A collection of poems simultaneously plummeting down and somehow ascending, all the while embracing Whitmanic vistas in vision of longing and epiphany. As 11th Century Sufi Master, Al-Hujwiri writes in his Kashf al-Mahjub: When Moses conversed with God, he asked, “Lord, where shall I seek You?” God answered, “Among the brokenhearted.” Moses continued, “But, Lord, no heart could be more despairing than mine.” And God replied, “Then I am where you are.”
Poem Selection from Psalms for the Brokenhearted
All the Dead Children
Angels are learning new tricks to entertain all the
dead children
just bringing them to a quiet place used to be enough
blue panels sonorous as cool winds rising to
infinite heights and
luminous rivers tasting of fresh milk and
passionflower honey
But now they are more restless and want something
lively such as fabulous displays and real
stellar extravaganzas to shut out the memories
All the wingéd horses have been brought in
and every banner from every battle ever waged
transformed into aurora borealis brightness is
planted on either side of the great arena which is
actually nowhere you can put your finger on and may be as
big as a sparkle or light years across
The angels begin conventionally enough and since they’re
anti-gravitational they are capable of some
pretty amazing feats their specialty being a
spinning array of a few billion shimmering their wings and
turning slowly at first in a
cone that goes up through so many dimensions the
children have to stop counting with
each dimension demarcated by another
color no one on earth’s spectrum has
ever seen before
Then the cone begins
turning faster and faster and shoots higher and higher
finally sweeping their astonished souls wide-eyed into a
vortex so swift they barely notice that they’re
arcing across fields of unearthly green and seas of
unoceanic turquoise
Each shroud has been made into a tent filled with
fabulous fruits and unidentifiable edibles of
uttermost succulence
Each soul has been given the Ultimate Glimpse
and the Accurate Portrayal
the Perfect Sustenance and the Infinite Intensity
Each time they clap their hands a new
universe appears
more fabulous than the last
And when they tire of such delights
William Blake reads to them from his new work
and Mozart comes in and plays them a tune
on a million pianos
It’s even closer than our fingertips what we’re longing for and travel for in search of closer than our jugular
Shangri La lies languorously
always out of reach
its silver trays heaped high with
succulence its windows basking in
perennial sunlight
Darkness wraps the dearness of the
depth we fathom but not distance
and the rhythm of it singing in our
eardrums brings it even closer to us
Can’t call it can’t name it
loss is often the way toward it
less is often more in its regard
as we face the chalk snow always
falling across it
And make the face that was ours before birth
come alive in our eyes then our
nose and mouth and the rest
as if clouds were evaporating away from it
leaving it clear
See the white deer standing so close
on the shore bending to drink then
standing still head held high
before leaping away
its reflection in the water writing in
silvery light our most secret name His
answer to our deepest call?
A moon lightens the picture
and where it was a moment ago
fills with light
I can’t explain why the journey takes us
to the place it does
only to find it’s taken us to our
starting place
A ball of concentrated matter
tightens itself to a point
that speeds through space so fast
it goes nowhere is nowhere then is
all and we liken our destiny to its
fall but it doesn’t fall
I can’t explain why that tiny point soon
covers us over all or
why as we age we haven’t gone
anywhere at all
The white deer bounds through the end of space
faster than light can follow her
and comes up in front of us again to drink
our blood’s clear nectar
Sweet as a vapor trail
flicking its deer’s tail
as we also disappear to be more
tangible to ourselves after all
Closer in a mysterious visibility
to our initial caul
