I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain. – James Baldwin
James Baldwin
Tag Archives: Spiritual
besieged
i am in
a crowd
of selves
talking and
telling,
standing
to close
i step back
my arms open:
a kind of
untethering,
resignation
letting go as they say,
drifting from the
shore, (what shore?)
unmoored into –
languor? buoyancy?
alone:
it all grows still
unknown, irresponsible,
not responsible
at sea
after days it occurs
to me
the only
thing left to do
is slip from the boat
and into my body.
(second attempt)
i used to court
sadness like
a lover
sinewy and
sensuous
beguiling
everything i wanted
we went
everywhere
together
i believed
everything
i gave her
a place
but she is gone
and that made
me sad
in another way
a beauty
uprooted
a possession, a toy
my keeping kept
something from growing
(final attempt)
she is back
in my life
unrecognizable
though not
as sadness
as someone else,
not sure who.
chris woodhull
out of nowhere
some days, the words
find me or i
find them and
they may or
may not open
the hatch,
the secret opening,
the place where
God is said
to be.
who made the hatch?
in one side, out the other
and back again.
forgetting the hatch
i am free.
chris woodhull
solvitur ambulando
never lose track
of your shoe-
laces in the
hand securing
the knot guided
by the eye
from above.
chris woodhull
on the surface of things
I In my room, the world is beyond my understanding; But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four hills and a cloud. II From my balcony, I survey the yellow air, Reading where I have written, “The spring is like a belle undressing.” III The gold tree is blue, The singer has pulled his cloak over his head. The moon is in the folds of the cloak. poem by Wallace Stevens / art by Danielle van Ark
je suis
you
the invisible
who-ness
is present, bidden or
not bidden, so
i admit to feeling
(you prefer
lower case i’m guessing?
i do)
your nearness,
much more
than God – is that your father:
enormous, cliff-
like, unknowable shore line
everywhere and nowhere
or did i make him up? – and
you remain unseen yet noticeable
and quiet, as a young
girl, painfully shy
supine?
and here:
are you the swing? are you the hush?
are you the dusk
light, and why is your name such
a problem? i admit to feeling un-
comfortable with it
in public,
aloud
i don’t mind thinking it
je suis is as close as i get
why do you keep
showing up discernibly concealed?
what did you learn as a human? and
what do you continue to learn as a
God-formerly-human-yet-still-human-but-waiting-
for-something-i-don’t-understand-to-happen?
you are
the missing
person who
i look for
everywhere
in a stadium
crowd, far off,
other side of field
eye contact
we locate each
other, impossible
to talk, we wave,
sort of, our
gaze in a
pause
held in that
small holiness
just seeing you is
seeing me
you are the being in
a person without a
body, right? though in a
body, is that it?
that certain near-thing
we know is distinct
and unique
in me
here
like being in your own car, your own pew,
your own bed
how am i
doing so
far
stop me if
i’m going
to
fast
poem by chris woodhull / photograph by kumiko ishigaki
wonder
sometimes in the day,
sometimes at night
I walk outside and in,
all around the wooded property
not looking for anything
in particular, nothing really
but this and that, hoping,
no, not hoping: wondering
if the incessant searching
or hunting or waiting
for something to happen,
to move, from beneath
the thing I call my life,
will give it buoyancy.
chris woodhull
glance
glance:
she looks my way
and i look hers
eyes open
as windows
without a word
we think —
who are you?
windows open
eyes turning elsewhere,
mind moving
into privacy
where we
sit and
think about such
things as meeting
strangers, new
friends we
may enjoy —
i sip coffee, she reads
wondering and wondering,
we both
return home.
chris woodhull
all this
the bank of trees, in still wintery
nakedness, a closet
nothing open, waiting
all hidden, yet awake
each tree a finger, distending
holding something within
sleeves of snow scatter,
disappearing, ground breathing
listening
all this, soulful knowing
past and future
all of this, nothing alive and
yet alive
how?
how did this road get here?
I have been walking
this lane for hours,
cut between the wide stand
of poplars and pines
all this roadside
solemnity suggesting someone?
they say a baby
is the essence of a human
where did the baby go?
everything within me
whispers
here!
by chris woodhull
the window
A storm blew in last night and knocked out
the electricity. When I looked
through the window, the trees were translucent.
Bent and covered with rime. A vast calm
lay over the countryside.
I knew better. But at that moment
I felt I’d never in my life made any
false promises, nor committed
so much as one indecent act. My thoughts
were virtuous. Later on that morning,
of course, electricity was restored.
The sun moved from behind the clouds,
melting the hoarfrost.
And things stood as they had before.
poem by Raymond Carver / photograph by Shinzo Maeda
Monks & Mannequins 