Mixed Media - Life with Poetry

Life With Poetry

Mixed Media

Wasteland Series

Manifesto for a Life of Poetry

G. Ryder
rev. 09/13/04

A polished stone poised on another and another
A sphere rolls in perfect motion on a perfect narrow ledge
These extraordinary moments die in a shifting of powers
Time is capable of many arrangements
These truths are present
The truth of the stars, the white lily, the decades
The give and take of experience
Choose your poems from these. Or don’t
But
Remember the coming to choose
Remember how truth overcame your stillness
The dim light of new awareness
Some truth only you recognize
As it slips neatly into place
A kind of pure speech or elemental music
Only balancing just on the verge
of words and notes
And the moment is here
calling for more imagination, more belief, more rebellion.

Thinking about 9/11

Life After Poetry – 9/11/04

In this time, in this decisive moment
We summon all our strength
Call upon every resource, invite every image
Each dusty memory—if only
To know our power

A crisis of the spirit—our need for each other
Our need for ourselves,We turn—not for long—
Time hardly exists in that first breath of stillness. . .
A primitive beginning and yet more would come—
Much more. . .

Dancing the insane dance—shifting shadows cast
by a fire explosion— so immediate and clear
In high focus, all feelings sharpen—
both love and fear
acted out.

Parts of our lives reassemble—
gather in new arrangements—pieces
Broken images
spoken in language after ancient language,
Long pauses between questions;
Where is there a true place? among all this?
We only begin to utter what we have now come to believe.