This blog contains responses to blog prompts, & thoughts on spiritual or religious themes |
Istijlál (Majesty), 5 ‘Izzat (Might) 176 B.E. - Thursday, September 12, 2019
PROMPT: September 12th - Have you ever taken writing classes or writing workshops? Here or anywhere else? What are your thoughts on taking them? Writing Workshop Poems I've attended several writing workshops, and found them inspiring, enlightening, and fun. Most of the worships I attended had to do with poetry. Below are two poems that were the results of two different workshops. Writing Poetry: The Compulsion To Write The compulsion to write poetry does not fulfill my body's needs nor sate my desire. When I am in the arms of the Muse food is moldy leftovers, sleep is a discarded lover at the door of my consciousness; shelter is the rusted husk of a topless convertible in an Oklahoma snow storm; and sexual satisfactions is a stale cigarette in the mouth of my libido. Eve Teaches Cain And Abel The Alphabet Adam’s rainbow presence enthralled, captivated and drew me into his embrace; pulled me to the ground beneath trees that … Blossomed and fruited, at the same time, without the seasons of separation between … Connubial bliss interrupted, not by sons arguing at the fire pit but, by the Voice … Descending from the sky; reverberating through the trees; echoing across the garden … Enunciating paradise … Forming the conjunctions of immortality … Giving us a choice between life and death; love and hate; innocence and guilt … How many times had I heard the Voice; it always came in the cool of the day; it always spoke in gentle nurturing tones laced with power and authority; it never told us we were naked … I do not remember being naked in the Garden; do not remember your father being naked before we bit into the … Juicy red succulent sweet tartness of … Knowledge ran down my chin; dripped onto my … Left a scarlet trail of disobedience across the body of my shame … My first taste of animal flesh came on the day we fled the garden; your father killed his first animal that day; for the first time in my life the Voice did not come in the cool of the evening; that … Night we clung together in cold terror of the noises coming from beyond the circle of our fire … Outside the Garden we were alone in the panic of our own thoughts; we had no comforter; we had no succorer; we had no one to turn to but each other; we had only ourselves to blame … Prayer came on the third day of our exile; we camped in a grove of pine trees; we slept on the needle covered ground; it was a simple supplication; we both intoned it at the same time; we spoke it, not to each other but, to the star filled sky; we hoped the Voice would hear and forgive; we hoped the Voice would … Quaver through the pines, as it had quavered through the trees of the Garden … Speak to us as it had spoken in the Garden when it intoned the BE of our creation … Thrush nesting in the pines announced the break of day; their songs preceded the arrival of the Voice from the direction of the dawn; the Voice’s … Undulating sonances washed away our guilt and terror; this time the … Voice spoke to us individually at the same time; it used different words and a different tone with each of us; your father told me later that with him the Voice spoke in tones of power and used words of authority; precisely what it said to him he has never told me … With me it used the tone of a nurturing-lover; it warned me of a new terror; it gave me a new name for fear … Xenophobia: fear of the stranger within myself; fear of the foreigner outside myself; fear of my own duality marked by the choice between opposites … You Abel and you Cain are now of age; this year each of you must sacrifice the first born of the flocks and the first fruit of the fields; your bickering jealousy will only contaminate the offering and separate the family; the choice is now yours; you can choose to obey the commandment to love one another and focus your … Zeal on developing the positive abilities intrinsic to your individual natures, thus contributing to the family’s survival, or you can go your separate ways before your jealousy destroys our family, the choice is yours … |