Defining Poetry

walk with two suns

Walk with Two Suns (for winter solstice)


In the dark mid-winter you must walk with two suns. Kindle the flame of your internal heat. Set your chakras spinning, let the kundalina rise. Be drunk with joy.

And should you wake shivering in your cold castle, cry out to the gods of earth, fire, and flowers. Demand solar powers. Be drunk with dreams.

You are the bloom reaching for warmth. You are a land fecund with fruit. Be drunk with light.

Carnal and sacred in your flesh, blood, and bone....entrain to the rhythm of the eternal return. Be drunk with hope.

Blanket yourself in hot, holy tears. Wrap yourself in perfumes and spice. Be drunk with love.
Walk with two suns.


For this final entry in "Defining Poetry: Contest"  I chose forerunner Charles Baudelaire. I was captured by his lushness and excess, this is not subtle, well-mannered verse. http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16054 I wanted to live by his advice to "Be Drunk" ....and reveled in his lines "ask the wind, and wave, and star....everything that is flying, groaning, rolling, singing, speaking...." I specifically wrote inspired by his prose poem "Be Drunk" and followed that form while hoping for lushness and excess in my own poem. I wanted it to be like a chant that could be recited around a tribal fire.

For this holiday season, may you be drunk with joy!