Thanksgiving - Grateful For The Gift Of Writing - Three Recent Poems - shedding ashes, the secrets of each muse & never mine alone

As I itch on my bed, I have been writing and rewriting three recent poems that I wrote, revised or took to the next level of expression in the past month. This is my Thanksgiving gift with nothing bad about nothing and the true gratitude for my creative talents and the gift of this rare human birth. So here we go, and thank you for taking the time to read and comment if you are so moved or please ask me any questions that you might have. In any case, please enjoy... John

Three Poems by John Lavitt (November 24, 2011)

shedding ashes

she looks like a hot woman drinking,

she becomes a little girl weeping,

so young, still the shadows of a child,

lurching through vertigo, shedding ashes.

if you gaze gently into her eyes,

if you listen softly as she speaks,

a sudden smile, sweet and surprised,

emerges. there is a flower veiled,

beyond the shards of animal memory,

no exit possible, the fondle lurking,

cries muffled, her home a wicked altar,

so much innocence sacrificed so soon.

enough diagnosis to make you feel better;

didn’t you once boast of life preservers?

but what can i do? this is just in passing.

what medicine of earth and sky?

how many need a vision possible,

not visionary, no light show from heaven,

but a modest map of a future rendered

where each step taken leads.

if she beholds a path leading,

a vision of a woman possible,

her shattering less than a shadow,

a witness to the morning sun.

the secrets of each muse

who could paint such angry beauty?

not quite angry and definitely not bitter,

but exacting, dramatic and classical;

this woman sings of Europe before the fall.

Modigliani releases the flow of such softness,

his brush baring the aristocracy of beauty,

long and languorous, a sexual calm in color,

but blunting the elemental edges of this woman.

a strange mixture expressed in dichotomy;

a mix of a sunset stroll in the Mediterranean

with cigarette smoke rising in Bohemian shadows.

she cannot be captured without the chains.

the painter required, of course, Egon Schiele;

each stark line reveals her sexuality radiant,

battling against death, against cages respectable.

her truth exposed, the lovely flaws of a girl lost.

such beauty caught can never truly convey

three dimensions, the dark corners and closed drawers,

all she fears and all she loves: there are certain dreams,

the secrets of each muse the artist can never betray.

never mine alone

in the bright ambition of the waking hour,

there awakes a certain inclination, a need

to capture the world with the art of words.

this is immortality, my name carved in stone,

or just one more simulation of the snickering past;

so many have walked these cornerstones before,

each writer dancing in the whirl of unique discovery.

i believed in my significance. this is my comfort zone.

yes, i have written revolutionary poems before,

when i was younger, when i was young,

everything appeared to be the very first:

i was raising the curtain of the world!

repeated postures, the steps of an antiquated dance

where each poem sings of next year’s revolution.

but if i have never in truth been the original voice,

what is the point of scratching out these copies?

beyond today's survival, the breath of expression is sacred.

yes, this primal path not cut by the soles of my feet.

other footsteps trodden, fossilized imprints of the greats,

but each new step taken is a wondrous mystery.

the critics braying; thousands of greater poets past,

the bold first step long forgotten in ash and dust.

no, my friends, this graven path was never mine alone.

countless steps taken before, countless to come.

Day 37 Morning - Liver Biopsy Fears and My Song To Sing

Although it is day 37 according to the clock, it is not quite morning. 4:30 AM is one of those in-between times where the previous and the coming day mesh together in the silence of sleeping souls and wandering minds. At 9:00 AM in the coming morning, I am going to have a liver biopsy at Olympia Medical Center, a procedure that has been described to me as a swift horse kick in your side. Although I am not quivering and my hands are steady, there is a certain fear lurking in the back of my mind. Such a medical procedure just simply sounds unnatural and not what is supposed to be happening to a human being as the sun rises on a Thursday morning. Alas, what is supposed to be happening and what will happen are two vastly different continents that are separated by the ocean of my reality.

Although I can dream of a far-off fantasy world and life where every wish comes true and the twilight lasts all day long, it remains only a dream. Tomorrow morning I will have to wake (that is, of course, if I actually sleep again) and face the simple reality of my friend picking me up at 7:40 AM to take me to the eventual destination. Such an eventuality will not pass and will not vanish into the framework of the night. Still, in the stillness, how I love the quietude and peace of this time. And there is no wrong in such dreams, no fault to be criticized or even contemplated for long, as long as the dream does not get in the way and undermine the right path of the eventual moment that lies before me.

Last night, I went over to the newly bought home of my friend Randy and his wife Christine to have dinner and spend some time with them. Being huge supporters and, if I may be so bold, even lovers of my poetry, I brought a whole series of past work to read to them. It was a delightful reading with a smile dancing across Randy's countenance as he experienced the words. Afterwards, he said that the smile was born of being transported into the emotional reality and evolutionary process of the work as though it was his own experience.

Randy had heard many of my poems before, but this was Christine's first reading. And her sweet and loving reaction simply took my breath away. As I read of love lost and the challenge of being human amid the chaos of this life, she closed her eyes and began to tremble, then gave way to the emotion within her as she opened them and the tears came. It always is such an astonishing moment when you see how your work has the power to deeply affect another human being. At the end of the reading which comprised over 25 pages of poetry, Christine announced that she had decided to start writing and find out what was in her own being to express. Nothing means more than the God-given ability to inspire another person to delve into their own depths and find their own song. And once again (how many times has it happened and how many times have I abandoned the lesson?), I remembered the simple truth of my own purpose on this planet earth.

Like all of us, I was given the gift of a song to sing. In the Dialogue of the Savior, a fragmentary but legitimate (in my opinion, the only external Gospel that accesses the actual teachings of Jesus besides The Sayings Gospel of Thomas) Gnostic text that reveals Jesus talking with his disciples, this lesson is made clear. In my own compilation Gospel (it's a whole nother story that we'll eventually get into) that incorporates both The Sayings Gospel of Thomas and The Dialogue of the Savior into a narrative compilation of the traditional four, I end a sequence where Jesus teaches the disciples in private after gathering them together with the following:

Simon Peter, who would be called the rock, asked Jesus, "Then tell us, Master, 

what is the beginning of the way?"

   Jesus smiled and said, "Love and goodness, Simon.  The beginning of the way 

is always love and goodness. 

Allow what is within you to sing, and those will be the songs of your Father." 

Mind you, I am not a Christian or a believer in Christ in the Pauline sense or in the evangelical tradition that was started with John the Evangelist. Rather, I am a huge fan of Jesus the teacher, and the fancy miracles, the transcendental issues, and the resurrection do not matter to me. What matters to me is the miracle of the teachings and the parables. The Sermon on the Mount, The Parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan, the saving of the adulteress from stoning in Jerusalem and the washing of the disciples feet are more than enough for me to love and respect and learn from the teacher. Anyone else's beliefs are really none of my business, and whatever works for you and gets you through the night is fine  with me as long as you display the love and care and respect that the great spiritual teachers showed to others as well.

Jesus Giving His Blessing - Hans Memling (1478)

Okay, forgive the explanatory interlude, but I felt it was necessary. There is another blog and another time and another place for the details of my own faith. What is more essential right now is that the poetry reading tonight reminded me deep within of the song that I was put here on this earth to sing by my father in heaven. When I write "my father in heaven", I choose not to capitalize because essentially it is a metaphor and one that I feel works for me and is comfortable. Basically, when it comes down to the brass tacks, I really am just a well-developed and evolved monkey with a computer, and the forces behind the universe remain an incredible mystery to me. I choose, however, to believe that this universe is civilized with some kind of divine intelligence or energy operating behind the scenes. As a result, I choose once again to avoid the closed fists and stomping feet of the exclamation points (!) and embrace the wondrous mystery of the question mark (?).

I have been writing for sixty straight minutes and I am starting to fade a bit. After all, I do have quite a morning rapidly approaching. But I will end with this conviction: I know I have a song to sing, and I will use the crucible of my Hepatitis C treatment to bring forth my song and focus on what really matters for me in the blink of an eye that is this rare human birth. As Jesus expressed so clearly in line from The Sayings Gospel of Thomas that inspired my entire attempt to compile my own version:

   "Truly I promise, the kingdom of God is within you. 

   "If you bring forth what is within you, 

what you bring forth will save you.  

If you do not bring forth what is within you, 

what you do not bring forth will destroy you."

If I had one wish at this very moment, it would be that we all experience the sweet grace and the divine opportunity of bringing forth the beauty and the wonder that is within our souls.

Day 8 Night - A Question of Poetry

After having found so many of my first drafts, the raw material of poetry that was never forged into finished work, I have been working on the poems. The question is whether I should include my own poetry in this blog. I am being pulled in different directions in my own head. The first argument tells me that this blog is about my Hepatitis C and how I am dealing with the process of entering into and going through treatment. It is silly to include my poetry in such a blog. The second argument tells me to ignore the thesis of the first because my poetry is the essence of who I am and the most authentic expression of my voice. Not to include the work I am currently revising and new poems written would be a major mistake.

Okay, I think I am going to side with the second argument and stop arguing with myself. Plus I am tired after two straight hours of revisions, crafting four new poems out of those raw materials. And hundreds of pages await me in the future. It is like a rediscovery of myself. So before I sign off and slip into the comfort of my dreams, here is a short poem I wrote in a junkyard in Voula in 1997, a southern suburb of Athens where my Greek family lives. Not my blood family, but a family of artists, musicians and architects who adopted me in 1987 when I was backpacking through Greece. I have been close to them ever since, and they have opened their home and their lives to me many times over the years. So here is a short poem that expresses a theme that I hope characterizes the volition of this blog...


and

sitting on an abandoned car,
looking for the evening star,
and the world is perfect.

Although this is not that car, it is the closest I could come to the feel of that crepuscular hour. And forgive me for using that word when twilight or sunset or in the gloaming would have been perfectly fine. God only knows I have been looking for an excuse to use crepuscular for years now.