the dawn. And I feel a deep empathy for what a beloved fellow writer is suffering through with illness and through that empathy a recognition of the reality of life, its tender fragility, the dreams of which it is made and unmade, the spiritual journey itself.
Do I like this poem? Yes. It's superbly written, not an excessive word anywhere. Stark. A dark vision in the night. A Faustian conversation with the Angele Dei, who offers stark criticism of the poet and perhaps represents the poet's self-doubt. And yet the poem itself is so beautifully written we can see that the even the angel struggles with the obvious talent of the writer.
Brenda, I'm amazed at your insight into the heart of this poem. I'm glad it came last, I was about to just say thanks to everybody but then you spoke directly to me here.
This piece isn't about my dark night, it IS the dark night. In Granada, I live just a few hundred yards away from the carmen where San Juan De La Cruz wrote his amazing sequence of poems. As any poet who has any humility at all would admit, anything written 5 centuries later would only be a footnote to that mighty work of depth, despair and bargaining with one's Higher Power to turn around, to face the poor sinner again and shine the light.
However, every person's depression is very real and feels like a nadir for each brain, mind, soul (each chooses how to identify themselves with their consciousness, their sense of their whole being). I went into a terrible hole of self late last summer, when I couldn't find work in the States. When I came back to Spain I wrote dozens of poems like this one (dear readers, I promise this is the only one I'll post on Gather, they are like Goya's Pinturas Negras, not Donne's Holy Sonnets, you only need one to get the idea) as I tried to pen my way out of my pit of doubt and self-laceration.
When I read a recent email that Andrea sent to me and how lousy she felt, I figured that if she read something bleaker than the way she felt, it would perk her up. You know, " I cried because I had no shoes, until I met the man who had no feet." It appears to have done so, and I'm glad. But yes, this is no New Age Angel who has been sent to speak with me, but rather, a more terrifying and objective voice, closer in my view to the Power that is in each of us that binds us to the world.
I like that you wrote, my life just appears that way sometimes ... because appearances are not the truth of who or what we are ... they are simply appearances.
I love this. I will keep Andrea, and her angel John : ) in my prayers!
Though the "dark night" is not pleasant we might all benefit from a longer work of artistic revelation of such trials as yours as you have so eloquently portrayed in these few short lines.
John, you captured out G-d so well -- a kick in the butt, a threat, and He's gone! But not without love, and not without making his point, which you did so beautifully. Our god is not a New Age angel, Brenda, nor is mine Catholic, but Jewish -- an avenging, hard one who also quietly protects His creatures in their darkest pain.
John, I am a big fan of the Goya Pinturas Negres. I love that you brought up humility in your comments, for without it, there is no gratitude for the light that eventually comes to a darkened door.
C.F. said it beautifully -- for John, and also Laura, were the imaginative motivating forces that helped me to find the desired language. Brenda, your comments are so insightful, and so true! The poem captures all I have been feeling. Jan and Svetlana, I know that you both can conjure up any angels, saints, masters and goddesses (that's you!) for me! And Atticus, thank you, as always.
Love to all,
a.
Yes, I sense the humor, too, and John knows this is certainly the way around the black soul, with dark humor. So Jewish! And seeking the better angel of my nature, I sent two wings up to you both.
What Nathan said, perfectly.
Be well, dear Andrea. you are much loved here.
Or is it anything at all, but the threatening fist of depression’s guilt he high-fives with a familiar jocularity? Oh, the faith we will it, the stock we hold in the heavenly authority of it’s portends as it preaches high on the mound in the depths of the amigdula.
i love this poetic conversation, john.
Angele, messanger, intermediate .... Hermes, Mercury, comunicator, prtector ...
Invisible forces that we sense ... Also people that after long time we might understand they had act as protectors angels in our life when at risk ...
Thankfull for all that, and angel myself, I hope, between the races the sects the family clans the countries the parties the religious beliefs and the esoteric meanings in their many names ...
Good morning from Alkistis Wechsler, guest of Kenneth Andrew at the moment. :)
A dramatic dialogue of insightful voices, John, set in visions of healing despite setbacks for a dearly beloved friend. Jan's poem etches further meaning into the realms of questions and answers in the tethered world between life and death. Andrea has inspired a great verse rapt with profound awareness amidst the "strong words" of the soul. To read this entire thread is to marvel at the sensitive, moving, intelligent and compassionate love of friends.