Astrolabe… contemplating Rumi
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Book launch this week ~ 15 March 2016
I have special news this week to share with you all. Please join in my excitement as I announce that two works of my poetry, a visual poem and a collaborative poem, are included in One Way to Ask, an unusually delightful and innovative book of poetry and art by poet Daniel Ari and his 67 artist collaborators. (Norfolk Press, San Francisco 2016)
The innovation in this book is many things, but a prominent and specific one is a new form of poetry created by Daniel called the queron. What is queron, you might ask?
“Queron is a form that emerged from my poetry practice to match the way my creativity dances, curiously and deliberately, with my experience. Querons have seventeen lines grouped into three quintets and a final couplet. The rhyme scheme is ababa bcbca cdcdb dd. I prefer subtle rhyme.” ~ an excerpt on queron from the book
• • •
My collaborative poem (with Daniel Ari) is called “What Experiences” and the “artwork” that accompanies this penned collaboration is a visual poem in its own (w)right: “Where is the line drawn?” Daniel included these works as the end piece, as we delved into a unique level of collaboration, for this book, inspired by our years of writing together on a group blog of Daniel’s called IMUNURI. (I have posted/published many innovative poems on that blog, some of which I have linked to here on Contemplative Fire.)
Kudos, Daniel Ari!
And congrats to all the artists/illustrators included in this unique book of #poetry!
• MORE •
See a preview of the book or purchase a copy of this cool book for yourself, both on the Norfolk Press website.
Check out One Way to Ask on Facebook to see posts about the launch.
Check out Daniel Ari’s blog: Fights With Poems.
Or if you’d like a special author signed copy, let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Daniel.
• • •
“Reading Daniel Ari‘s poems, juxtaposed with artwork by an impressive roster of talented graphisticators, is like entering a cultural Whirlpool washer. Set to the final spin cycle. Everything comes out clean at the end, but your underwear and your socks may have switched identities.” -Bill Griffith, creator of Zippy the Pinhead
oscillation of sight
this is what I ponder
considering what it is
what I co-author*
sometimes without even
realizing the very footing
I take as my own
I look and I look out
looking out, might I
bar that very pristine
ground of being,
which I emanate as,
simply unknowingly?
when I look
and in the looking
I dissolves
that I mistaken
once as anything
other than pristine
and existence reveals
itself again and again
oscillating almost
imperceptibly between
and in that between
there I am
not necessary to
catch it (!) no
as it is casually &
(seemingly) furtively
carrying on carrying on carrying on
birthing / rebirthing
gently, as if
I am gazing
upon a newborn fawn
breathing in the delicacy
and knowing it
as myself
the pristine I am
the pristine we are
emerges as visible
spectrum out of
hum and spin
oscillation of sight
* to choose either the co-authoring of misery & unworthiness or co-authoring of joy and worthiness ~ I have Mario Martinez and his seminal book, The MINDBODY Code (Sounds True, 2014) to thank for these profound insights and deep experiential touching into this “healing field”
inter
-weaving
as we go
unseen character
infuses lesser known
gods of titration
and arbitration
snow crystal
monument
just under foot
Keeping Still
You, you hold a mirror
watch the slight presence
–breath on the surface
Movement occurs again
and again within stillness
I, I see the dance
the dancing partners
I, I – you, you – we, we
leaning in, giving way
leaning in, holding
Movement, motion is
–no disturbance
while All arises
stillness dancing
of surface and within
Mountain, mountain reflects
Instead of twisting
and spinning in circles
trying to grasp
your self, keep still*
*quote from Hilary Barrett ~ I’Ching Hexagram 52, Stilling
THE LETTERS
There are letters I must write
letters like this one
to the pattern of
the inner reaches
Shift is a multitude
spectral lines, layers be-
coming distinct, distinguished
with and by capacity
I write the letters
that must be sent
that must first be
written by this soul
If you receive a letter
don’t take offense
rather rise to the occasion
find the match within
Something old can be
burned away in the heat
of what comes forward
what lays dormant within
And can now be revealed
as fully revealed as you
are willing to rise to it
–the occasion of Heat
Or leave it
leave it if you must
leave it if you are
too afraid to know
We can look together
we can fully reveal
what has been here
all along –inviolate
What holds you back
what has such power
over you that when
it is clear, you are not?
Try this… remove
whatever garments
you have tended to
favor instead of me
Clinging close to what?
What a rare moment
to make your way with
aplomb and be Queen
This letter is your way
to release, release from
and release to all that
ever called to your soul
And if a letter does not
arrive –fiercely call it out
Endeavor to make haste
that haste will bear you true
27 December 2015
San Cristobal, NM
No Causal Purport
There is no
meaning to grasp
there is just this
this arising here and now,
perhaps of all time
In a world where one thing
has more often
than not
meant one thing
while saying another
The naked courage
to lay plainly
before all
that has preyed upon
one’s own being
May seem as folly
may ironically convey
haphazardness
or be taken wrongly
as blatant arrogance
I have been infected
and affected more deeply
than I know (blind, blind)
And it is that scourge
that I lay bare to
The way has confusion
The way can mystify
These ways that I am
called and called again
–quietly, yet ever insistently
There are brambles thicket
forest darkness forest floor
–thorns, barbs pull
at my cloth, at my ardor
taste of perspiration
If the body could profess
its innocence
its determination
it would look like this
unveiling plainly all pretense
Putting pretense aside
putting pretense aside
putting pretense aside
come forward
come forward
What have you
what are you now?
Who would you be
stripped clean –of comforts
loose-fitting honesties
What greater ally could there be
than one who calls out the
antidote to the demands
of the frenzied auctioneer,
“Step it up, step it up!”
Are not you done –tired of
that dance and even of
dancing partners –subjects
of what they do not
even know themselves
No more, no more!
If I knew the way,
I would be there already
Perhaps I am more there
than even I know
Is it an insistent bygone
clinging still as a trace
of hoped for companionship
that the last longing
brandishes even now
Please see plainly
–along with me please
See me plainly seeing
what is, seeing you
Seeing through
27 December 2015
San Cristobal, NM
enteric
I gather my life
each morning
as I wake
and sometimes
this collection
seems ill fit —
a strange fruit
curious that these
of odd origins
–would still
be with me
what is it
that compels
the gathering up
the sorting through
as if there was
an actual collection
of things
for don’t we
arise fresh & new
each day?
can we not
but do that?
what accrues
at our feet,
around ankles
recollections
what strange
chance that is
as if things
are tethered
tight to me
that I have no
real choice
about –somehow
even trying on
this form
these quick sentences
one sentence
too a sentence
enteric gossip
things left behind
undigested
left unresolved
festering
only in the way
that things
kept shut in
will do
Coyote Blue
We walk our usual traces
along the back fields, now quiet
Once we had conversations
of a bovine-canine nature
Blue amongst the blue
sky and young ruminants
But today there you stood
catching my eye and my breath
And this conversation was all
there needed to be In pause
–I stood with you in kind
What order of listening is this?
When you chose to take leave,
I found you had left something
With me –a grace that not only
touched but held my own Wild
While Blue reminds me of the life
shared within walls I call Home
You today –show me we walk together
what once were walls, dissolve into vastness
Veiling/Un-veiling
What will it take
this journey that is already fulfilled –complete –honored
what will it take to begin this journey
as if there is no end
And what will it take
to live within each step
as if the placing of these feet
on hard or soft or bogged or bright ground
somehow will right me –restore me –save me
from what I am and am not
as if there is a confusion there
carried through these eons of loss and gravitation
There is None No-one who says
what can be done or not done
There is no one marking the way
not as yet as I can see
And yet there is an encounter
something real and palpable
and perhaps mistaken for real
–the light can cast in myriad of ways
In the mists veiling my own Silence
words curl around the nooks
of my bones and flesh –lighting down
making a landing, offering solace
These words here now –parched –dry
picked up as breadcrumbs
but it is simply unknown who or what
left them here –was it me? –was it You?
This quandary calls out the insight
the timeless continuity of All That Is
what comes before when there is no beginning
and in no end –what conclusions might arise?
Taking it off –taking it on
covering and uncovering
placing and wait as grace returns
Emanating Silence –this brilliance like no other
Life Being Life 