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His last exile, like the first,
Heard cries of grief on every side; His lovers feared to lose Him, And many men and women cried. The ship that carried God’s own Voice, Blessed beyond all vessels gone, Made a cross, of its choice, To bring each wailing soul to song. Though song from such a primal past, Is buried beneath these feeble letters, It’s agony beyond our paradise lost, And beauty blinding peacock feathers .
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His last exile, like the first,
Heard cries of grief on every side; His lovers feared to lose Him, And many men and women cried. The ship that carried God’s own Voice, Blessed beyond all vessels gone, Made a cross, of its choice, To bring each wailing soul to song. Though song from such a grieving host Is beyond these tragic letters, His pain surpassed Job’s wandering ghost, His shackles freed the lover’s fetters. I am lost, oh love, upon a sea,
Within a ship so firm and fine, How strange that one could be so free Within a place so strong and sound. Oh Love who placed me in these walls, Oh Love, who makes these walls of light, Love who sends Her water falls From mountains of majestic might. If thou wishest me to live, Through me blow Thy holy breath, The touch of Thy new Name thou wilt give To one who from the shore has leapt. Then Thou beyond both first and last, Thou who hast come with bugle’s blast, To every poor one Thou wilt give, To every soul Thou shalt say “live!”. I am mad with words; I see them abused
And take them far so their meaning can heal; I rhyme them and rhyme them not until they are real. They are pregnant within me and issue forth, A muse’s madness visits me - we hasten forth. And what cup is emptied that is not filled? I see One standing perfectly still in the light With reason to believe me. My corporeal soul, Which scattered my words to the four winds, Returns and, kneeling as an ancient man With head to ground, happiness spills. I turn to see a Youth wander in And bring a peaceful gale; I looked and found and now I trim my sail. You were wrong to doubt me, for each day I long to detach little by little my self So there is nothing left in me But a rose laden breeze from the Unknown Town. Ha! My introductions humble me! All this to say my rug is clean When I say my prayers. If I decided to go to the corner store wrapped up
It was a decision converted into the walk taken. Pinning from the executions, I walked to beat the rain Promised in the change of pressure, tattered clothes, And in the sliding eastward of the blue-blue sky. And in the time it took the crows did eat the tree, In that the tree, swindled to a bare pocked thing Was home to what crows ate that night as they Clung to the pulp like many moths to a cool bright light. The execution was over days ago, another land, Another source for power to release itself Throughout not just the land that held the dead bodies, But throughout the world whose body accepted all. The Baha’is were killed in the usual manner, perhaps A bill for the bullets to the family outlawed as heretic: Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic until the right time would put A right king on the throne of Teheran. I’ll eat the crows all in a row, And so will go the tree to make me more a man And the more the crows had eaten, the more is me; Hesitate not in the ether, before the scalpel sets Behind the clouds and cuts a new horizon for The next day whose take is all the gold in the world, But must make the same cut and empty its hold For the next day whose task is set before the hour. If I shook and trembled the way I felt the people Would run from me like the running from a metaphor Made of images the like of which have not been cut; Then if I were a diamond your dreams would be safe, And no Minotaurs climbing through your upper neck. So now my walk is over, and the bullets have been fired and the Bodies buried and the Morse code gone- dot-dot-dot dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot The crows descend with their dark red knot Crying “What hath God wrought”. If one can not hear the darkness sing,
Or in Springtime seek out the Beloved's ring; Then how will Life find you and compose From your life blood a song to stir the Rose? If sap that flows like blood through trees, Moves swifter than the heart set free; Then what is freedom worth in time, Or poetry to the Prophet's rhyme? The place that knows its placelessness, The solid form that leaps and flows, The poet's tongue that tastes the tasteless - Derive their all from the Beloved Rose. Incantations may rise like heaven, And the nearest prayer seek out its name; But sanctity did act as leaven And sheared the wisest of their fame! Consider the Point round Whom all now turn, How Vahid and Townsend changed their ways; And rethought meaning as meaningless When face to face with the Ancient of Days. That the Phoenix no longer needs to burn To turn to ash that is may rise, Is but one degree of one degree's turn Of five thousand cycles that eclipse the skies! How strange in war some kill and maim
And think this brings them praise and fame, Or that a tank must crush the earth To believe they've given freedom birth. And stranger still bombs fall from skies In hope to see the phoenix rise, And that a parent, striking child, Believes that this will tame the wild. Then some may choose that their own choice Is better than every other voice, And that their race exceeds all others; That all human beings are not sisters and brothers. Yet strange indeed, and a source of grief, Is that all should suffer ones belief, And that the right to criticize Is rightfully owned by sage and wise. I am dumb, oh Love, with dread and awe,
God’s lion in the forest deep. My tongue is singed with what I saw, These eyes and ears my soul won’t keep. Oh Tongue that only speaks the Hour, My speech that fails by night and day, Tongue that voices snow and fire, This throat that claims its rock and clay. If my soul is tempered fine, Draw it from the sheath of light; Whirl it round and round a line Of words You spoke that gave me sight. Then this voice will cry as Thine In the dark or in the day, Your Voice will turn my heart to wine And as the Lover, You will slay. We are, O Lord, beneath a Tree,
Whose roots are deeper than the soul, While spears of grass we haply grow, These blades will dance cross every knoll, And sever, as they whirl and spin, Each heart that comes within their sphere From all they know and all they could, That by Your leave You’ll call them near. Then leaves upon this Tree will form To overshadow all the earth; But still this Tree spent not a word Nor deed to claim to all its birth. Bent by the age of the season
The four winds hurried in every direction To reconnect lost letters. More and more clouds formed Collapsing fruit and innocent reason. The oppression lifted. The morning paper that read like a scroll Wrapped the earth. Innocuously The present was healed. Holding An afterglow with new meaning on his brow, One man said the expectant ripples, Whether or not an expedient dilemma came, Or the patch of raspberries stayed When the house was sold, is a story Of a woman, a determined woman, Keeping the berries alive Like a dream wanting to have form and substance. “ Tell me another one, daddy” Is what she heard from the raspberries. The children will come to eat the jams and jellies; Strained seeds in the palm of her hand will cheer the larceny That was part of her father’s earthly life and loss. She missed the blood of her youth: When the tongues of fire hissed at her. Maybe a telethon, the wasis and the wasints. Maybe the walls ringing Will bring home the dismantled Like a Rorschach with a single dot; This code will be sent daily like a Princely necessity. There was, after all, credulity in grandpa’s eyes; The angels were happy, and his father, Who had passed on before him, Was one who brought acknowledgement By wearing the pants his father had worn. I was witness to the reunion and can say that the unity That radiated from there to here Is proof of an ever lasting year. |
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