I Just had to share this… Worth the watch and ponder!
Poetry 034: The seat
A poem about a blind poet
Seated, he heard the foreign sounds
Of passing cars, of children, of hounds,
Of planes sailing through the clouds
Of silent moments, and of crowds.
The wind through the leaves whistled
The bamboo heaved along with the thistles
Distant worlds in torrents neared
But window blinds blocked out the mounds
Seated, he thought to find the nouns
For subtle smiles, for tickles, for frowns
For faces floating from the downs,
through greens, through forests, and through towns.
Deep within old cinders glistened
He strained his heart so it would listen
And the world without in torrents neared
But window blinds blocked out the mounds
© Denis Adide 2011
Poetry 033: Live!
“Let us make man in our own image
and in our likeness form him.”
Perfected yet dead; still he lay
void, recent from the deep.
No thoughts emerged nor receded
None pleaded for victory, none defeated,
And none rebelled: He was balanced,
inanimate, formed but still,
alive but perfectly dead.
Then breath, hovering over the deep;
the same that churned him from the mound,
approached from steep heaven
and un-barrened sea to seep
Awakening earth from death to sleep.
Inhaling, he embraced life – the gift;
drifting into the breath that once crept
into the crypt – fleshy heart at the mercy
of fleshed earth – made first animate.
Before him he saw his naked arms,
with naked eyes saw naked feet,
felt naked air be drafted in
and blown on naked skin.
Untamed wind within,
unchained wind without,
both whispering “Live!”
© Denis Adide 2012
Poetry 032: Happy Father’s day
Your absence –
felt more than empty clouds,
or late rains after hot days,
or delayed snow in the cold,
dark winter months,
or breath withheld
by clasping hands,
the dry well,
a moonless night,
shadowless willow,
no pulse on a flat line –
is killing me.
My heart –
like new shoots,
empty young beaks,
and soft small fingers –
reaches out,
calling
weeping
….
immersed in the hope
that wherever you are
on this, our day,
you’re happy.
© Denis Adide 2012
and to all who received him, all who believed. He gave the right to be called the sons of God
Poetry 031: Recompense
How am I to face the eyes of pity
that will surround and follow me
the rest of the days before they all
begin to forget, Knowing that I,
for the love – yours – sowed within,
am reaping eternal – internal – grief?
I can’t unless you give it all back.
I had enough love for four lifetimes
and more, all you to do was ask;
all you had to do was talk, take,
walk, live… give – a little.
Set my heart alight – immolate –
this rebellion must succeed.
Failure ensures my mind recedes,
past the faith I held, as the torch of old
that with coloured rings made a whole
of the hemispheres. Once to love,
and to hold, but lo! and behold the bold
did to frailty fall.
Forsaking the rollings stones, they became
immersed in moss. covered in the green
they gave way to the mud that slowly
inched over inches to make six feet;
and ashes – once oaks – returned to dust:
the crowds, like the vicar, slowly left
pinching more earth and spraying them
over the flowers – like the memories doomed
to rot and die – that adorned the lonely casket.
The groom, escorted by all into the sepulchre,
now slept. His weeping stilled by the thick
air, lightly lit, hovering between the stained panes
that crowned the walls. Prayers unheard,
like insence, floating hazily; kept in by
the sooty roof.
When they bury the dead, everyone leaves
except the dead. They stay, singing to the stars,
unrequited songs of love, of hope, of floating dreams
in tins unsealed, of loss encountered in daring
for victory, of death, of end without end,
of conflicted beginnings, of afflicted unamended –
untamed – …
Their affectations slowly, like their flesh, disappear:
Unheard once covered, unseen once left.
I can’t unless you give it all back.
What hurts is the hand that held the blade
and not the merciful blade itself. For edges,
sharp or blunt, have no master, no loyalty,
nor judgement. They serve hearts, and hands,
and feet, and thoughts grown to become deeds,
and deeds done in attempts to undo others:
be they dreams once seeded, now rejected
as shoots – unplucked but doomed to die.
uprooted into insignificance, like a drop of rain
falling from the clouds onto the surface of the sea,
drifting. One among many drops; no longer a drop.
At once sea, no mercy but what is given me,
no power nor self. Shelved until the improbable:
the currents drift me back up into the realms
of elevating rays. For now though, and maybe
forever, the abyss awaits, and hell.
And I can’t unless you give it all back:
all of it, in it’s separate pieces and moments;
spots that form the person that, within your
supposed love, I grew to become: grew
away from being.
© Denis Adide 2012
‘Stone Altars’ (Part 2)
I asked for your hearts, but you built these stone altars for yourselves
I think the drive to be as irreligious as possible is in reaction to the deep sense of calling to serve within the church. I have been baptised and confirmed in the Catholic church, Baptised in the sea by an evangelical charismatic pentecostal church, and now am about to be confirmed in the Church of England. Stone altars eh?
PS: My Journey is a funny one. At times I feel like the Isrealites with Moses in the desert, knowing where Canaan is but feeling compelled to follow the pillar of smoke by day and the pillar of fire by night. My experiences in the various churches are a result of a distinct tug within the heart which my head and person knew not to dissobey. There has always been an overwhelming sense of direction which following has yielded a deep – identity forming – lesson. My father is a Catholic, my mother is an Anglican, and only recently understood my faith after spending what in hindsight seem to be malting seasons in the various churches.
So, the journey of selection for ordination training requires that I be confirmed in the Church of England by the Bishop. This meant that I will be confirmed by the Bishop of Kensington at St Paul’s Cathedral. This is due to happen this saturday at a service from 7pm.
Now… I hope the thoughts that follow make sense.
At the back of my mind was the idea of confirming your baptismal vows on easter saturday, which traditionally is a day of mourning as Jesus was in the grave that day. I didn’t dwell much on it though, recognising it as an other that I could ignore for the time being: life was proceeding, it was just another ceremony in another ‘stone altar’.
One of the requirements was that I hand wrote a testimony (Short blurb of my Journey to faith). Being efficient at missing details I didn’t see the instructions to do this until last friday: the letter was due on tuesday morning. After a weekend of procrastination and other responsibilities I found myself on monday night, having written what was neccesary, driving to St Paul’s. The sun was in the west, its light still keeping the sky a dark shade of blue. I’ve never enjoyed going into London – if anything was a ‘stone altar’, the city was. I am in love with open expanses and find busy streets and traffic jams really annoying. This night however, there was no traffic. The lights seemed to give way and so did the buses and taxi’s. It was as if the universe needed me to get to my destination on time.
Having left the Great Western Road, I turned onto Southampton Row, then onto Kingsway, and finally left onto Fleet street past the strand, totally oblivious of where I was and completely depending on google maps to guide me there. As I crept along something caught my attention at the road side. There was a man waiting by the zebra crossing, but none of the drivers were stopping to give him way. He distracted me enough that when I turned back to see the road ahead, there it was.
I recall reading William Wordworth’s account of Crossing the Alps in The Prelude where he speaks of the actual mountains being different from the ones in his imagination: they had ‘usurped upon a living thought’. Nowhere had this sentiment carried than here. Towering over the buildings infront of me was the iconic dome. I felt a deep sense of awe as I continued my approach. It was as though the breath within me had left. Slowly she skirted her way, separating herself from the buildings around her until ‘there’ she stood, bold and commanding: the Edifice.
After parking walking around it twice (trying to be Joshua like) I delivered the envelop and quickly left: I was due at a meeting within the next half hour.
Giles Fraiser, former canon chancellor of St Pauls, in a radio 4 program – which I listened to on my way home that night – spoke about the place of the Cathedral in today’s society. He said (or the sense I got from what he said was) that it gave the church and Christianity both presence and platform to become.
We are not the religious wing of the National trust
Jesus died on the cross and was buried, and rose from the dead because we couldn’t attain righteousness through religiosity. But why let history happen, why show us how to be religious. Far from just being a very effective way of understanding faith and the Divine, religion serves the same purpose: to give presence and platform for Christianity and the Church (the cloud of witnesses) to become.
Confirmation and Baptism are all about declaring faith to the world. So too are these buildings.
Yes! These ‘stone altars’ were for us. That doesn’t negate the call of God to the heart, neither does it negate the place and purpose of the platform. The quiet space that the building provides is important. The church can thrive and survive without it,however, that these edifices exist is – in a way – a good thing (and this is the thought I’m currently grappling with.)
I asked for your hearts, but you built these stone altars for yourselves
I’m still dissatisfied with where the statement has left me but will continue to follow the pillar of smoke and fire, when it rises or rests.
Talitha Koum!
Poetry 027: Gull
It baffled me to see gulls
this far in, away from the sea.
Probably as much as it did him
to see me – a man of colour –
this far from the metropolis.
I wonder whether
He thought it a hunger –
similar to that
of my winged counterparts –
that had led me to sing
Away from ‘home’,
and not the Love
Whose white hands I cling.
© Denis Adide 2012
Poetry 026: Fruit Picking
They were the hot summer days,
The ones we favored for picking.
She smiled whenever the idea came up,
It was possibly the only thing that I saw
Would light up her demeanor.
Excited she would dance, almost glide
Her way to the car and wait beside
The passenger door.
Her strides small and quick,
Making her hips swing and hair float.
She’d never gloat but it seemed
It was gentleness she gleaned from me
As I slowly, as was my pace,
Walked toward the door and
With a smile, opened it for her.
Those were the hot summer days
The ones we favored for picking.
Radio four would carry us there,
Away from the care of a crumbling exhaust
Or the sticky clutch.
She’d sat in silence as the seconds flew
Alongside the cascading landscape.
For she had said and knew,
That in those moments the roots
She dug and tended would –
After winter had come and gone
And spring had rained
and sun had shone – bear fruit.
She watched the world without a care
Staring through opposite windows.
Those were the hot summer days
The ones we favored for picking.
The warning light flashed and the gate
To the farm, a local favorite,
Slowly swung open as the heat
poured in through my window.
She fanned her face with paper,
One of the ‘just in case cards’
She usually stashed in her glove-box.
We exchanged smiles,
Her hand resting on my thigh
I quickly pulled my trouser legs
Down over my socks and steered.
The car – a present from her dad –
Obeyed.
Those were the hot summer days
The ones we favored for picking
Her hands, whose touch I often feel
Even her absence, softly caressed
The rose red cherries that hung
From the upper branches of the tree.
With her small feet pointed
She tiptoed and stole for me
The fruits she thought were sweet.
Her lips, watered with desire,
Wrapped around a raspberry
Soft pink blushes washing
Across her happy face as she ate
Free from, work and worry,
And almost free from me.
Those were the hot summer days
The ones we favored for picking
Her eyes spoke of days without end
Fires without ash
Or burning heat: just warmth.
Her smile spoke of receding pain,
Eroded by the warm soft rain
That fell upon our faces and hands
As we stood entwined: and sold.
Her heart, like mine, sang of hope;
Our hymn of a happiness bespoke,
Spread upon the grasses,
Glistening as the evening sun
Sat in and glowed.
I couldn’t have loved her more.
Those were the hot summer days
The ones we favored for picking.
© Denis Adide 2011
Poetry 020: Bathsheba
I have made a covenant with my eyes
Job
A few lines musing on the root of lust.
It’s strange that I would wish I hadn’t
raised my head from the soft pillow.
For maybe I this madness wouldn’t
have ingested from the window.
In slumber I’d my thoughts so ardent
Kept concealed and winnowed.
And so I’ve lived in persistent fear
of that day when the Lord would come,
for the cool – once an oasis near –
now burns my parched tongue.
And his words – once songs to my ear –
the noose from which life hung.
If love lived in a hunger unquenched,
and lust was a drowning thirst,
Then merry many sweet fruits untouched
would have kept us with the first.
And the words he placed to stay the tears,
would have worked to stay the hearse
© Denis Adide 2011
Once he saw her, he was lost. Two people lost their lives, two had their lives changed and three relationships were broken. Bathsheba, like eve, is not to blame.
Poetry 019: The Seat
I often wondered if the world in darkness shone for itself. Maybe it is we, who look but never see, that are blind.
D. Adide
The Seat
A poem about a blind poet
Seated, he heard the foreign sounds
Of passing cars, of children, of hounds,
Of planes sailing through the clouds
Of silent moments, and of crowds.
The wind through the leaves whistled
The bamboo heaved along with the thistles
Distant worlds in torrents neared
But window blinds blocked out the mounds
Seated, he thought to find the nouns
For subtle smiles, for tickles, for frowns
For faces floating from the downs,
through greens, through forests, and through towns.
Deep within old cinders glistened
He strained his heart so it would listen
And the world without in torrents neared
But window blinds blocked out the mounds
© Denis Adide 2011
It's Complicated 