Here is a poem I wrote. It was originally published in White Stag, Vol. III, Issue II": #Neogoddesses. I wanted to share it with everyone because I don’t think many people had the opportunity to read this poem when it was published.
This is a poem that glides over my life, focusing on certain memories such as when I lived in Viet Nam when I was 20 years old and when I lived in Schwangau, Germany when I was 16 and in love with everyone and everything. Returning to this poem more than 5 years after it was published made me realize that I am not the same person I was when I wrote it, but the memories it captures are ones that I experienced.
I.
When the body has come to a halt
The extension of oneself is the if
A star, a mountain collapses inward
Words have ceased to startle
Soul is a balloon tethered to a rock
Wants to float but is soldered to the flesh
Can be severed from the body
Desires something more than language can imagine
II.
Three mountains in the distance
The range of them {36 - 16}
The answer somewhere in between lies
Three times you knock
I am 20 then before the eye of God
Helix Nebula on the side of a wall, the other side
A dusty road straight to the heart of the delta
The rice bowl of the south
III.
This is not a tale of ghosts
Wouldn’t understand the word
How do you say it in Tiếng Việt
Come on con ma cảm ơn
Thankful to be still, breathing
Soldiered to the flesh
A landscape marked upon, a mountain of warmed marble
Pockmarked time arranged in sediments
IV.
Who was I to say the name of God
In the middle of the fields beneath
A mountain stretching towards the infinite
Roots tethered to time’s remains
I am 16 then a body of light
A range of giddy feelings still, breathing
An alpine summer ending in icy water
Our hearts stopping mid-sentence
V.
The word Geist has a range of meanings:
Mind, spirit, ghost
Not the body of the person, but the spirit of the people
An icy apex to slip upon in the land of the quick and the dead
I am 36 then lying in a street, thousands of feet above the clouds
Giddy from touch, every angel terrifies
The body is still, breathless
The soul, a range
The word "epic" is so woefully abused. From "epos", a narrative, a song, it has innate rhythm. When you read "A Range", that rhythm is as palpable as waves. Thank you for sharing this.