Poet's Quest
O' Thought: the priceless treasure of a man,
Conjuring bold images beyond the day.
Lead us to a more open time and plan,
Respectfully, show us a new and better way.
Questions:
What shall be a poet’s place,
Amidst kind-mannered hearts and sighs.
Or on a blood-stained battle space,
Where the body, not Honour dies.
A poignant poem in a bowery stall,
Cocktail set, or Rampart's mission.
Which gives a picture of us all,
And tells best of our true condition.
Perhaps in a rough and tumble social scene,
Taking a bit of life from each and more.
In society's all consuming scheme,
Then smashing pretensions to the floor.
Or shall he rest in calm stillness then,
And reside in poetic word’s delight.
To muse, and rhyme, in a quiet den,
Within the silent cloak of night.
What art should he strive to see,
In his paramount poetic abode.
Where shall he find his destiny,
To build a celebrated Ode.
Should his quest be to know-
How many tears were shed,
When Hate crushed things that grow-
And annihilation where it led.
And then by rationale and logic,
They swore to stop this abomination.
With force of honest men in arms,
Stripped this scourge from Earth forever -
And granted life to each peaceful nation.
Can poetry reveal the heart of Man,
Seeking freedom as it thirsts for rightous might.
Boldly breaching tyranny’s plan,
And expressing the triumph of the right.
How far to quest for poetic light,
That dims even the living Sun.
Where to search for the Taoist man,
Or even find the universal One.
And what of good, his dreams of youth,
As he faces each challenging test.
Can he build his search for truth,
And discover therein, his very best.
Requirement:
What could be a poet’s baptismal font:
A wild Caucasian mountain scene,
A quiet place or a lonely Paris pont,
Perhaps some place he’s never been.
Which fetching smile will his inspiration be,
Or convoluted allegory will he find.
To make and mould a master poesy,
And complete his searching mind.
How far shall he extend his earthly grasp,
To gain a bold universe of thought.
Which pope or prophet shall he ask,
Amid the ravages they have wrought.
Could his Greeks as at Thermopylae-
Stand firm as his shield and resources,
Edifying him with their multi-mythic vision.
By marshalling their poetic forces-
Stand him safe from cold derision.
In his bastion of words and rhythm,
In his quiet den of reflection and wit.
With his muse in concordance with him,
Spinning and weaving words well knit.
With these heroes of poesy’s throng-
He could converse, debate and linger,
And dream of great poets gone.
Eulogising the departed audoi singer,
While singing his sweet parting song.
Exposition
Then as closing Day becomes tomorrow,
Forces of barbarism’s darkest night.
Reveals its denizens of hate and sorrow,
As Editos battles Metaphor and Rhyme-
In a bloody verbal fight.
But the Davidsbund of Schumann’s dreams,
Marching as culture’s warriors brave,
With lyrics overcame those verbal Philistines.
Trumpeting, “This poetic art we will save.”
Then defeated Editos, his cutting words of hurt-
Remaindered, and his bloody forces sorely beat,
Marked as despicable, and then sent down to Ennui.
There his dark schemes were marked for defeat,
The Davidsbund celebrated its lyrical victory.
Can the poet on his own, stand victorious-
Against such a verbal Tsunami tide,
Beat an ocean of pride, vainglorious-
Over brimming with Vanity and Pride
Or will he be free to wander in poetic solitude,
Seeking life’s lessons in word and rhyme.
Touched by heart’s intent or action’s magnitude,
And discover thoughts more than just sublime.
Wondering what to share his passion ‘bout,
What words give a touch of tear’d emotion.
Which phrase will make his condition stout,
While penning a hopeful poetic notion.
Promises
So he made paean to Mythos fair,
For a chance to see beyond his view.
His poetic pleas were answered-,
By a ghostly apparition there.
To help him learn and bring about-
Poetic things that he must do.
Then by chance discovering.
At a crossroads in the darkest part of night.
His lifeblood's poesy recovering,
A quiet Orb came into sight.
The Orb, like a shiver or distant feeling-
Felt on a wind swept hillock high-
Amidst an evening’s last twilight glow.
Conjured hidden secrets lost-
Then saved for this revealing,
Thoughts we only think we feel-
And somehow we always know.
The poet asked, “Can you help me spirit:
To find mankind’s forgotten poetic light,
And those perfect words that help him-
Spin delicate webs of poetry at night.”
“If you seek the essence and rhythm of man.
Let your vision and bi-cameral mind join-
To meditate and sing you a poetic plan.
The story, meaning and meter-
Your poetic rhythms will enjoin.”
Seek the embering glow of human fire,
That kindling spark within us all.”
The wispy Orb gave him words to inspire,
“Come, travel-
Beyond the den, your home, this wall,
See the world anew, be there and see it all.”
The Orb raced ahead and faded-
Like a cloud descending below a rustic hill,
A shiver ran cold though the poet-
As warm night faded into chilling midnight blue.
Is this a test to sense my strength of will,
Will I have l’ courage to see the questing through.
Contemplation
He found himself abandon and alone-
Lost amid a hundred wild mountain dells.
Feeling like Earth’s last forgotten man,
Facing Dante’s fate in a multitude of hells,
More questions than the mind can hold-
Where is my genius Orb,
And what is his master plan.
He was trapped on a rocky outcropped crag,
As if chained to a stubborn repeating thought–,
Becoming as a bold impassioned mind,
Prometheus like and alone vulnerable as a stag.
Now, a slave to the concepts he had wrought.
He wondered, why should a poet verse at all?
When words like the morning dew.
Vanish as a bleary morning pall,
When all the reading's through.
But thinking bold as his hero Heracles-
He knew his poetic quest was right,
Steeled as with Tireseus’ vision of the blind,
Armoured him with bold Apollo’s visionary light,
To conquer that foreboding darkness-
And support his vulnerability of mind.
Brought down Prometheus-
Still chafing from his chains,
Wounds from multitudinous harpies.
Showed through his skin and veins.
He spoke as one of Knowledge and Experience,
Paid for by his sacrifice and tears.
“See the world through logic and common sense,”
He offered from his of many thousand years.
Then poet and demi-god wandered the world-wide free,
Across numberless mountains, cities and dales-
Conversing on the mind of Man,
How his gifts of self-knowledge-
Taught us to live by our own decree,
And find the promise of humanity‘s grandest plan.
His Orb joined the pondering clan,
Like a mist rising just before us.
Giving shape to conversations between-
Towering demi-god and questing man,
Like towering trees in verdant forest.
Then old and hoary Prometheus,
After suffering his torment forever and a day.
Echoed what he saw of us,
“I gave so much to humanity, and modern man-
Acts like a fallen god, and throws it all away.”
The Orb draws our attention up,
To the latest evening starry night.
To the grandest point in all the sky,
“Look to the Zenith for Apollo’s light.
It matters to me what mortals read and do,
Poems and rhetoric are gifts of love,
Drawn together like a Capulet and Montague-
Each are free to embrace spectrum’s light,
Be the promise, or if they please-
Forget me and then eschew.”
Resolution
Then poet’s words renewed, now ringing,
Expanding, swelling clear and true.
“Life is the only song worth singing,
Till breath and spark of life are through.”
“The reader’s the one to verse about,” he thought,
“A single body’d mind, or a universe of nations.
Listen for each quiet whisper-
Or a hear the roar of a gathering shout-
The repeating song within one beating heart-
Or echoes reverberating from all relations.”
The mountain passes give a paternal sigh,
And shows him the majesty of the starry night.
To the grandest point in all the sky,
Where Apollo directs him to the Light.
The poet's mind flashes as the dawn,
Floods his semi-conscious being.
Its sound and connotation can't be wrong,
When it conjures universal meaning.
Perhaps the answer's waiting there,
Beyond his sheltering door.
Among the wind swept mountains bare,
Or hiding on a lowly valley floor.
Eschew the warmth to wander thus,
Searching the Versifier's Grail.
From snowy far Hindu Kush,
To a cot beyond Dublin's Pale.
Wanderings
'Round every aspect of the swirling earth,
From parched desert to fetching shore.
This globe becomes his test of worth,
His mind, his psyche, and more.
He wandered roads barren and sere,
Searching for his raison d'être
With Endymion and Selene shepparding near,
Giving all his mind to repay his poetic debt.
Consigned then, to highway, field, and ocean,
Seeking universals in the dust of earth.
He sweeps his World for its newest notion,
Thus honing skills, and testing the mettle of his worth.
With great pity his Orb appears again-
And takes on the search with him,
Helping without critique or blame.
Spirited that poet through mountains foreign,
Driven thought alone, to answers of every kind.
And somewhere along his poetic quest,
Along a mountainous roadway pass,
More than a recreation; more like mythic test.
The sudden appearance of it seemed abrupt and fast.
Before him, chapel bells one quiet Sunday morn.
Peeled a loud proclaiming call to Mass,
Where faith and truth are born.
And from life-to-life the sacrament is passed.
His ghostly Orb turns the poet to spirit wind,
Flowing swiftly past the faithful few.
And makes the altar stone, his prison inn,
And the golden tabernacle, his silken pew.
Within that blessed rock,
The poet partakes each rubric sound.
Then above the granite altar's oaken rail.
Feels the weight of the chalice down,
And feels the touch of an unfamiliar grail.
This chalice holds another light,
A golden promise and a plan.
This one holds steady and true,
For all the ages of the universal man,
It tells of a Teacher of the Right.
Search sallow eyes of the parish priest,
Gazing down at this poet's stonework tomb.
Seek better revelations than the least,
Who hopes to find salvation in a granite womb.
The padre's look in stark surprise,
Revealed by the poet’s upward glance.
Sensed with grey disbelieving eyes,
His vision’s double take is more than like a dance.
Devoutly in that granite space,
As water and wine poured in.
Into that silver sacrificial place,
The poet’s psyche is white of sin.
He mingles down with blood and wine,
Drenched in a new Apollo’s Light.
He savoir the very ends of time,
After clouds of a dark Chthonian night.
Wild thoughts beyond the rubrics stream,
Beyond the altar rock below.
Then whisk him from that doubtful scene.
Was that the truth, or will this poet never know?"
Return:
Then the Orb whisks him away-
From his sacred rubric dream,
He flew back to his highway path.
Freed from that sacred chalice scheme,
And spared its prayerful aftermath.
The open road welcomes his racing heart,
As miles meld through land and shore.
The road becomes his better part,
And, he becomes it more.
And then at once he’s all of it,
From coast to a distant mountain.
The rolling thunderous call of it,
Drenched in its concrete fountain.
Feeling a millions miles long,
Its tangled ribbon strength beheld.
Wheels rolling their thunderous song,
As an infinitude of stone and concrete meld.
Being everywhere at once,
His poesy gained life anew.
This questing not anyplace at all, he said,
It's in the dreams we do.
As he approached the edge of the earth,
The Orb sensed fear, and urged him even more,
“You have done well this far, my charge,
The sea is greater than any land.
Poetry is but a string of words ‘round-
Intellect’s vast ocean, with rhetoric as its shore.
The poet flew with wind and wave,
From land to sea, and oceans wide.
Spreading thoughts in rhyme that humans crave,
Sowing words of nations and their people’s pride-
Awakenings:
And with each revelation done,
A new poet awakens and arises.
A new day begins as new rhythms come,
Bringing joy and literal surprises.
This is where Intellect’s answers lie,
Not scattered through place, or time.
But on pages that cast dour hearts-
Up into an infinite and glorious sky.
Where quietude drowns ignorance bare,
He finds a contemplative spot.
With evermore time to spare,
Poetry can forever be his lot.
Then he reaches deep within a searching heart,
Seeing ideas found in in an aorist view.
Capturing each morning's golden part,
And wrapping it in mist of poetic dew.
Marching words in the beating rhythms of a thought,
Casting them in phrases to make a rhyme.
Sounds wraps themselves in meaning kindly wrought,
To spin story arcs in universal time.
Both reader and writer and know the thrill,
As Intellect pleasures both all the while.
Moist eyes yearn for more, and always will,
Pages gently turned, bring thought to rampant style.
© 2020 and beyond, R.L. Lyons, all rights reserved. |
