below the surface

Poem: Notebook

Notebook

By Glenn Currier

These lines are mine shafts

I dig with my pen

in an unseen light.

Each letter and word

hunched between the layers

crevasses and cracks

reveal a sapphire or ruby,

rusty ore

or decaying matter.

But even the decay

turns to fuel

if I cherish and caress it

with the tip and dip

of my pen

if I refine it

in the pauses...

that now and then

become moments of splendor.

It is a mystery to me

why I do not come here more often

to explore

and discover

these heights and depths.

"Notebook," Copyright 2012 by Glenn Currier

Poem: Lost Horizon

Lost Horizon
By Glenn Currier

I imagine that my time
is a wide open plain
the limitless horizon
melts into the sky.

I am the captain of the Titanic
my denial a delusion
so deep and wide and hidden
it will surely capsize me.

Unless I wake up.

Poem: Bully

Bully
By Glenn Currier

Fear is a bully

hiding behind a boulder

made of imaginings -

storm clouds

that become wisps

when faced

in the clear air

of the present moment.

Poem: "Remembering July Four"

Remembering July Four

By Glenn Currier

I’ve read of the blistering Philly heat

our forefathers braved to meet

to declare one nation to be free

of another’s tyranny

so in the midst of this summer season

we happily have a good reason

to sing of rockets red glare

see fireworks bursting in air.

Yesterday I got a tear in my eye

when I saw walking by

two guys, one a lot older

with a folded flag strapped to his shoulder.

I wondered why he’d done that,

then remembered: my uncle’s hat

emblazoned with the stars and stripes

and his funeral and the bag pipes

that played America and amazing grace

and could see the proud look on his face

as he saluted at the fly-by’s roar

to honor his country on July four.

- Dedicated to my new Poetry in Progress friend, Dave Bates and to Roger Mills, both military veterans.

Author's Note: I sent to the members of our new poetry group a poetic challenge to: write a poem whose title has a number, and write about that number. The above is my response to that poetic prompt. If you are interested in our group, please see: http://www.PoetryInProgress.net.

Poem: "Final Harvest"

Final Harvest
By Glenn Currier

The church,
tucked away
from the passing caravan,
clean and straight
as a piece of furniture
the town has forgotten

stands unchanged by winds
of eager pollen blown away.
The doors were opened
in past seasons,
green berries grew
and sang
and played
and plucked strains of hope.

The windows gleamed
brightness of sun
color of parrots flew
in lush tropics.

But now a thin gray patina
covers the calloused pews
made straight and orderly
by icebergs
that have sucked out the warmth.

In the back, a stooped figure,
half kneeling, hunched over,
clutches a rosary
of fossils strung together
by her sorrows.

Is she dried up
praying for death?
Have her progeny left her
like sailboats skimming across the mirage
in the distance?

Is she lonely and afraid
or at peace with her maker
who is soon to pluck her soul
for a final harvest?

I hear echoes:
cries of infants,
children’s feet
running the aisles,
exuberance
joyful noise
earnest questions
amber awakenings
tearful healings
eager planting.

New life
pulses
all around.

I hear echoes
but they are faint.

- June 25, 2011

Poem: "Frequency"

My computer crashed recently (woe is me) and I have no way to publish my poems on my website: http://www.PoetryInProgress.net , therefore I have come back to my blog which I haven't visited or edited in quite a while.

Two poems I have written recently express some spiritual issues that are, as this blog suggests, "below the surface." Poetry is the best way for me to express this stuff. It tends to keep me from being pedagogical or preachy... hopefully.

Frequency
By Glenn Currier

A million departures

into the web
into the evening
in which NCIS, and Idol
are no Masterpiece,
the bad news -
tornadoes ripping

onto the streets
crawling with anger
dotted with wreckage
of a day packed with urgency.

My writing sponged from the blood
of ruptured intentions
reeks of rubble
washed ashore
from God knows where.

What delusion
snares me into thinking
I find you here?

You say:
"Come back to me
I did not abandon you
in your dogged run.
Don’t try
to outrun me.
You think your escape
in all directions
has no direction.
Stop and listen.
Hear my strains
in the pitch of plumeria
in the sweating of elm
the small silences of summer.

All you need
is to tune
to my frequency."

Re-entry to this blog - August 7, 2009

Due to my recent reading of a friend's blog on Blogger, I have discovered that I actually have blog here created back in 2004. Since writing my first posts to that blog back in 2004 I have retired from full time teaching in a local community college and have begun my journey into a new phase of self realization - a term I prefer to "retirement." I fine-tuned my profile a bit although there is more to be done. If you want to get a feel for who I am, please look up my poetry on the website: www.pathetic.org at this URL: http://pathetic.org/library/3172

Labels: re-entry to this blog

The Tao and the desert

This morning I was again reading the Taoteching, and its message seemed particularly appropriate to our Journey:

Yes and no
aren't so far apart
lovely and ugly
aren't so unlike

Then I read Wang P'ang's commenatry on this passage:

"Everything changes into its opposite. Beginning follows end without cease. But people think everything is either lovely or ugly. How absurd. Only the sage knows that the ten thousand ages are the same, that nothing is gained or lost."