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Poems from a Secular Religion
Monday, 31 July 2006
Wednesday, 19 April 2006
Sunday, 26 March 2006
Desire to Spiral
author’s note:
I seem to be attracted to the very thing that frightens me.
That’s some strange survival instinct.
DREAM DOOR
A dream, a door already open--
the dark space asks me to enter but
I know I will
hesitate
because of
the unknown depth.
But I know I will enter
because of the unknown depth.
I know that what I imagine
I will find
will not be what I find.
Amorphous
florescent shapes squiggle and
dart--
appear and disappear
without apparent pattern.
Yet I know that under my effort--
weak, but getting stronger--
these shapes will somehow coalesce,
will spiral together, will lead me endlessly
down into the black ocean heart.
I know--despite my fear--
strong, but getting weaker--
that I will never
completely satisfy
my desire to spiral.
© 2006, Michael R. Patton
dream steps blog
shameless self-promotion
artwork for poetry blog
email: michaelpatton@lycos.com
find The Raven’s Way at amazon.com
Posted by michaelpatton
at 8:27 AM CST
Sunday, 12 March 2006
My Dark Ages
author’s years:
I don’t want to spend too much looking backward--no more than necessary. It’s like visiting the Dark Ages, when I go way back.
However, I do try to understand the past. But despite my gains in understanding, the past has not lost its mystery.
LOST YEARS
The creaking of the boards
beneath my feet
speaks of many deaths
creeping underneath.
They’re down there. Those people
who used to appear in
my dreams as robots or
curtains or
inquisitors.
But in the process
of those deaths
which took
so many years,
I thought I’d lost
the gold dust that fell
between the planks
into the silent cave soil.
But something grew there
and continues to grow
though I have only seen
a sprig.
No one knows them--
those years.
Sometimes
I barely recognize them
myself.
© 2006, Michael R. Patton
dream steps blog
shameless self-promotion
artwork for poetry blog
email: michaelpatton@lycos.com
find The Raven’s Way at amazon.com
Posted by michaelpatton
at 8:59 AM CST
Wednesday, 1 February 2006
The Reflection of the Water
author's note:
On a couch at the other side of the coffee house, four young people sat, talking, laughing.
Because they could have been a million miles away, I wrote this story about them.
SHE TURNED
We don’t know how but--
she turned black.
She went off somewhere in silence--
maybe to an ice hotel, a warm cave,
a spiked grave--we don’t know where
but
when she resurfaced,
she was black
and pink and green.
The color was not on her
flesh or clothes.
But curtains billow as the house
bellows–you know something’s going on inside.
She must have finally caved--
behind the smile, behind the laughter,
behind the glossed eyes.
Now she seemed to be
kneeling
head bowed,
kneeling at a dark blue stream--
not gazing down at her reflection,
but enjoying the reflection of the water
on her skin.
She’d seemed distant before, without trying to be distant, but
now she stood on the sun and sat on the moon--
to be loved by someone so far away
made me feel as if
I was lifting from my chair.
I wanted to know where she’d been, where
she’d gone--why her steps now glowed
in the night--
but
the moment we sat down at the table
alone–she lived alone--
I found myself speaking English and she
spoke--I don’t know--something that sounded
like English but was nothing I’d ever heard before.
Even “How are you?” rang as if
she meant it, as if she understood
what I’d failed to tell myself.
Yet even with her depth to help me
I still had too many limitations:
I could not bring myself to ask
how she’d turned black
and pink and green.
And purple.
Then--
in my moment of greatest opportunity--
I fell asleep.
But in my unconsciousness, another part of me came to fore,
took control and I heard myself say,
“What happened to you? You’re different now.”
She smiled and answered easily--as if the question
had not been a stab, as if I had not torn myself open
by asking--
“Sometimes you just have to go somewhere else. And if you weren’t really wrong before--
if you meant it without feeling it--sometimes
you can return and live and talk as you once did
except that living and talking in that way won’t hurt you anymore. You can
love and listen from a million miles away.”
She told me more, more, but
I could only remember--can only hold--
that much
of the dream.
What I heard and felt was so strong,
I haven’t yet dared
to fully awake.
© 2005, Michael R. Patton
dream steps blog
shameless self-promotion
artwork for poetry blog
email: michaelpatton@lycos.com
find The Raven’s Way at amazon.com
Posted by michaelpatton
at 8:44 AM CST
Sunday, 6 November 2005
Nature Nurtures
author’s note:
After growing up in Arkansas, I left to be urbanized.
Several years later, a move to Hawaii made me realize how much I need what we call “nature”.
But a few years after that, it took an afternoon in a forest near Taos, New Mexico to make me realize...
...that to get what I needed from nature...
...I had to stop.
ACTUAL SIZE
I’m not about
to let you
see this
inflated violin.
The bars of music
a motion picture score
for my own
disempowerment.
But I sat down at
the creek the other day.
Sat down in
a setting so peaceful
I could not help but
be at peace
for a little while
all that overblown
clouded red brown
hubbub
fell away
Monumental emotions
shrank to a single block.
Flowed away from me
on the water
the water
reflecting on the trees
pleasantly aimless
pleasantly anything
and I became
something
better--
I bested myself--
purer
if only
for that brief
sweet
time.
© 2005, Michael R. Patton
dream steps blog
shameless self-promotion
artwork for poetry blog
email: michaelpatton@lycos.com
find The Raven’s Way at amazon.com
Posted by michaelpatton
at 8:27 AM CST
Updated: Thursday, 20 April 2006 8:55 AM CDT
Saturday, 11 June 2005
Spiraling into Control
author's note:
When traveling up a spiral, it's possible to go in a downward direction and, at the same time, continue your progress upwards.
To me, that's one of the most beautiful thoughts in the world.
THE UPSIDE OF DOWN
My inferno was no
deeper than
a trash can.
But as powerful
as a cannonshot.
Which is to say,
I ascended on my
descent.
I guess I can’t
have one
without
the other.
And let me tell you,
going up
is as scarey
as going below.
“Why” is what
a baby asks
being born.
But if you don’t grow
out of it,
you’re done for.
? 2005, Michael R. Patton
artwork for poetry blog
shameless self-promotion
dream steps blog
Posted by michaelpatton
at 6:44 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, 16 January 2006 8:51 AM CST
Sunday, 22 May 2005
Know Thy Selves
author's note:
When I took to heart the adage "Know Thyself", I never imagined I'd find so many selves.
UNDER COVER
I am quiet, gentle
Yet there’s brutishness
softly covered over.
I respect it enough
not to wake it up.
I have a little, not a lot.
Never enough to sever legs
or send boys off to war.
But don’t deny my brutishness.
And don’t mock my gentleness,
either--
my domestic demeanor.
Because I can be loud and lose mercy,
whenever I look the other way.
? 2005, Michael R. Patton
artwork for poetry blog
shameless self-promotion
dream steps blog
Posted by michaelpatton
at 5:53 PM CDT
Updated: Saturday, 4 March 2006 8:50 AM CST
Wednesday, 20 April 2005
Stranger Than We Can Imagine
author's note:
I sometimes feel that if I could just open myself up fully to every waking moment--to the experience of being alive right here, right now--then I might not have the desire to explore the hidden aspects of life, to know what metaphysical reality underlies what I can already see, feel, taste, and touch.
I know that, in truth, each waking moment is packed with feeling--with understanding. But how can I get to what I’m actually experiencing? Without the aid of drugs, of course.
Dreams help. Dreams are hyper-real and tell no lies. A strong dream can color my entire day. A very strong dream can color my entire life.
Still, there’s a desire for more. I want to see, to experience my environment–and my being–as fully as possible. As completely as my poor human mind can tolerate.
I love that quote from Charles Fort: “The universe isn’t just stranger than we imagine–it’s stranger than we can imagine.”
I believe that if I can see more, see the reality that I can not yet see–if only momentarily--then when my perspective shifts back to my ordinary reality, that ordinary reality will not seem so ordinary anymore. I will realize, more acutely, what a blessed place, an incredible place, this world that I inhabit is.
UPWARD EYES
My eyes opened at birth
then closed shortly
thereafter. But always
with my skin, I could feel
some other world just beyond
my elbow. And every time
I turned, it turned away
from me. At least, it
seemed to, this other world.
This world which was part
of this one and yet
another.
But I did not know
in my frustration
in my desire to see
that this spinning
motion, this dizzy
motion, this irritating
chase–
was drawing me steadily
upward
and upward
and more.
? 2005, Michael R. Patton
shameless self-promotion
dream steps blog
Posted by michaelpatton
at 5:11 PM CDT
Friday, 15 April 2005
The Benefits of Gravity
author's note:
As you can see from the photo below, I learned the hazards of gravity at a young age?and tried to take protective measures against those hazards.
However, I can tell you, those protective measures have not always worked.
But how else would I ever wake up?
I have met two men in my life who?ve been knocked unconscious. Surprisingly enough, both believed the experience had done him some good.
BLIND DATE
When we meet
you will know me
by the blood
on my chin
where I?ve hit
the pavement
time and again
shoved down by
my own blindness
awoken
upon landing
only to stand up
and fall asleep
once again.
So excuse the
dark red scab
on my chin.
It?s merely a symptom
of learning.
? 2005, Michael R. Patton
shameless self-promotion
dream steps blog
Posted by michaelpatton
at 7:09 PM CDT
Updated: Tuesday, 19 April 2005 9:13 AM CDT
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