Sunday, February 8, 2009

Red Leaves, A Tramp On The Road

Both of these poems happened according to the time stamp within twenty minutes of each other. Two different takes on the same deal, perhaps even, since I am posting in order, the second actually follows the first in poem-land, a before picture and an after picture, just in different costumes, different scenes... there was a scene change between the poems :) Action!

Red Leaves

Red leaves on the grass
And me kneeling here
Among the autumn colors
Waiting for God's arrival,
Hoping for His attention,
For the touch that will
Feed my empty heart.

Red leaves stir nearby.

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All the crew scurries furiously... "sweep up the leaves, get the set clean! You there, cue the effing box! ...and Action!"
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A Tramp On The Road

I shall now stand up,
Get out of this cardboard box
I slept in last night.

Kicked out of my own small mind
By your vertical forces
That I must obey,
I'm just a tramp on the road,
Ragged, dusty me.

11 comments:

  1. both very good and very visual, I can almost smell the leaves, and the homeless guy...

    Teri and the cats of Furrydance

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  2. I swear I hear Leonard Cohen humming harmony with your tramp on the road.

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  3. Excellent...I like walking with you Christopher. Thank you for providing the paths
    Linda

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  4. The best part of publishing in this venue, someone reads and comments - and it's not so much anything they say - but that they become the window through which I view.

    Then my own work stands even further from my own grasp and I get a fresh look. Even better, the distance lets the poems just be poems, not "my poems".

    Thank you, Linda, Robin, Teri, for being my eyes today.

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  5. Empty Heart

    How can I gather
    the reds and golds,
    and still feel the warmth
    left from summer?

    Let these tears fall
    into the dirt I am digging.

    And how can I find
    the song sung
    out into the morning
    before I woke. Before
    I fell to this broken ground?

    How long can
    I wait before the notes
    grace me?

    --------------------

    Your poems say so much, Christopher. Ragged and dusty and beautiful.

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  6. Faith, thank you for your gift. When I read your poetry I want to reach through the words and be there with you, hope that as I sit with you then the stirring leaves nearby will indeed be God showing His presence. We would surely be changed then.

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  7. One evening as the sun went down
    And the jungle fire was burning
    Down the track came a hobo hiking
    And he said, "Boys I'm not turning-
    I'm heading for a land that's far away,
    Beside the crystal fountain.
    So, come with me; we'll go and see
    The Big Rock Candy Mountain.

    Big Rock Candy Mountain.... a Hobo Poem

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  8. Funny that you were a bay area hippy. I just fled from the bay area in June, and was there in the 60's a little girl, watching the hippies from a very interesting vantage point.

    Waiting for God's arrival... I know that feeling.

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  9. Ghost, thank ye. Have not thought of the Big Rock Candy Mountain since I was a kiddo.

    Cat, I was born in Berkeley to an instructor lady in speech and drama. But my hippie stuff took place in the dope houses (mine was one) south of the San Jose State campus, and kind of on the campus of course. Then there was the anti war stuff. San Jose State in the west, Brandeis in the east. That was a pretty exciting time. Nixon came to town in 71 and we had a high ole time that night.

    I fled from there to Oregon in 1973. I almost qualify as an Oregonian now.

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  10. Christopher,

    Thanks for the comment up above. Sometimes coming to your Northern Wall is like sitting with you and feeling something greater...I have a hard time with God and my own spiritual life within. A void, I guess, of belief. But here, I do feel a greater connection, so thank you for sitting with me :) and sharing your view from your wall:) It is comforting.

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  11. Faith, you are very kind to say this. It is not really my aim to do more than I do, simply state my vision, but there is more...

    There is the part where it is easy for me to genuinely like people I meet. I would say I was gullible except that's not it. I just have never had my trust in people actually broken. Nothing has ever happened that was that serious. What I mean is that everyone who has done me wrong had their reasons and what happened to me not personal enough.

    I think that must have been angels. Also I rationalize stuff very well. So I have always found forgiveness. I guess that's what I am groping toward here. I have always found in me a way to forgive. I think that's essential. I don't think this place is safe without my capacity to forgive. Otherwise this world is just too toxic. That's what rationalizing with angels is, forgiveness.

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The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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