ANCIENT MEMORY
My very first handmade poetry book is complete! This one includes 8 original poems, some old, mostly new. I am now taking orders to make these books, customized and personalized for you.
In looking for new ways to share my poetry, I find myself wishing to move away from the computer and back to the typewriter, pick up pens & markers and ensure each page feels special and unique. Making this book was creative healing at work!
Let me know if you're interested in commissioning a one-of-a-kind handmade poetry book of your own, or to give as a gift. You can decide the overall theme/message you'd like to convey and let me make some magic for you!
~ Horse & Lion Cardmaking Co. / by the dithyrambler
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
1. LIFE BEHIND THE SHELF
where is the line / twixt
life and death
survival until
the very last breath
then back to the belly
of being itself –
she says there’s
Life – / Behind the Shelf
where old books had fallen,
forgotten and sad,
knowing the healing / power
they had –
could help us remember
the Life we had lost –
eternal garden
gone grey with the frost –
the elixir was written
on unread page –
black inky liquid
shaped by the age –
⚘
2. HOUSE OF MIRRORS
you had a house of mirrors where
the light fell from the walls
and hit the highest ceilings, found
the ground gives way to all
lines of luminescence
looping back and forth
at infinity’s insistence
that life will stay the course
cross paths with other beings –
beams in such a state
that illusion rules appearance
as they seem to separate
themselves from each the other
then again they were intwined
with always their own likeness
as if they shared a mind
and thus as fate would have it
the mirror-house revealed
a truth made up of oneness,
once so well concealed.
⚘
3. A FAIRER HOUSE THAN PROSE
after Emily Dickinson
i could compare the body to
a fairer house than prose –
intuitive and wild within:
the skin conceals the ghost
and keeps her from escaping
for maybe eighty years
perhaps just so one hand can write,
erasing worldly fears
that were instilled by stately means
enforced by faithless courts.
your lawyer reads my poetry
and forgets metaphor
exists because it teaches us
to judge with ardent eyes.
you might be bright and clever but
that doesn’t make you wise.
to dwell in possibility
one must invoke the heart.
your brutal, hateful, hellish games
are nothing next to art.
⚘
4. THE STRANGER
he dreamt of becoming a teacher;
i dreamt of him as the shopkeeper.
i lost count of all the times
i saw him in my sleep,
somehow came to believe
it was waking life
where we crossed lines –
loved each other in a way
impossible to explain –
he: a stranger to me, meant to be
meandering unsuspectingly
along the beach –
bullets flying indiscriminately –
disrupting the reverie –
and me: made in the image
of the absurd, the author
trying desperately
to re-write reality
yet unable to remove myself
from the colonial catastrophe
in which he
was a target.
together i guess we were
imprisoned in a nightmare
where
the horrors he faced
haunted me because
i could see
the mirror
placed so perfectly
and the only way to reach
him was through my meagre
offering of digital currency –
and he thanked me
for every penny
though we both knew that
no amount of money
could stop the slaughter.
i willed him – to live
as if my desire
could make any difference
as if i were worthy
to hold any image of him
within my mind –
for he
was faith, prayer,
peace
personified.
⚘
5. THE FACE AND THE NAME
the face and the name
are of human design –
an attempt to identify
the divine
in a way that speaks
to the spirit of time
costumed by
the material mind
the unholy disguise
is subject to change
yet the message
always
stays
the same.
god gave the gift of metaphor
so love could find a fitting frame.
⚘
6. GOD IS CHANGE
after Octavia E. Butler
i am the hanged man
and the shining sun is in
the past
i am upside-down and
the world will never
be
the
same
such perspectives honor
change
⚘
7. IMPERMANENCE
the truth is beautiful
and terrible
all
exists in ecstasy and agony
we are nothing we are
endlessly meaningless
yet
to our own selves we are nothing
less than everything –
say, what is at the center
after all?
find me the force
that turns the wheel.
solitude is a tool for discovering
immanence
as the first step of
transcendence –
accept
impermanence!
and hearts will rise to meet
the real.
⚘
8. ANCIENT MEMORY
an ocean of moonlight
moved through her bones
and ancient memory
took a breath and arrived
in her mind as though
it were always alive,
had never
died –
only swept away in dreams
for a time while she slept,
kept consciousness
just one eyelid away –
and when she woke
she followed the sun
as
he
rose
all the while – her body
blossoming infinity –
began to take
the shape of a face,
opening
new sight to a blind world.
the stars saw themselves
at last as a reflection, rising
up to meet the heavens –
when darkness revealed
all that light
falling,
reaching
back to earth
fated to ignite once more
the memory
of her.
⚘
These are gorgeous, Cheyanne!
I love this so much!!!!