Techno-civilization
breaks existence – time for space –
more objective(s), more to place.
Having more ain’t being more,
might of space still dies at time’s
borders. Existence beats its
heart not in spaces, but times.

Set out to control my space,
gain some power, forfeit time.
In time: not have, but to be.
Own not, but give some graces.
Not control, but share. Subdue
not spaces, live in accord.
We forfeit life when control

of space, accumulation,
concerns us first – stocks and Fords.
nothing’s more useful than It –
nothing’s more frightful than It –
poverty once degraded
us, but now we are threatened
by Power’s degradation.

Enjoy your love of labor
but hate your loving of gain.
Hearts and pitchers break before
the fountain we call ‘profit.’
Technical society
grows up from propriety –
tools and spinning, farm and house,

sailing, aleing, data, blouse,
each in spatial surroundings.
Subdue? Manage nature’s force?
Worship nature in mountain,
forest, water, flame or stone?
God’s not space. Is man alone?

 

Inside the universe you
like to see God make presence,
but do we get to choose how?
We want God in space, not time,
in nature, not history,
as if Godhead were a thing
not a life-giving spirit.

Pantheism worships space:
Supreme Being is no more
than infinite space minded
– deus sive natura  –
extension – space – but not time.
For  Spinoza, time’s mirage –
he wants philosophy warped
to geometry’s place.

Primitive minds won’t realize
ideas unimagined. Space –
where imagination rules –
we revere sacred image.
Monuments, places, banners,
flags, national shrines, statues

– memorials stultify
ends, aid amnesias. Though too
sacred to be polluted,
not too sacred to exploit.
To retain the holy, you
fashion gods you can confine:
mere shadows, shadows of man.

THING is the category
heavy on our minds. Concepts
– all – we mold into its form,
attending to seen, smelled, heard,
touched, tasted. Reality
is thinghood. Even our God’s
conceived by most as a thing.

We’re blind, we’re deaf, we’re muted
to half of reality:
all that is shy, all that won’t
identify selves as things.
The insubstantial we make
inconsequential, know
not what to do about time.

Time is sarcasm. A slick
treacherous monster, jaws like
furnaces burning moments.
We shrink from taking on time,
face to face, escaping to
space instead. Possessions are
repressions – fuel for near flames.

We can’t conquer time in space.
We can master time in time.
For the higher goal of all
spiritual living is not
to amass wealth of data,
Evernotes evernoting,
but to face sacred moments.

Please do not use your moments.
Please don’t abuse your moments.
You cannot spend your moments.
Your cash won’t trade for moments.
They aren’t alike, your moments.
Not shells, nor stamps. Your moments,
sole, enchant. Savor their spells.

Each hour’s the only one given
exclusive and endlessly
precious. Holiness in time –
to this, to sacred events –
we must attach, we must build
our great cathedrals – Sabbaths –
Our architecture of time.

Qadosh. “Holy” in Hebrew –
mystery and majesty
of the divine. What was first?
A mountain? An altar? Man?
No. “God blessed the seventh day
and made it holy.” No thing
was holy at creation.

God did not become a tree.
God did not grow up from rocks.
God’s not stuck in Jupiter,
atom clouds or public stocks.
God’s not mere geometry.
He chose time, but we choose place.
God’s right here in history,

builds his cathedrals in time,
palaces and brandywines
of hours and seconds like a
castle in the clouds, G.K.
called them, without regular
rules of architecture. Then
he takes his time with timing:

For providence means that he
takes the sixfold pain and toil
of spoilt maidenhead, agley
schemes of mice and men, takes a
murder here, lies and theft there,
and reupholsters them all
the way down, down to the bone.

Reordering disorder,
he takes eons doomed to die,
deemed by men to make men cry,
and turns them till they catch light,
until he finds their prism,
folds it into his white light
of all, and redistributes

moments, rewriting from old
component parts and pistons,
cheery-picked the engine of
time and put a new one in:
His very self within man.
God, defined by history,
became History again:

First he set aside a day,
Then he taught us, way by way,
“Take the time to face my face,
take the time away from space.”
In time, he was put to rest
on Sabbath. Rose an eighth day
called it “Today, if you hear
me, don’t harden your hearts.” Glimpse time…

 

 

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about the 54 @ 27 ::

It’s that time again!

When I was 23, I read this stupid article that claimed the perfect age for writing quality poetry is twenty-three. Well I freaked out like I do and cranked out work like I can and it resulted in 46 poems written at 23. A year passed, I calmed down, then I freaked out again two years later and wrote another bunch of poems called 50 at 25, all written before I turned 26 on April Thirtyish.

Will I keep up this twice-my-age regimen on the odd years? Who knows.

But this year?

This year I’m trying a more holistic approach. 54 poems crammed into next spring will kill me, guaranteed. But one a week? That’s doable and the blog has languished of late. One a week-ish I can do.

So let’s do this thing.