My relationship with the Creator and with the mainstream church has been rewarding at times, turbulent at times, and even severed entirely at times (by my choice). It felt a bit weird to write these poems when most of Christendom is observing Palm Sunday (also the date when the Passover lamb was kept). Sometimes it feels weird to write poems about faith. Even though English letters has a huge tradition of "faith based poetry", and there is certainly a market for "inspirational poetry," many contemporary "literary" poems seem to mention Jesus, the God mentioned in the Bible, Christianity, etc. in ways I consider to be condenscending, sarcastic or irreverent in the most basic meaning of the word.
In writing these poems, I couldn't figure out if I was subconsciously trying to please everybody, offend everybody, or just explore and express my own history and relationship to faith, skepticism, rebellion, redemption, and evangelism. These poems are not skewering the faith or offering straight-up praise and worship. I hope they reveal one woman's challenges in trying to live a life that is pleasing to the Creator, in trying to figure out just what that requires. Either way, here they are. They are not strictly a series, though one logically follows the next.
Fallen Angel
Hadassah Ayodele
seventeen years of singing...sermons...sunday
school could not persuade me that i did not top
your hot list.....it did not take much to pry
me loose...a little marx...a little memory...a little mary
jane.....did not take much to convince me.....we all hallucinated
you into being.....never mind the trees...fish...moon...stars...
they sprang from the head of amoeba....come...called
your accuser...but leave that list behind you...no room for rules
on this ride.....here...hit this...take off that skirt.....do you feel
loved now...no...well hit it again....do you feel protected.....
i don't know...i can't feel my.....take that rubber off...who taught you
to move like that...you...oh...you did....it was always you.....maybe
you need something a little stronger...here...don't spit...swallow
it's good for you.....is it hot in here...is it me.....it's you...always been
you.....so hot...irresistible...don'tblame them...couldn't help but help
themselves....behind the shed...in the bed...in your house....take off that
blouse.....who taught you to move like that....oh jesus.....wrong.....
oh god.....you hallucinating again....no i'm burning up.....what have i
done....too late to play dumb.....turn up the radio...back that ass
up.....do you feel free.....no.....well fuck you then
Fisher of Men
Hadassah AyodeleSimon, Simon, Satan hath desired
to have you, that he may sift you
as wheat: But I have prayed
for thee, that thy faith fail not:
and when thou art converted,
strengthen thy brethren.
--Luke 22:31-32you recall the rebel:
thigh-high boots sashaying
from damascus to perdition,
desert rose exploding arid,
cloudless sky with scent to make
you crawl to cactus, slice
her open, cool your dusty
tongue and find free love
a shimmy, shimmer,
then vacancy.
then you, sand-blind,
prying spine and vow
from blood-stained throat:
thou shalt not trust
voices crying, visions in the wild.
you cannot recognize this head
wrapped in repentance, bits
of petal bound to splintered
reputation, begging won't you
lead this caravan to zion,
won't you fertilize
this barren land? you cannot bear
to hear of healing streams
or swallow magic wine while ice chipsmelt inside your mouth. guard,instead, your frozen heart, spit
chilly propositions, quicken
buried flesh and sniff the air
for thunder, salt, hail to cleanse
the earth of hypocrites.
**********************
So there it is. I'm thinking that by next week, I will unearth and present some contemporary "faith-based" poetry. Until then, here is Sunday's poetry book pick: Just one dollar, just one dollar!
Yes, "the stain of love / is upon the world!" William Carlos Williams woite about everything, everyday stuff: neighbors, old men, plots of ground, Greco-Roman mythic figures, storms, ballet, and of course, love. What is impressive is the lyricism, imagery, motion and control: he uses these tools as a sort of diving rod to extract poetic majesty from seemingly mundane, ordinary objects, events and people. Here are a few examples:
The Spring Storm
The sky has given over
its bitterness.
Out of the dark change
all day long
rain falls and falls
as if it would never end.
Still the snow keeps
its hold on the ground.
But water, water
from a thousand runnels!
It collects swiftly,
dappled with black
cuts a way for itself
through green ice in the gutters.
Drop after drop it falls
from the withered grass-stems
of the overhanging embankment.
He writes about rain a lot :) Also, the seasons and the times of day.
Dawn
Ecstatic bird songs pound
the hollow vastness of the sky
with metallic clinkings--
beating color up into it
at a far edge,--beating it, beating it
with rising, triumphant ardor,--
stirring it into warmth,
quickening in it a spreading change,--
bursting wildly against it as
dividing the horizon, a heavy sun
lifts himself--is lifted--
bit by bit above the edge
of things,--runs free at last
out into the open--!lumbering
glorified in full release upward--
songs cease.
Colors also feature prominently in his work. But here, he paints A Portrait in Greys:
Will it never be possible
to separate you from your greyness?
Must you be always sinking backward
into your grey-brown landscapes—and trees
always in the distance, always against
a grey sky?
Must I be always
moving counter to you? Is there no place
where we can be at peace together
and the motion of our drawing apart
be altogether taken up?
I see myself
standing upon your shoulders touching
a grey, broken sky—
but you, weighted down with me,
yet gripping my ankles,—move
laboriously on,
where it is level and undisturbed by colors.
(darn you, blogger and your formatting-retardation!)
