poemimage

The visual & the poetic.

Tag: journey

Beneath the Gaze of Spiritual Machinery

History will not tell you this but I was there

a gnarly oak branch growing out my back 

animals conceal buried acorns

Julius Caesar ignites his clothing

Jesus Christ recites the Brehon Laws of ancient Ireland

Mary Magdalene instructs me to bring my own basket

typewriters made of ice float in the sea

poets climb staircases carved into ice mountains

your neighbour conceals snakeskin sheathing his heart

the guardians of upper eternity affix their shadows

maps made of powdered sugar swirl into the wind

I forget the knotted scarf

I forget to die

I wash lead cisterns

my eyelids purple with prophetic script

beneath the gaze of spiritual machinery

I said take me with you.

Spiritual Machinery, digital drawing, S. McCabe

and we did have joy

When roadblocks appear.

Roads go to funny places.

One returns to a place.

I remember you burned the soles of your feet during coal walking at the weekend seminar.

Somebody stole your expensive Turkish sandals and replaced them with flip flops.

You didn’t stop walking.

We discovered a comet fallen to the sidewalk.

And then a colourful one.

You were afraid it would burn your feet.

You said my skin had cracked.

I touched my arm. It felt

Like a fallen column in the library at Alexandria.

Though not as old as a comet.

As old as the sidewalks put in after WW2.

On the roads that go to funny places.

Where you walked and kept going

After I stopped.

*

and

we

did

have

joy

*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Story Is Not My Own (a film poem concerning Nov. 22, 1963)

The same film with subtitles:

still with credit

In 2009 I created My Story Is Not My Own, a metaphysical & surreal film poem concerning the Kennedy assassination. My statement concerning this project is beneath the video on the YouTube page.