this is not a poem

tinyurl.com/not-a-poem

this is not a poem
dropping all the capitals
in imitation of e e cummings
who maybe had a reason for it
or of archy
who couldnt push the shift key down

this is not a poem
scattered print upon a page
with pretty tYpO
                         gRaPhIc tricks
to make you think theres meaning to it

this aint nary poem
chok full with four letr cuss word talk
and asortd mispelings and grammer mistaks
that r suposed to shok **** the readr
but look like the writer just never went to school

this cannot be a poem
it isnt even words
just a fossil a trace a record a dead memory
marks on a page
meaning nothing
                                     a poem does not exist on paper
until someone comes along and speaks hears or reads
decodes the marks into language the tool of speech and thought
and then the word the sentence the poem or whatever
runs wild inside a living mind
which is the only time it ever exists

so all the fancy printing games
the type the spelling the placement
dont make a text into a poem
because where do they go
when you read it aloud

this is not a poem
even if its artful and moving
filled with feelings and images and ideas
even if the words make music in the mind
because thats not what makes a poem

a poem is structured
it may be tightly metred to a steady beat
or it may sound with rhymes around the ending feet
perhaps the words are pitched so high and low will alternate
or rather than rhythm the rule is letting lines alliterate

it may be an ancient structure
or one that had never been heard
one you impose or one that just grows
out of each forming word
but a poem is structured

believe it or not
words can be good and true and beautiful
and still not be poetry
if unstructured no matter how well organized
the term is prose

prose is not a bad thing for words to be
prose can be lovely or hideous or strong or weak
just as poems can be
and while we loosely speak of poetic imagery or poetry in motion
swell tones do not a poem make

even four score and seven years ago
even when age fell upon the world and wonder went out of the minds of men
even go placidly amid the noise and haste
are not poems
though we call them poetic

to say that good prose is a poem
is like telling a good woman shes a man
or a good man hes a woman
the sentiment may be appreciated
but the facts are wrong

a poem is like a spoken song
the writer has something to say
but has to cooperate even compromise with the music
something besides the writer is sharing the writing
in a sense the poem is writing itself

this is like the arts of bonsai and love
two different entities producing together what neither could alone
if one party had all the power it would not be art
manipulating a lifeless unresisting unparticipating object
the terms are lumberwork and necrophilia

so i found it utterly incredible
that socalled poetry journals specifically exclude
forbid prohibit banish deny absolutely will not consider
structured rhymed or metred poetry
for inclusion among the stuff coating their squeezably soft pages

one could perhaps argue a place for unstructured poetry
as having a form organic to the content
but to say that this is the only kind acceptable
is going too far
way too far

it is like saying pictures must must must be abstract
are not allowed to resemble the subject
or that not merely does a minority have rights but the majority does not
and do you know
ive heard both these claims made too

i smell a worm in this confirmed conformist anticonformity
but i am cured of being lured to bite a juicy dangled bait
with wary look i leave the hook to any who will swallow it
as of today i swim away to find a less polluted strait
and flip a fin at suckers in the fishy school of modern lit

       _________________________
       © 1984 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

Dreamlands (I and II)

tinyurl.com/dream-lands

           ( I • a voice in the night )

for some of us
perhaps
it came as a drive to power
to do
to control
to reshape the world

for others of us
perhaps
it came as a quest for wisdom
to know
to understand
to contain the world

for others of us
perhaps
it came as a call to worship
to adore
to venerate
to glorify the world

and who will say
that one alone
is the one true way
or that all of these together
are the only ways there are

for some of us
for me
it came as a quiet voice in the night
listen
it said
i have a tale to tell you
i have a verse to recite
i have a song to sing
i have a tune to play
listen
or
look

and i would wake up with that whisper echoing in my ears

or see upon the black ceiling of my darkened room
words spelled out in glowing crystalline letters
lines that brought tears to my eyes
and half-choked sobs to my throat

lucky i was
if i could write them down
before they faded from my sight

i have wandered in the dreamlands
and brought back these souvenirs

but how could i have a drive to power
there of all places
or seek to chart and map
where even the roads shift about
or glorify
what has all the glory it will ever need

i am led
by the hand
by the word
by the song
by the dance

through the unutterably fair
through the unspeakably foul

through the many-coloured land
through the land of no colours

and if the dance leads to a pleasant summer grove
or over the edge of a tall sheer cliff above rocky terrain

should i complain
who chose to follow

---

           ( II • Dreamlands )

I hold no title
in the Dreamlands
no lord or master
there am I
only a visitor
tourist or guest
but I know the language
a little
and the natives speak with me
sometimes
and I listen
every chance I get
and write down
all I can remember
and repeat what I learn
some of it

which is to be a poet

Come see my souvenirs

These words here
I copied from a scroll of flame
on a high cliff
where light danced along the mountaintops
and the stars stood like warriors
arrayed against the dawn
Whenever I read them
my fingers burn

And these I found
in a gem the size of my fist
that glowed pale blue in the night
If you breathe them as you sleep
they take you to a cavern cool and deep
where a river shines in the dark
its water glows in your cupped hands
and if you drink
it gives clear vision
to find your way

Here now
these I found
written in water
on the surface of a sea
roiled and stirred
by great flukes
and seaweed beard
and craggy crown
and league-long trident
sloshing ocean
like a narrow tub

These fragments
are left of what I heard
to music of pipes playing
deep in the woods
they faded in the distance
but I did not follow
I was afraid
it would not be me
that followed

Names shift in the dreamlands
shapes and faces flow
meanings alter
selves blend or fade
from some roads
there is no returning
unchanged

Things I did not know before visiting
I knew afterward
Things I knew for certain before
I could never be sure of again

People I have met in the Dreamlands
what their waking form was I do not know
one man dark and brooding
another whose brow shone like a star
a woman who laughed and sang of love
another shy and wistful
who turned and ran when I approached

Their songs were lovely
heartbreaking and pure
but upon awaking
I did not know their language
and could not write them down

Sometimes I flew
black-feathered swift-winged harsh-voiced
to carry messages
a favor for a favor
strange messages
for stranger folk
a rock-sprung shining soldier in a cap
a one-eyed grey-bearded lord
ice-fishers woodsmen and hunters
or creatures of clouded shapes
never quite the same
between instants

More happened than I can tell you
more than I can tell myself
some things cannot be told
you must go there yourself

There is no passport I can give you
no golden needle or graven plate
but when you go there
heed me
watch carefully
listen to all you hear
and upon awaking
write down
all you can remember
and repeat what you learn
some of it

       _________________________
       © 1993 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

This Too Is...

tinyurl.com/thistoois

Once I told someone who wanted “to understand the Goddess as a spiritual being“ but wanted some actual experience to complement all the books:

Don't sweat the theoretical theology. Spend some time just living.

Dance. Dance in crowds, with friends, in pairs, or alone. Find a Celtic ceilidh (KAY-lee) somewhere, and learn its folk dances. Or watch “Zorba the Greek“ and imitate the steps. Or do Tai Ch‘i Ch‘uan. Dance until you feel the energy running through you like fire. Place your hand upon your chest, over your beating heart, and say to yourself:

          “This too is alive. This too is divine.“

Sit and hold a cat or a dog, or a child, or a friend, or a lover, warm against you, until they sleep at peace. Feel their breathing, and say:

          “This too is alive. This too is divine.“

Walk among the plants of a field or forest, park or backyard garden, watching them drink in the sun — and again in moonlight or starlight, hearing small animals calling out to each other, prolific life unseen, until you realize how filled with activity, with sometimes desperate attempts to find (and not become) food, this “still life“ really is. Lie on the grass, or wade into the pond or stream, and say:

          “This too is alive. This too is divine.“

Look out sometimes, out and up, to the sun and the moon and the stars. Marvel at the scale, the sheer inconceivable size, of our universe, and the equally incomprehensible scale of the thing we call “time“. Say:

          “This too is alive. This too is divine.“

After that, read any book in your stack. Or none of them. Whatever.

---

... and even when your body‘s old,
and winter winds blow bitter cold,
then over hearthfire‘s welcome heat
you‘ll lean, and from that fireside seat
your voice will rise to bless the flame;
then, rocking gently, call the name
of all you worship, all you love,
all life on earth, all light above.

This too is dance. This too is song.

In all of these you dance along
with everyone who lived upon
the earth — no matter if they're gone,
their dance continues — and when you
are gone, your dance continues, too.

Let those with wit to see the rhyme
within my words, see within time
just such a pattern hidden deep:
within the pendulum‘s slow sweep,
within all fate, within all chance;
for all of time is but a dance.

[ and the man says ]

tinyurl.com/themansays

and the man says
        listen brothers listen sisters
        I bring you the word of god
        for I have spoken with him
        place your hands on the TV set
        or the radio
        and pray with me
this is the laying on of hands
        now send me your money
        all that you can afford
        and all that you cannot
this is the tithe

listen to me mister preacher man
I don’t need you to tell me the word of god
I have a bible too
and if I didn’t
it would be five dollars or fifty cents or free
at a church or religious society

but if a man tells me that it is outdated
that he has more recent information
that he has just come from talking with god
himself
personally
then that man is either
a god blessed saint
or a god damned liar
and if that man is wearing
a five hundred dollar suit
in front of a fifty thousand dollar TV camera
and he is asking me to send him my money
so that he can feed the poor
or serve god
then you know which one
of the two possibilities
I believe

I can think for myself
just as anyone else can
they don’t have to listen to me
to tell them how to think or what to think
and they sure don’t have to listen to you
I know and they know

the first rule is be good to other people
that’s hard enough
its worth spending a life learning how to do
and if we manage that
we can start on the second lesson
but until we get the first one right
there’s no way we can do the rest
and there’s no use boasting about
how close you are to god
when you are light years away
from the man in rags standing next to you

tell a poor man or a hungry child
about how god loves him
or how you do
which is the same thing in your mind it seems
when he can see the rich folks zooming by
not stopping
in their cars and planes
and he can see your suit glitter
in the lights
and he can see his family suffer
in the cold
and do you think he believes you
get him food and clothing and shelter for his family
and teach him how to keep getting it on his own
not depending on pity
and you will not need to tell him
he will believe you

but there is a child
dear god there are thousands
going hungry to school
because mama sent the money
from the welfare check
to the preacher
instead of buying food
and the child is too hungry to think
and if he cant think he cant learn
and if he cant learn
he will go hungry all his life

and the man in rags is walking down a street tonight
in the cold
with everything he owns in a paper bag
walking past the warm TV studio
in the cold
walking past the warm houses
in the cold
and he is going to die tonight
in the cold
because everyone is watching the preacher on TV
and getting closer to god
so they don’t need to go out
in the cold
and bring a smelly beggar inside
out of the cold
and feed him or give him a place to sleep
out of the cold
or care enough to
treat him like a human being
or save his life
after all
their souls have already been saved
by the preacher

so you can ask anyone else on this street
who in america today
is the holiest man
and he may tell you
billygrahamoralrobertsherbertarmstrong
or maybe you
but if you ask me
who in america today
has done the most evil in the name of good
I will tell you

       _________________________
       © 1984 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song.]

Two Songs of Courtly Love

tinyurl.com/2courtly

          What KIND of Courtly? (For what kind of Court?)
          Love that's pure? Or love for sport?
          Love that's chaste and innocent?
          Or earthy lust, for merriment?

                    (How about one of each?)

          THE LONELY LOVER'S LAMENT

Oh, my lady is sweet, and I think she is neat,
And you'd think just the same if you met her:
She's perfection complete, from her head to her feet;
In this world, I could love no-one better.

Yet I sit here and cry, and you may ask me why —
If I love her, then what is the matter?
The trouble is, I am so terribly shy
That I've never quite dared to look at her!

I'm too nervous to speak, and my voice starts to squeak
Every time that I try to talk to her;
But if I weren't meek, she might think it was cheek,
So I haven't the courage to woo her.

How I wish I could be a bold hero so free
Who could bravely and proudly pursue her,
For the passion we'd see would reshape history...
If I weren't so mild and demure!

                    (and the flip side:)

          OF ROSEMARY AND TIME

‘Tis a trick to be quick as a clock that goes tick-tick,
And a gift to be swift (well, SOMEtimes, ye catch my drift?);
But I know to be slow when with lady friend I go,
Spend an hour in her tower, or a soft and shady bower.

For I can kiss a hand, and then be a patient man,
Let her find her own mind, and decide to be so kind
As to grace kiss on face, asking me to please unlace
Garb so tight, dim the light, and regale the merry night

With a song, not too long; and it never would be wrong
To caress her, and bless every shining braided tress;
Does no harm to put arm all around her body warm,
And to sip at her lip, and so lightly stroke her hip,

Kiss her neck, just a peck, and then follow at her beck,
Lay her head on a bed clothed in shiny satin red....
But no more, lest I bore you with too much tale in store;
Brief to say, comes the day, and I must be on my way!

          Both © 1994 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

Passage

tinyurl.com/pass-age

When I think how the winds of Fall
Now soothe my hot tormented frame,
I wonder that I feared at all
The fading of the Summer's flame,
Or longed to keep those fiery rays
From passing with the length of days.

The calmness of the Autumn breeze,
The unrushed comfort of cool skies,
Give me an unknown sense of ease
And freedom from those fervent cries
That always, in a younger age,
Had urged me to desire and rage.

With hints of such new things in store,
And diff‘rent measures than I'd used,
I now anticipate life more,
Look forward, and can be amused
At my old doubts; nor shall I fear
The Winter that will close this year.

     © 1990 C. M. Joserlin, “Raven”

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song.]

Wolf Messiah

tinyurl.com/wolf0messiah
History...
is a nightmare
from which I am trying to awake.
— James Joyce

[From a Usenet post of December 20, 2003:]

"wyldhunt" wrote [in part, responding to Eric Smith posting "The Gospel Poem":]

> lest they be burned and tortured for all eternity
> by the god of love and understanding

Mmmm, since the "Gospel" times there are historical changes in Christian beliefs and practices, mixing the benevolence of the early years with the ferocity of the later Crusades and witch-hunts. This leaves the genuinely benevolent liable to be tarred with the viciousness of others, while the vicious lay claim to the mantle of the benevolent.

For one thing, that "burned and tortured for all eternity" seems not to have been what Jesus was talking about. He was referring to a place where corpses were taken to be burned, and to worms eating other corpses; in essence saying, "If your soul is not saved, then the final end of you will be that your body is burned or the worms eat it." Nothing eternal in that — in fact, the whole point is that this is an *end*, not eternal.

For another thing, the oppressive methods (justified by Augustine of Hippo) of conversion and correction by fire and sword were adopted as enforcing a state religion. Before the Roman Empire was Christianized, methods just as harsh were used to enforce worship of the emperor's spirit ("genius") — in fact, Christians were put to death for their failure to perform that worship.

So this appears to be a trait of a state religion (no matter which), rather than of Christianity itself. One more argument for separating church & state.

Arguably, the blame for the religious wars and persecutions, from Imperial times through Charlemagne and Savonarola, to the Irish Troubles, are not so much due to Christian belief as to the yet-untamed savagery of its adherents.

Cannibals converted to Christianity might well observe their old traditions in the form of the Communion. (Preacher say, this my body, this my blood — and him tasty, too.)

Sharks would worship a Shark-Christ, wolves would venerate a Wolf Messiah.

I wrote a poem on this subject, inspired by Robert Eisler's Man Into Wolf, An Anthropological Investigation of Sadism, Masochism, and Lycanthropy (1952), which I suspect helped inspire Jack Williamson's brilliant dark fantasy Darker Than You Think.

Eisler just barely survived the camps run by the sadists (werewolves?) of Nazi Germany, and delivered the lecture which is the core of this book, in London before dying a few years after the war.

He traces the psychological traits of compulsive violence, and of obsession with becoming a beast, back to the evolution of humanity as omnivores, in tribes some of which became killer-omnivores (carnivore totem) preying upon, or conquering and breeding with, vegetarian (plant and herbivore totem) tribes.

This "split ancestry" paradigm links the old Mongolian legends of human origin (in the marriage of a Wolf-man and a Deer-woman), to the Greco-Roman and medieval myths of furred forest-dwelling savages, to the two fashions for women in mid-century England — the meek wearing flowered prints and fruit-plate hats, the bold wearing fur coats and blood-red claw-shaped fingernails. (Which fashion attends the men of power? Perhaps the carnivores still rule.) Food for thought.

If indeed the human ruling class are the heirs of the predators (marked by fur and claws on the women), and the ruled class descend from the prey, is it any wonder that, occasionally, frustrated men and women, lacking power and position yet still urged by throwback impulses to seize them, might dream of predatory aggression, of becoming feared instead of fearful, strong instead of weak, of gaining the sign of power? Perhaps the will to power is the essential drive of lycanthropy.

    Wolf Messiah
             by
    C. M. Joserlin

Once all the scattered tribes survived
On grain and fruit and growing foods;
Then human wolf-packs rose, and thrived
By preying on plant-eating broods.

The wolves ruled sheep. Of course it seemed
They always would, until the Lamb
Arrived, whose visionaries dreamed
Of sheep-kind saved and wolf-kind damned.

They sought and slew him by their laws,
The killer folk, the wolfish horde,
Then took the Christ up as their cause
To spread the faith with fire and sword.

So for the gentle Prince of Peace
They issued calls to Holy War;
Let unbelievers never cease
To fear the Christ Pantocrator.

The flames grew bright across the land
To save the souls of sheep who erred,
But Wolf-Christ learned a gentler hand;
Now others wished the wolf's teeth bared.

While man became a wolf to man, *
The "hero wolf" fought savage wars,
And followed conquest with a plan
To "cleanse the world" of herbivores.

No longer the old-fashioned pyres
In which the helpless sheep folk screamed;
From modern and efficient fires
In furnaces, their ashes streamed.

The shepherds fought the Wolf, and won,
And now his dreams of empire lie
In ashes — yes, that wolf is gone;
Now "Peace on Earth", the wishful cry.

But still the shaggy past prevails,
And people yearn to get and keep
A furry coat, sharp teeth and nails;
To rule as wolf, not serve as sheep.

And still the wolf-messiah's power
Recruits his followers afresh:
Each week they gather to devour
The lamb-messiah's blood and flesh.

—("Say, brrotherrr, are you washed in the blood of the lamb?")—

* In 1927 Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a 39-year-old condemned as a dangerous anarchist and sentenced to die for a murder which he did not commit, told the Massachusetts court, "Your laws, your institutions, and your false god, [will be] but a dim remembering of a cursed past in which man was wolf to the man." At that time, Adolf Hitler (whose name means "Conquering Wolf"), a 38-year-old war veteran praised as a savior of law and order, was just six years away from national dictatorship in Germany.

[The Suno AI has composed and performed a tune for this song.]