Lessons of a Summer Day at the Beach
O Mother Earth, in selfish need we grasp
for the riches and might of guns and gold.
To profit and death we cling 'til last gasp,
feasting on your carcass, vultures so bold.
If we were to but pause in our pursuit
to taste the sweet juice of the orange night sky,
to smell cotton candy clouds drift en route,
our love for you we might intensify.
Hear the frothy madness of waves tumbling.
Feel the furnace blast of the golden sun.
Sink your bare feet into the sand crumbling.
Gaze to the horizon to be undone.
Wholeness cannot be found in token wealth,
but in the sacred earth we gain our health.
©2016 Kenneth W. Arthur
Tag: Poem
The Scream (for Orlando, June 12, 2016) One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord — the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became The Scream. – Edvard Munch We are the instruments of God. If that's all God has to work with we're doomed, an off-key, out of sync marching band parading off a cliff, cheered on by the bombastic blaring of trump-ets. Is that why the man is screaming under the blood red sky? Oh, how the crimson shrieks. Is it the horror of two men tenderly kissing? Is it the horror of forty-nine souls now missing? Is it the scream of a bad dream? Is it the blood raining from the clouds, running down the walls? Is it the tears flooding over the shrouds, cascading as an angel falls? Or is God screaming? And the man cowers as the shriek of nature's despair echoes, the cacophony of a marching band parading off a cliff. ©2016 Kenneth W. Arthur
A quick and dirty poem inspired by my vacation retreat experience:
Bearing My Soul
I am
who I am.
To bear my soul is to
carry the knowledge
of who I am.
To bare my soul is to
reveal the knowledge
of who I am.
My soul as a bear
is strong yet weak,
frightened yet courageous,
healed yet wounded,
unsure yet grounded,
spiritual and physical,
simple and complex.
To bear my soul is to
discover and accept
who I am.
To bare my soul is to
open and risk
who I am.
I am
who I am.
It is enough
and it is good.
©2016 Kenneth W. Arthur
Poetics
A whitewater rapids of tumbling words,
flowing fast and furious, threatening to crash,
or a decaying tooth holding fast by its roots,
refusing to give way, painstakingly extracted.
A scientist interrogates the mysteries of the cosmos
and determines we are principally uncertain.
A mystic stalks a labyrinth to invite visions
and loses herself, becoming the universe.
An explorer sets sail for new frontiers
and runs aground in lands already occupied.
A pirate raids an English brigantine for its gold
and exhausts the booty on rum while singing sea shanties.
A potter shapes clay into prismatic pottery, plates and mugs,
and fills them with nachos and beer.
An artisan strips away the layers of peeling paint
and reveals the natural beauty of the wood carving.
A psychologist penetrates humanity's dark shadows
and is eaten by the boogie man hiding under the bed.
A fortune teller gazes into a crystal ball
and finding it forever cloudy makes some shit up.
A gardener nurtures the seedlings in the rich humus
not knowing whether they will yield fruit or die from the blight.
A miner burrows deep for the glitter of gold
but owes his soul to the company store.
A picketer disrupts the corporate office, demanding justice,
and frees himself from the confines of a nine-to-five.
A librarian sorts and categorizes to impose order on chaos
and returns home to unwashed dishes perpetually piled high.
A paramour makes love in staid halls,
and shocks the self-righteous with the secret joys of fornication.
To breathe new life
into a tired world.
©2016 Kenneth W. Arthur