Jesse Bates ladies and gentlement, Jesse Bates.

No Salvation Outside of Poetry

Here is a wonderful talk given by Bishop Conley; Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Denver.

The Title of the talk is "No Salvation Outside of Poetry."

Bishop Conley fondly recounts his experiences in the Integrated Humanities Program (IHP sometimes called Pearson Program) at Kansas University in the 70's.

http://www.archden.org/repository//TOT_03_12_10.mp3

"Poetry is the language of love"

Perty

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These lines

from today's poemAday really struck me as masterful.

Look for smaller signs instead, the fine
disturbances of ordered things when suddenly
the rhythms of your expectation break
and in a moment's pause another world
reveals itself behind the ordinary.

-by poet Dana Gioia

Excuse the length, especially just after Lord Bloch's.

Written on a bridge at Featherock, on a bridge, in November, that being the Featherock in Schulenberg, Texas. 

Middle Tempest

I. Fog Lecture

October.
Thunder in dull moments
Shuffling puddles around tanned grass.
And when the gusts settled,
There was a serious silence,
Your brow contracted with a seaward knowledge.

What is the question answered?
What the place of moments of contraction?
This gaze and brow temper
Like fog in a drought.
No, you are not allowed to parse the
Fog in a face,
Nor the dusty marina, out of season.
No, you do not answer,
But take a pencil and scratch—

II. A Holiday

Among apple dumplings, peach-rose chairs,
Blurred within humid cheeriness,
The wine swirled before a whorish grin,
Before the roasted-almond beef a la bru—,
The boys muffling the new glee of a fresh-shorn, frenzied joke,
During the stuffed bells, grown luxurious from the grin,
Among some chatter of the election,
Grandfather Ted nodded his head,
And fell asleep.

III. Voices

I read something, last year, said Leverenz—
And not too soon, for Helen now shifted her feet—
That’s fascinating, she said, and held her cigarette like a black and white movie.
Taking the cue, Leverenz crossed a leg.
I write, on occasion, but all I find is coarse,
Dull, so un-aesthetic (with a victor’s frown)—
Of course, of course—with a two-lipped kiss of her butt.

Temples erected in sin,
And Marge is mad again.

Temples triumphantly…
the adverb speaks.

We have wasted in little tiffs,
Riffs of buzzing chords—

The z letters extricate
What they significate.

Wasted words, quickly wrought,
Prated by Johnny Walker Blue.

Words mean nothing,
So so do you.

One’s got to vote conservative,
What with a war on, and all.
But I must say—George, no phone at supper.

Deep within the Loch of Aberdeen,
A rippling tide resounds against the gorge.
Leviathan erupt, erect, silent as yet,
Paws the silky weeds, unscrews his jaw.

Boom.

The rubbled streets
A little black boy’s feet.

Boom.

Fallen Appalachia
Returns to native dust.

Boom.

Grandpa woke.

IV. Creek

Had we all but the time in the wild park,
Dangling our feet off the center of the bridge.
An acorn tossed down the planks, and I mark
A Cardinal’s curiosity, but reasoning’s my privilege.
If you had seen, you would, with me, wonder
Was it the nut or plank, the cause of the bounce.
If the waning creek below had kept its depth,
Would we tribute the source or grounds?

Such thoughts tremor behind a gentler thought—
That such a time as this would persist
Toward a more meaningful summer’s fall:
The nut, rotting cap and shell, stops.

A heavier air.

The puddle that was a creek, murmurs, quakes.
If only you could see, with me,
And outlast this…misunderstanding

A warmer air still.
The sea-girl’s glance is grayed, aphrodisiac.

Droplets of warm rain patter the planks.
The girl of the seaward glance, fearing a cold, retires.
I, feet hanging, am witness to the creek.
The nut—mud’s his christening—drinks deep the rain.
And his offshoot—rotted, like the seed?

‘Till all the seas gang dry

I would have answered,
But the age refused an answer,
Thought it uncouth.

Thoughts tremor, a gentle rising water.

Jerry and Mother Teresa

An excerpt from a letter in Come Be My Light, the Private Writings of the "Saint of Calcutta" (I highly recommend it to all):

"Three days ago we picked up two people eaten alive with worms. The agony of the Cross was on their faces. How terrible poverty is, if unloved. After we made them comfortable you should have seen the change. The old man asked for a cigarette and how beautiful of God--in my bag there were two packets of the best cigarettes. A rich man gave them to me that morning in the street. God thought of this old man's longing."