Profane Pre-Prison Poetry
In yesterday's blog, I posted three poems I wrote relatively early in my 11 year prison sentence. Though they had potential and were even published, they seem in retrospect somewhat saccharine to me. Certainly they lack the poetic fire of some of my earlier and later work.
To provide a bit of contrast, I want to now post four poems written not long before my incarceration. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you've likely seen some of my pre-prison work before (most notably in Now and a Week before Prison). But here are a few pieces no one has ever seen before. I invite your honest impressions.
Lick Limbo
[23 August 1993]
Lick limbo from my eyes
Help me to look
Beyond a Bible guise
At a new Book.
* * *
Spare Silver
[25 August 1993]
God in three persons descends upon our assembly.... That's what the preacher calls it. My friend Judas tells me it's either mental illness or treachery.
People are writhing in the aisles, at the altar, on the carpet.... They rapidly spew quasi-sentences I cannot decipher. I understand one phrase the preacher keeps repeating in the midst of the babble. But what does he mean by "Praise the lowered"?
Judas says someone should have given God forty pieces of silver to spare us.
* * *
Allah Agog
[20 September 1993]
Crucified drunken
Filled by my glass
God in three persons
Tarnishing brass
Home shopping rump ream
Fire in the dark
Cascading brilliant
Waterfall stark
Tasteless goal tender
Ripper - on - Rhine
Jesus in torment
Grandeur is mine
Wonderful whiplash
Allah agog
Mystical temptress
Pleasure to flog
Crucified drunken
Filled by my glass
God in three persons
Dick in my ass
* * *
Wandering Wonders
[11 August 1993]
The listless swan,
Ascending,
Wanders through wandering wonders
In the brilliant night.
(Might survives.)
Eternal flight,
Mastering,
Skillfully, matchstick and mantle,
Breathes life into light.
(Sight revives.)
* * *
P.S. I culled these diamonds in the rough from a handwritten journal I'd entitled Spittle Aglow. As a sort of subtitle on the opening page, I quoted Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "This is my way; where is yours?" In retrospect, I'm not so sure I knew my way any more than I knew anyone else's. I was out on bond at the time, fighting a gravely serious false accusation. And yet I had no idea that by the end of October 1993, I would have lived my last day as a free man in the twentieth century. Strange that although life as I knew it was ending, I continued to look for the rose among the thorns, a sort of glow in the spittle speeding toward my face.
To provide a bit of contrast, I want to now post four poems written not long before my incarceration. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you've likely seen some of my pre-prison work before (most notably in Now and a Week before Prison). But here are a few pieces no one has ever seen before. I invite your honest impressions.
Lick Limbo
[23 August 1993]
Lick limbo from my eyes
Help me to look
Beyond a Bible guise
At a new Book.
* * *
Spare Silver
[25 August 1993]
God in three persons descends upon our assembly.... That's what the preacher calls it. My friend Judas tells me it's either mental illness or treachery.
People are writhing in the aisles, at the altar, on the carpet.... They rapidly spew quasi-sentences I cannot decipher. I understand one phrase the preacher keeps repeating in the midst of the babble. But what does he mean by "Praise the lowered"?
Judas says someone should have given God forty pieces of silver to spare us.
* * *
Allah Agog
[20 September 1993]
Crucified drunken
Filled by my glass
God in three persons
Tarnishing brass
Home shopping rump ream
Fire in the dark
Cascading brilliant
Waterfall stark
Tasteless goal tender
Ripper - on - Rhine
Jesus in torment
Grandeur is mine
Wonderful whiplash
Allah agog
Mystical temptress
Pleasure to flog
Crucified drunken
Filled by my glass
God in three persons
Dick in my ass
* * *
Wandering Wonders
[11 August 1993]
The listless swan,
Ascending,
Wanders through wandering wonders
In the brilliant night.
(Might survives.)
Eternal flight,
Mastering,
Skillfully, matchstick and mantle,
Breathes life into light.
(Sight revives.)
* * *
P.S. I culled these diamonds in the rough from a handwritten journal I'd entitled Spittle Aglow. As a sort of subtitle on the opening page, I quoted Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "This is my way; where is yours?" In retrospect, I'm not so sure I knew my way any more than I knew anyone else's. I was out on bond at the time, fighting a gravely serious false accusation. And yet I had no idea that by the end of October 1993, I would have lived my last day as a free man in the twentieth century. Strange that although life as I knew it was ending, I continued to look for the rose among the thorns, a sort of glow in the spittle speeding toward my face.
geez john, i still haven't made it to the 2 poems in the last blog...
give a girl time to reflect, will ya?
what i want to know is... when are we going to see something new? i can't recall a new poem since http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2007/10/23/rhymes-with-yang.aspx
love
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The past several years, I've written far more songs than poems.
Didn't King Solomon say "There is nothing new under the sun"?
But perhaps I'll have to prove him wrong in the near future... after a girl's had time to reflect.
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ah, i think king solomon was wrong. there's always something new if you keep your eyes open, even under the moon and stars.
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Modern scholars don't believe Solomon actually wrote that book anyway. It was more likely some latter day Solomon wannabe.
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...for whatever reason, Allah Agog sort of threw me back to Silence of the Lambs....i know the book came out in 1991, and i remember picking it up and not putting it back down until i had read the whole thing.....(i even called off of work, if memory serves.)....i get that same vibe/chill from Allah Agog. PROPS, JC!!
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LOL... I'm not sure that's a good thing or a bad thing.
Seriously, though, I'll take that as a high compliment. I've never read The Silence of the Lambs, believe it or not, although I saw the movie and own pretty much all of Thomas Harris' books. They've been on my to-read list for a while, but I never seem to get to them.
Do you think the Silence of the Lambs book is better than the movie? In my experience, just about every book is better than the movie, except for a rare couple like Wuthering Heights and The Wizard of Oz. So usually I prefer to read the books first - although I did think the Lambs movie was quite good.
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...as is the case with many movies, the BOOK was MUCH MUCH better than the movie. .....matter of fact, this was the last movie i saw after reading the book.......i was THAT diappointed. ....not taking anything away from Jodi Foster and Sir Anthony Hopkins--they could NEVER have pulled off this movie without them. ....just that the book was soooo much more detailed and the movie didn't seem to capture what i thought were important details........DO read some Thomas Harris, though. .....not my favorite, but interesting, none the less.
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Thanks for answering, barbie! I acquired a bunch of Harris books, including The Silence of the Lambs, at the Westlake Library book sale last month. Now you've got me moving them higher up my priority list. I must admit that my being a fan of both Jodi's and Anthony's contributed to my appreciation of the film.
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Hmmm, of the four, JC, the third one, "Allah Agog" (a wonderful title, by the way!)grabs me, and draws me into your world, the most.... The imagery and wordplay are raw and suggestive, and the "profane" last line gives the poem just the right kick. I find it very interesting that you were writing such philosophical poetry, while at the time you were facing dire and immediate threats to your reputation and freedom. Was that a reflection of your youth, or a testament to your enduring
character? In the second poem, "Spare Silver", you hint at betrayal and confusion; this seems to reflect what your own feelings would have been at that unsettling time. The best lines in that poem are "I understand one phrase the preacher keeps repeating in the midst of the babble. But what does he mean by "Praise the lowered"?""-- brilliant!
And your reflection at the end of your blog, where you talk about the title of the journal, and "a sort of glow in the spittle speeding toward my face"... wow!
there's your new poetry, my lord... you are still writing poetry, you're just calling it blogging.
Thank you so much for sharing such an intimate peek into your youthful psyche... and may I join in the chorus to beg for more, more!
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Thank you, Sir! Interesting that you seem to have a similar poetic taste to mine.... (And for those who think otherwise, I swear I'm not the Minister). The things you like most about these are the things I like most as well. So I appreciate the affirmation. And I appreciate your tactful silence about the things I (and perhaps you) find least satisfactory about these poems... lol.
The third is my favorite as well. Finding IT made me post this blog (although I think it can be improved). The challenge after that was finding other pieces in the same volume to post with it. Many of the poems in Spittle Aglow were hopeful and positive (hence the "aglow") - but they also strike me as rather weak. "Wandering Wanders" is one of these and weak as well - but I had to include at least one hopeful poem in this blog to show the the other, rather significant side of my psyche at the time. (My favorite positive poems were in other books - but I was determined to limit this blog to Spittle Aglow).
I had just enough hope at the time to keep me afloat. But the not-so-positive poems (including the first three in this blog ) seem more real to me in restrospect - more biting, less naive, reflecting a burgeoning subconscious awareness that "the end of the world" was imminent.
Interesting point you make about my blogging being my new poetry... because in a sense it is. Even when it isn't necessarily poetic, it is at the very least a surrogate "poetry." It plays a huge role in my life that is similar in dimension and purpose to the role my poetry once played. I think in many ways I'm better at expressing myself than I was then (there are a number of reasons for this). But I still have miles to go before I'm where I ought to be... and some of those miles might (I hope) find me writing far better poetry that any I've written heretofore.
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I had to google the word "agog". So you were excited about Allah. Is this where you were converting from Christianity? Is it because you were hurt by the church? (the last line) Or was it disillusion? Both? So you question Christianity and find yourself a prisoner. What did you make of that? Teach me.
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In case anyone else is wondering, the definition my Webster's II New Riverside University Dictionary gives for "agog" is: a state of excitement and keen anticipation. One reason I suppose I write more prose than poetry nowadays is because I'm more fond of (and see more value in) clear communication than I was (or did) in the past. Perhaps that's because I'm more comfortable expressing myself openly - perhaps part of it is that I have a greater facility with language today than I did then - and where I used to be enthralled by mystery (and saying things that could be interpreted in a number of ways), now I'm at least equally enthralled by enlightenment and clear thinking.
Side note: None of these poems had titles in my journal. I just gave them titles last night.
Anyway, the line "Allah agog" could be interpreted two ways: (1) I'm Allah agog - excited about Allah/God and full of "keen anticipation" - or (2) Allah is agog; He is excited and full of anticipation. I think in this poem, although I had my own sense of keen anticipation (which may be more clearly called a combination of fear, dread, uncertainty, hope, and apprehension), I was referring more to the second option. I really felt that if there was a God (I was no longer sure there was - but IF there was...) he must be making a meal of me for sport. How else could I explain why a universe that I'd always considered just and fair was allowing my life to be destroyed because of a false accusation? I guess this shows that I still possesed a healthy measure of youthful naivete... lol.
Side note: A lot of people (and I used to be one of them, before I had time to study Islam more thoroughly in prison) think of Allah as another god, a competitor with the Christian God. They think of Allah and God as two different entities. But really they're not. Muslims might have some different views of God than Christians. But "Allah" is not an exclusively Muslim word - it is merely the Arabic language's word for God (like Dios in Spanish, Dieu in French, or Theos in Greek). There are many Arabic speaking Christians in the world - and they call God "Allah" because that's the word for God in their language. Arabic translations of our Christian Bible use the word "Allah" where we use the English word "God."
When I wrote this poem, I might still have viewed Allah as a competitor with the Christian God. But even if we look at it in the literal, dictionary sense of meaning simply "Almighty God," the reference still works in this poem. I viewed God (if he existed) as an adversary, who for reasons I did not understand was determined to either make me or let me pay an enormous price for a crime I did not commit. Although I was not really a believer at the time, I related a lot to the biblical character Job. I wasn't sure if it was God's or Satan's "Dick in my ass," but I certainly felt I was getting fucked... lol. (At least I can chuckle about it now - which shows how much healing has transpired, although it still hurts a lot sometimes)
I had pretty much converted from Christianity several years before that - for a number of reasons, including being hurt by the church and becoming disillusioned on several levels - and going to college and increasing my knowledge base. That could make a book in itself. And certainly the false accusation that led to my imprisonment (and the failure of any "God" to intervene) did nothing to restore my faith. Interestingly, however, after several years in prison, I began to re-appreciate Christianity to a surprising degree - partly through getting a broader look at it than my strict Southern Baptist upbringing had afforded me. I was even confirmed into the Episcopal Church in prison... but that's a tale for another time.
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Dayum!!!!
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perhaps we need to look for the thorn among the roses.
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True.... If we're so awed by the beauty and aroma of the roses that we neglect to notice the thorns, we're likely to have a rude awakening. But if we overlook the roses, our lives are diminished as well.
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too true. gotta admit you keep coming up with reasonable statements.
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It took me 41 years to achieve a semblance of reason. Hope it won't take that long to attain the real thing...
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One reason I'm unsatisfied with these poems... although with the third less than the others:
Joan Miro wrote that "Painting or poetry is made as one makes love - a total embrace, prudence thrown to the wind, nothing held back." In these poems and the ones I posted yesterday, much is held back. Part of that has to do with the period in my life. I was living with a woman who read everything I wrote - and misinterpreted everything. This led me to be more restrained and oblique. And then in the early prison poems, I was in an environment that I wasn't yet able to envision as conducive to free, abandon-filled creativity. Both blogs show poems that despite highlights of a line or phrase here and there, show my poetic spirit at the time to be dimmed by inhibition and extreme circumspection. And I was using Goethe's proclamation that "Art exists in limitation" to keep it that way.
One reason I'm so fond of your work, Smith, is that it exudes the sort of "total embrace, prudence thrown to the wind, nothing held back" that Miro championed. Sure, there might be a leavening of prudence in it - but only a complementary pinch of it. I've approached that ideal at times, but never to my satisfaction - and that could be a further reason why I no longer engage in writing poetry as regularly or as enthusiatically as I used to....
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In mb's 2nd comment, she is exactly right! It would never have come about for me to read so much poetry lately if it had not been for you. It gave me back the intellect I thought I had lost since college. Understand? Same goes with the people factor.
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Thank you, Kimberly! I'm not at all satisfied with my poems here - but I'm happy to know others find value in certain elements of them. Kinda makes them more valuable to me....
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I'm definitely learning to appreciate poetry. Thank you John
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Thank you, Dana!
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i think your timestamp is having a crisis.
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A Jesus crisis?
Gadzooks!
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don't they go hand in hand? *grins*
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Or "Hand in Glove"
That's one of my favorite songs by the Smiths (not to be confused with Steve and Kathy).
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now i'm thinking about "hand in my pocket" hee hee
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"And the other one is giving a peace sign"
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glad it's not hailing a taxicab.
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....wow.....wOw and WOW.......i'm just sayin'.....
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