What Remains

brought back from oblivion’s brink by your
attention, by your passion, that furtive
motion of your lips, tongue, kissing these words,
reciting lines of what was long ago
written preparatory to the poet’s
fall from life into some mystery deeper,
more unfathomable than our best minds
have yet elucidated  .  .  .  perhaps,

unless death for us is what it seems, just
the passing of life forever into
oblivion’s cold reach, only these lines
and some recycled energies, carbon
compounds and water spilt back into earth
remains by the first law of thermodynamics . . .

David M Pitchford
8 Nov 2011

All This Poetry

all this poetry   .   .   .   it’s just a consolation
for something lost, something absent, missing
some intangible it which life in its abundant
glory fails to furnish   .   .   .   and yet, perhaps
this is the purpose of life itself, to fill some
void abhorred by nature   .   .   .   all that poetry
can do is observe and sing it to witness
among the fiery vaults of the universe.

all this poetry is but a sweet diversion
from that missing it, that don’t-know-what life
hides from us so that we must continue
searching, turning over stones, listening
to every conch for elusive ocean,
gazing skyward for constellations of truth.

David M Pitchford
31 Oct 2011

Promise Us Promises

could I but take your poisoned teeth from my heart,
your tongue from smothering my tongue, could I
but lift your words from my heart smothered in bad
love     .     .     .     I might shake free, unfurl these bright wings,
fly upon song     —     one livid poem of angels
so stark in beauty              all the world          would pause
to breathe     quietly     an hour     to     listen
in the language of angels          my soul,     she
would sing so to me and I to all
this world’s wonderful peoples     .     .     .     and back from
the     edge     of this final age     we     would     crawl
together in the majesty of sweet
compassion;     and with our unity     buy
from God     a new messiah     for our age.

David M Pitchford
Oct 2011

Hypothetical

how can you know your limits before you’re
called on to make the hard decisions? life
and philosophy are very different, the one
being concrete and the other abstract.
and yet it seems our minds are hardwired
to mull abstractions, to imagine what
dangers may await around each shadowed
corner. perhaps it’s necessary for
survival, or was at some point in human
evolution. whatever the matter,
most of us have some conjecture as to
what behavior we would exhibit in,
say, a circumstance of life or sacrifice
to save the life of friend or stranger.

David M Pitchford
24 Oct 2011

At a Bonfire Off-campus

she speaks of her immaculate journey,
of destiny and more abstract concepts
while drinking wine from a box, her fingers
unconsciously twirling stray strands of blonde
highlighted naturally by sun and surf.
it’s all about breath and presence, she says,
focused attention and the liberty of
discipline honed by practice, and it must
be a deliberate practice to remain
potent toward the enlightenment journey,
that bright odyssey into full knowing
and the dissipation of illusion . . .
later, she speaks of immortality,
reincarnation as recycling of souls.

David M Pitchford
16 Oct 2011

Yellow Brick Road

enlightenment’s first step, that elusive
first cobblestone in the yellow brick road,
is the alchemy of lead to gold, that is,
the transformation of fear to wonder,
transmogrification of dark to light.
mysterious as this path is and seems,
it is no magic but the simple birth
of faith and its application to mind,
life, and experience; it is the growth
from childish frameworks of belief to more
innocent yet wiser frameworks of light.
transform fear into wonder, and light conquers
shadow, burns away illusion as sun
burns away morning’s fog to reveal life.

David M Pitchford
9Oct2011

Another Experiment in Verse

Fibonacci Sonnet

1-2-3-5-8-13—8-8—13-8-5-3-2-1

fire
reflects
prismatic
rays dancing spark life
along minds and hearts joy filling
this the dance of one’s spirit in the light of Love

how Life’s fire shines through from heaven
in    mysteries     best      sought            within

this bright strain of music sung among the orbs above
along these souls joyous milling
life’s dance sparking rays
prismatic
effects
fire

David M Pitchford
10August11

For Byron and the Romantics

Flown from Chillon

When will the Truth be on my lips
and the Light be on my brow?

—Leonard Cohen from “Argument”

 

This is the human heart, uncorrupt. This
is divinity’s heart, the world’s soul.
What the altar; what sacrifice? Nature
receives her own, yet we in our myths, our
illusions as fallen beings, eject
ourselves from paradise, forfeit unlost
for lacking soulful strength and so reject
innocence as a softer state too gentle,
too soft for survival . . . and thus we die
to Truth and Beauty as soon as it touch
us deeper than the need to feed, the urge
to satisfy flesh. What has Truth to do
with deprivation? And what has Beauty
to do with self-denial’s strange commerce?

David Pitchford
20 July 2010