INCENSE SMOKE

© writch

Many lives ago...

                ... years ago, yesterday

Love plunged into me...

                ... spilling, swallowing

His presence penetrated

... filling, displacing

Her embrace surrounded

                ... enfolding, containing

We mixed and blended

                ... dissolving, becoming

GOD

warm, golden, fluid, light

                                everywhere and in-between

                                                each molecule swimming

                                                                at the speed of light

                                                boundaries blurring thus

                                primal, seminal, amniotic

only life alone is here

                each eternal moment

      always

  now

    then                                  

                                                light evaporates

                love fades

the world hardens and chills

God was gone.

That was the last I saw of you, God.

God, where are you now...

        ... now that I am lost and  alone?

                When will you alone return my lost prayers...

                        ... prayers  I send out into the dark?

                                Why do you send others...

                                        ... others that only remind me of you?

                                                Why do you remind me of your absence...

                                                ... an absence that I can never fill?

                                                Why did you fill my soul...

                                                ... a soul too fragile to carry the void left behind?

                                                Why did you leave me behind...

                                                ... why did you leave...

                                                        ... why did you...

                                                                ... did you?

Yes!  I agree!

Extremely intricate and inviting (though the subject is one of loss).  The poem's format definitely adds an ethereal element and compliments.  I enjoy reading the poem aloud trying to time the rhythm and pauses.  A great deal of substance.  Thank you. 

Thank you all for the kind words. This was written some 5 years ago to capture a personal transformative event in my life that occured about 15 years prior to when I wrote it.

I tried my best to capture the feeling  as more as a 'memory photo' for myself because didn't ever want to forget and lose that extended moment of pure detached bliss, or satori for those familiar with the Japanese Zen term. Since then, I often have deep, dark valleys of spiritual ennui every few years.

I call it transformative because at the time, I was a died-in-the-wool, card-carrying atheist. I considered myself an extremely rational person however, so sought answers via an academic, scholastic path. But it put me unknowingly on a spiritual path that has so far lasted lasted over 20 years - and now being in my mid-forties - it is likely to last another two-fold twenty until I die.

That moment still haunts me today although it is but a smoldering ember deep in my heart waiting for the right "breath" to reignite it. And in the terms of a Sufi mystic, as a moth to a flame, I occasionally am drawn to it and singe my wings on that dazzling ember .

Poetic language is the closest approximation I can use. For insight into this quagmire, I encourage you to read Rael's lengthy, multi-part post:
Praying on Paper: where poetry and mysticism meet.
Well worth the read for those with interest in the topic and dead-on recognizable for those with similar experience.

Again, I thank you all for the praise and indulging me in my exhibitionism, as it were.

Rich

Right wherever it needs and wants to be - it never really asks me for my say in the matter.

The choice of the word 'path' may be an unfortunate one (and others may agree) because i'm never heading on one vector at one time. So maybe it can be a path, but much like the "path" the whole of the syrup takes when you pour it over your pancakes.

Writch, that was absolutely wonderful.  Thank you so much for sharing.  Poetry and writing is one way for me to get close to 'god' and every time I read something like this I feel like I am not alone in this world.  Thanks again.

Hello again.
I'm always encouraging feedback. And IJreilly knows of this becasue we've been tipping each other on other peices. So as good as he thought this was, there was at least one place he felt could use some polish. I found this on my Notes later that day:

That's referring to the 9th line down. Reading it again, I did feel it was sort of forced. So I replied with this Note on his page...

Shortly, in a separate message, he sent some good alternatives. For brevity, I won't repeat them all here but they were all options for that one line with "mixed" in it. And I think he helped improve it. Here's my reply back to him:

Original Message by Writch on 1/1/2009 @ 3:31pm:

This is the winner:

        We immersed and absorbed

Its really consistent with the juxtaposed dichotomies i was packing in.

Thanks a bunch! I'll work it into future versions and maybe even make a post on that thread to encourage this kind of "synergistic collaboration" (Gawd! I hate that kind of biz-talk but its appropriate. I've been in the corporate world too long and am infected by its trite memes).

 

I think it is brilliant. This is the kind realization of promising potential this group can have for each other!

My deepest gratitude, Mr. IJReilly!

P.S. Visit his blog for some 'earthier' poetry if you care to take off any rose-colored glasses you may be wearing.

Writch, wonderful words.  Summarizes many experiences into a few well chosen lines. Thanks for sharing.

One thing that pulled me out of the dream a bit was your change of tenses.  First stanza past tense, second stanza present until the last line.  Then third stanza mixes the two.  I'm not sure much can be done, but I found myself thinking about that as opposed to getting lost in the poem a couple of times .

Charlie

sweet!!!!!!!!!!!i just wanna no did that really happen, cuz if so im so sry

Thanks, Charlie. Good catch!

But I'm not sure how to remedy that because it was intentional in order to do just that. Let me explain:

In the beginning of the poem, I'm slipping into a memory of the past. I'm trying to call it back up, as it were. Think of Incantations to departed spirits to visit the living.

In the middle, the memories are back, and so powerful that I am reliving the moment; that is how it actually is - when I try to recall it, I get transported back there.

Lastly, the mash-up of tenses is the confusion that persists right after the recall; I haven't got the 'power' to hold on to that feeling. Think of a bulb dimming and flickering on and off repeatedly and randomly before a black-out. In movie scripts: "Fade to black."

Does it work that way now that I explain it?

Cross:

Yes, it happened. That was my experience as best I can relay it. I was a junior in college just before taking a final one Spring morning.

I was well rested and packing my backpack to head off to a Chemistry final and it started slowly like sunlight was filling the room (I had an East facing dorm room) and getting very bright - but faster than it should've and with no shadows.

And I remember seeing every detail, every thread on my book bag while I packed it as I was pondering the light - how bright and warm, but not hot it was getting.

And I remember hearing every rustle of my bag, every click of the radiator, every whispered voice from the hallway and rooms nearby - simultaneous with the radio giving a local news report.

And then the light was no longer just outside but infused with me, and there was no fear, no panic, just a Oneness with everything right then and there. And there was an image - more of a planted thought - that fused Jesus on the Cross with the Buddha under the Bodhi Tree. Both at the defining moment of their Stories.

The "knowledge,"  the "fact" that I was "left with" after it slowly diminished (like a residue) was that they were one and the same.  Not equal, but the same - inseperable. And not the figureheads - the MOMENT, the MESSAGE was ONE.

That happened while I was a "devout" Atheist of about 5 years.

And it makes me very sad each time I recall it because I miss it so very much - never in my life was I so fulfilled, so blissful, so at peace. But then I quickly become very happy because I realize that experienced it at least once, when most people do not experience in a whole lifetime: I am then very greatful - Alhamdulillah. 

Writch, here's what I think.  Your stuff is good enough to publish.  If you do get some stuff in to a chapbook or literary magazine, (if you haven't already), you're not going to have the benefit of explaining to your readers anything.  It's all got to happen in the words on the page.  And my input is only my opinion, it's not wrong or right.  But to continue with a bit more clarity:

I think the last line of the second stanza would serve you better if you kept it in the present tense and then made the transition to past tense in the one line stanza that follows.  As written, it pulled me out of your poem.  Everything else works for me.  The blinking on and off in the final stanza is fine, and makes sense.  More!