TIME'S ALMOST UP

TIME’S ALMOST UP

The time of useful consciousness

the brief time in which

some lifesaving action is possible

                     –Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Lawrence, you’re almost finished

the time allotted you

on your pilgrimage

on this the Dark Planet

besieged from without

by invisibility-cloaked

Luciferian hordes

and from within by our own

ego-driven hearts

who prefer

to take the throne

of sovereignty

than yield it

to the God of life

and selfless love

who is Himself the source

of true holiness

– that sacred glory

we may have glimpsed

in high moments –

Yes, I know

He has those who claim to be

“his buddies on earth”

but belie this honor

by their antics

– forget them

they have nothing to do

with this

your own hour

of need – 

for the dark lord

eagerly desires

your soul

and awaits your arrival

in his realm

– you

who lifted your voice

to the world

in the name of the sacred

humanity

– you

who defied and despised

the dark powers

that engulfed

and overpowered

the sacred subjective

hearts of women and men

and little children

with juggernaut machines

and violence –

and now he would

make a spectacle

of you

the singer of humanity

and despoil you

before all the rest

of his captive humans

those who refused

the command of righteousness

and offer of mercy

and forgiveness

by his great Enemy

Jesus Christ

God the Son

forget His so-called

foolish “buddies”

it is the Saviour of the world

with whom

you now have to do

who says to you

*   *   *

Come to Me

all you who labor

and are heavy laden

and I will give you rest

him that comes to Me

I will in no wise cast out

I am the way

the truth

and the life –

no man comes unto the Father

but by Me

who gave My life

on the cross

a ransom for sinners

to make payment

for their sin

who rose from the dead

– I am the resurrection –

and now give them the gift

of My own righteousness

as they abide in the shelter

of My heart

if you believe not

that I am He

you shall die in your sins

they that are whole have no need

of the physician

but they that are sick 

– I came not to call the righteous

but sinners to repentance

for I came not to condemn the world

but that the world through Me

might be saved

*   *   *

Lawrence, many would love to see

your face

on the new earth and heaven

wherein dwells righteousness

and is no death or pain

but the Eternal

Himself

dwells in our midst

surpassing the wonder

and glory

of all old earth’s

myths

His presence

His love

our souls’ chief treasure

Come!

Rejoice with us

world without end.

                  5/19/13

DEAR FERLINGHETTI

DEAR FERLINGHETTI

The terrible things you say

– as a severe yet loving father

to a wayward child –

concerning modern poetry

almost alone ring true

in this time of the assassins

of the muse

to accommodate the shoes they make

to take them into easier places

they have laid a vast concrete plain

over the howling archetypal heartlands

this way being a poet is no risk

one just learns the dance-steps

to the fashionable tunes

and sings

with minimal breath

the wild children you called

exist

I have seen them

am one myself

– so have no fear

for the art

(this is no art

but war!)

it is our path

to demolish

what covers

the rich dark earth of the muse

what suffocates

the breath of its trees

leaving feathers and wing-bones

on the parking lot of souls

Ferlinghetti

I just wanted to tell you

I love you

and thanks

for holding up the banner

of life and death

in this land where editors have outlawed

breath

and that which also is beyond

their inner reach:

heart-music, and true speech. 

To the Populist Manifestoer

To the Populist Manifestoer

Time now to open your mouths

with a new open speech…

Where are Whitman’s wild children,

where the great voices speaking out

with a sense of sweetness and sublimity,

where the great new vision,

the great world-view,

the high prophetic song

of the immense earth

and all that sings in it

And our relations to it

                          -Ferlinghetti, “Populist Manifesto”

Time is running out

for this generation

many of us already gone

into regions unseen

and you, Ferlinghetti, yourself

near the end of the road

You spoke those words above

to the poets

calling for the wild children

of the rough bard

with terrible eyes

and buffalo strength

and I for one

answer your call

(and many others have called!)

with the spirit of Whitman

yet other spirit have I also

such as sustains life

in the great encroaching darkness

which you misperceive

as man-inspired and limited

as it ravages across the lands

eating everything sacred and alive

the predators invisibility-cloaked

so all you see is man

though I gather you have tasted potions sufficient

to see in the shaman realms 

and the sorcerers’

and cannot be utterly blind

to forces arrayed against the species

– we just being mopped up

lambs to the slaughter

utterly oblivious to what’s happening!

I’ve had enough of the blind telling me

I’m “seeing things”

meaning I hallucinate the vision

of the Outlaw Christ’s kingdom

withstanding the kingdom of darkness,

both of which kingdoms

you and the others see

so little of

or not at all!

The hour of keening is over too

time now for war

and the only rejoicing

will be from warrior-priests

and priestesses

of the sacred

in humankind

– indeed a nation of priests –

armed so as to contend

effectively

with the juggernaut

casting the shadow of Mordor

invisible to all but the eyes of the Outlaw Seer

(with a strength not of the buffalo

but beyond telling)

and to them he gives his vision to.

There is a kingdom of the priests

of the sacred,

the depths of the human heart

having been purified

of this darkness and evil,

and of that heart we partake

– O heart of our own hearts! – 

as we live in the crucible of purgation

simul iustus et peccator

simultaneously just and sinful

but if you turn your nose up at me

I will cease to cast pearls your way

I care for your soul, O laurelled,

but do not care for your scorn

as it will betray your name

when the shadow crushes you

into that crack between worlds

where you awake in the bardo of the damned

or as we say, in hell

The poets have failed us

the sorcerers have failed us

the seers, the gurus, the masters

the avatars

all have failed us

and your scorn now of the Way

is mingled with the screams of the living

and dead

damned

effete scoffs as the hoof of the Monster

squeezes your neck

and you know

you have failed

us

and your own self,

the charred and cindery globe

of Apokalypse Field

outside the Gates of Eden

bearing witness to the vast failure,

just another voice amid the ruination

wreaked upon us

yet a voice beloved

for its truth-telling

as much as you saw – which was far

more than most

only the unsullied Christ

– the reviled Jesus – 

withstands the furious onslaught

and those in whom his life is,

as we say,

his Spirit indwelling us.

I am not bothered, Ferlinghetti,

by disdain or ridicule

or blithe dismissal

as I am aware

not many will rally to the banner

of the Outlaw Seer.

You need call no more.

The summons is answered.

Though the field be littered

with poets and wasted seers

– O generation of seers and visionaries!

O beloved pilgrims wandering

globe wonderland made hell,

unable to fathom the broken springs

of our beings

darkened at the source

by him who cast Death-spell

within us,

we willing to swallow it.

All our seers and prophets have failed.

There is one voice left.

And He now outlawed.