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New Poems:: Theokritikos poem series :: art after life::
When you go through a major life-changing event, your art changes. I've been thinking about that a lot, in recent months, and hearing it from other artists who have been through powerful, intense processes, death, grief, loss, life-threatening illnesses. The consensus is that it changes you, it changes your art, it changes the content and topics of your art, it can even change the way you make art. This is not a new insight, of course; it's as old as the human condition. For each individual artist, though, it can be revelatory. You learn things about yourself, and your artistic processes, that you may not have known before.
The poems presented here are poems written in new styles and forms that are emerging organically as I write them, without pre-planning, in the wake of several powerful events in my own life (illness and death of my parents, my own chronic illness, surgery, and ongoing recovery). Many of these new poems have surprised me in the process of their emergence. I find that I am not writing at all like I used to; in fact, I'm unable to. I am in transition, learning to read new maps, after having discarded all the old maps which had become worse than useless.
The poems on this page, which have emerged as part of this process, are also part of a series of poems that is centered on words in classical Greek that serve as titles and themes for each poem: specifically, ancient Greek terms used in theological writing. The words that title these poems are complex, nuanced, and layered in meaning; they all have long histories and many subtleties. There are associations of meaning that have accrued over centuries of theological writing, but there are also the original meanings of the words in their original ancient Greek contexts. I tend to weight my own interpretations towards the latter, but meaning is not dictated, and the reader is free to find meanings in my poetry that even I did not know were there, on a conscious level.
The overall title for this poem series, which came to me late in the process, after several of these poems had already been written, is Theokritikos, derived from kritikos, defined as one who capable of judging, and from theo-, classically defined as god-related.
These are poems that have been labeled several times by others as experimental, and have received radical or controversial responses wherever they have appeared. They have been dismissed, denounced, demeaned, and ignored far more often than they have been received with open arms.
This series was begun in early 2007, as my father was going through massive chemotherapy for metastatic colon cancer. The series is ongoing, reflecting the many life-changing events that have continued to befall myself and my family, up to the present time.
All poetry on this website ©Arthur Durkee 1984–2011. All Rights Reserved.
Veriditas
butterflies everywhere butterfly gold flower blue black band of wing shadow sun greenlight orchid scent purity of water flowing slough cedar foot and mangrove
green lake mirror in gold sun set windless birch bosque
spring treefrog peeper on bamboo
green heron wing cup curl into shadow over koi pond ocean shore river night
whisper trees whisper long sigh in afternoon sun breeze over all and air over all settling branches in high crown bent over bowing to sky earth every earth one
flank cedar on dolomite spear up to sun as in Greece where cedar soar on white dolomite cliff this place like the other merging one becoming same place same time same light Greek light dolomite crown of swaying spear branch and feather
slow sludge stagnant pond algae choke solid mat algae grown together wings of flies
sentinel sagebrush on mountain south slope bright sun alkaline soil hard pan pack think crust sage brush in wind tumbling
and butterflies everywhere luna green moth butterfly eye of heaven eye of earth eye wing sun antenna questing nectar sungold honey nectar sweet fragrance juniper sage cedar sweetgrass earth loam earth ascending earth one green one green man gold sun blue heaven and all rise merge to one green karst of mind
Kaimos
this
has not been an easy voyage,
no: at times flinty, even cruel;
at others, most brilliantly illuminated
with the immune grace of
bright moments of utmost connection:
timeless, immense, momentary, gone—
the yearning after
after unattainable things
the circling over others
the presence of an absence haunts
under unending grey skies
no sense of direction or time
going in circles, urgently—
tonight
they are dancing in the small
town under an old mountain
in the northern woods where roads
are scarce
they have been gathering to dance
there for over two hundred years
returning as though uncentered
driven pulled to return, return and dance anew—
endless timeless purgatory of
roads wound infinitely out and down
never really arriving
when will end
this endless circling
no change
no direction
just orbiting a trough of valleys
filled with bog and silted-in lake—
you go and you go and time passes
but you never get anywhere
and you're stuck behind
some other traveller determined
to much slower than necessary—
no
this
has not been an easy voyage
and the arrival always delayed departure
shouldered endurance of
durance vile
and the yearning
will it end
cycling patterns of push and release
cycling moments of still calm centers
like eyes of geodes
in the side of a blind slate hill
exposed to the light for the first time
in a million years of
sleep earning itself a forbidden dawn
Katabasis
into the out of to edge and earth seadrumming drift on shore to end of day
out from surf to sand flow foam into cavecool arc windlight in inscape
of end stark in to back roof of mouth cave stone stain silt and flood
down coast down hill down trail to silt sand falling cliff span
sit wetdry sand all over seabreeze light over naked skin
sun bury pink burned skin sandfoot hardstrung
gale into end weather earth sea down coast in
ruins canyon slip wade to sea stone arch
wind spin cave in arch breathing sea
seals fathomless eye watch shore
estuary flow to tide out edge
past arc of secret archway
slip down night fall
cool under trees
sun down to
gold light
down
sun
to
sun to sun earthspirits wind through beach caves
last nude swimmers walking through surf come in
through tunnel cave to starlight shore same ocean same
and in last light turn dance upcliff face feet certain sure
ancient dreamstone in line of seastars gulls kelp bladders
strewn everywhere to be found naked under the sun
the books of tide and sinew
into
lost beat
come heart
to live inscape
come wind to earth
begin long arc return
to sun star tide sea shield
moon and cave drift whirl
in arch spin naked in seafoam
silhouette and stones of the ancients
visitors to shore retuning inland harps
strung with wind a life spent nailed to shoreland
and every sunburned prayer an emptiness of sign and seal
strange witness to the lemniscate of inward summer freed
Kenosis
i.
what can I say to you you never listen it comes down to things I perceive that you don't
that I can never convince you of those ghost-deer standing right behind you
that you're standing on the graves of faerie circle killed grass going down four feet and you can't feel it
you don't see the world the way I do you don't see hear smell perceive headblind farcryer
I see an owl shaping wind in its lunge call catch trap mouse squeal I hear wind moving across a mountain
seven hundred miles away hear the roaring heart of the world a constant steady hum and tide in my ears
once I stood almost crucified against a tree at Spirit Lake and watched a rapid liquid tide of ghost warriors
flow down across a saddle valley between two hills circle and slam against village walls in
the circular glacial valley below and become nothing old women and young wearing deerskin walking there
you're slow as snails in a rowboat can't see any farther than banana slugs can't see what the eagle sees I feel
people next door moving in their sleep when I drum over the trance-bound journeyers I see
where they are traveling little holographic movies hung over their heads I push the drumbeats into
their dreams then we all go out for tea but I've seen inside your heads I keep your secrets even the ones you
ii.
so much welling up within I can’t get into words too small to contain they lie fail false incomplete crash
now I'm overwhelmed approaching burn out more it’s too much new crisis every day making me paranoid
way past coping let everybody know it too by needing help none of it matters can only do today feel like
quitting packing it in just going away for awhile disappear dissolve into mist
it’s the middle of the night as ever full moon in pines crossing geese over lake waters lap and I'm
alone with it already over it I’ve spent months here by myself now I’m supposed to keep doing it and
I’m tired of it I quit I quit I quit I absolutely quit
not that I’m incapable or unwilling but losing voice if you open that box be prepared for a long time
listening all or nothing no I can’t do just a little bit at a time need now away from here need it
frustrated beyond believing attempts to escape this trap now coyote gnawing its own leg off don’t care if
completely falling apart not sleeping much or dreams so violent wake up more disturbed than
when went to bed the night before keep going to bed thinking maybe sleep better tonight never do just
keeps being the same this is heck tired of self-talk too tired of constant thinking about it just so tired
lost lots of ground lost ready to throw anchors over stay steady in bay blank crabwalking sideways
away need desert alone time need time by ocean need time time where don’t have to talk to
Apokatastasis
A blue afternoon. A clear blue sky, paling to white at the horizon, cloudless; a March sky, though it's still December. No more snow since that first big storm after Thanksgiving. If we don't get more snow soon, it will mean drought come summer. Dust in the air will mean topsoil blowing away before rain or young shoots can hold it down. It's too easy to feel hopeless. The light coming through the bare branches of the oaks seems to filter to brown as it passes through the ghosts of acorns and turning leaves. Come sunset, everything will seem gold and amber and brass, painted mellow by the sun's tilting lantern.
We stagger into the radiation treatment center at the hospital; my father is going to get shot five more times with fast protons and high-energy hadrons. They take more x-rays, to center the target region, a little lump that grew on that spur that sticks out to the side of the spine, the lump that grew larger all through months of chemo. They call that a mixed result. Blues crosshairs are painted on his torso, alignments for the accelerator's aim. The radiation oncologist says to my father, after today's session, Our goal is to make sure you die of something other than cancer. That's a successful treatment, nowadays, for an old man who's dying anyway. It doesn't keep from us from sleepless nights and worry, but it's the most hopeful thing any doctor has said to us in months. We can try to choose our deaths, our times to die. We can still struggle to try to control our fates: our liberations.
I drive home while my father naps in the passenger seat. He naps more than ever, now, although he always had a talent for it. The light is getting that gold tinge. The sun skates through bare orchards on the horizon. The land here is flat and gently rolling, with lines of trees along the roads, at the edges of fields. Tall farm machineries mark territory and home boundaries, insectlike. Crows fly from silo to silo, searching for loose grain, fossil corn, something the barn-dwellers missed. We are silent. Perhaps I can sleep, tonight; finally. Near the rim of a bowl-shaped sink, not really a valley, deer move slowly from out of the trees, turning blue with final dusk.
Kerygma
In earnest the mallards rise to the river's surface, and expel. On the sandbar, a clash of quacks and wings, a shrill ruckus that makes four deer wading at the ford pause. A stare, an earflick, then lowered heads drink before long ankles carry them on, white rumps gracefully swaying. Branches of a box elder, falling sideways as the rains erode its root-bound banks, droop over the sandbar. The mallards sleep there on hot afternoons, standing one-legged in the shallows, safe from overhead.
The grass is getting long, now. Leaves fall everywhere, dry green. Two woodchucks, brave and brown, lie on the glade and chaw at blades sawing in the breeze. Everyone pretends the redtail hawk has moved on. The sky's dome is dotted with black dots of sparrows, the woodchucks stay within reach of dense juniper bushes.
Oak branches curve down, black jagged lightning bearing fruit, where the wild turkey flock has just glided down. The day's round will take them foraging, then back here to roost. They fight and call in between bouts of pecking for food. In the evening, cinders zigzag from lower branches to higher, as they settle in.
Deer are silent, never saying much to strangers. They keep their dreams to themselves. You can listen a long time to hear a deer thinking. You must silently stalk them, downwind, remaining still when they look your way, unbreathing. When they look away, inch forward. When you can touch them, fingers brushing fur over spine or flank, and they do not start and run, perhaps then they'll speak to you.
And the eye of the great blue heron watches from its roost across the river. It preens long wing feathers. And the great golden eye orbs slowly in the ambering light. The heron turns to look at you, a long stare that could mean anything, could be a reproach, or a wish. And the great wings spread and flap as the giant neck lunges out. The heron swoops down and levels off above the stream, flying upriver, towards sleep, and dreams of silver-sided trout hovering in a deep riffle at the bend.
a gold maple leaf
the last to fall from its branch—
cicadas, ceasing
Imago
At the end of that dark day, near sunset, I pulled into a rest stop to stretch my legs. A group of monks and nuns in pale gray robes clustered at a picnic table. Flying in ecstatic circles, over lawn and concrete, a thousand giant dragonflies, four inches long and a half inch in diameter, feeding or mating, being a manifestation of beauty. The monks were all speaking French; and I felt the old language take life in me, as I contemplated chatting with them. I would say, Bonjour, ca va? And once introductions were complete, we would discuss obscure theologies in multiple languages. Leaving the bathroom, though, they all spoke English. The dragonflies still danced in waves and ripples and spirals. I stood in their midst, encircled and surrounded by flying bolts of light. It was a summoning. The monks and nuns, it was easy to believe, were not human, but emanations or emissaries. They ignored me as I stood, hands out, to touch those whirling and diving wings, power throbbing my palms, the threshold between worlds very near, in the shadow of that dark tree near the edge of the woods. A tent caterpillar nest overhanging the sidewalk, looming, intimate shadows within. The monks and nuns got into their cars and drove away. It was a meeting of overlapping worlds; strangers at the crossroads.
Thus I came to an insight about the true nature of God: the whole theology of the Trinity is wrong. It’s actually a four-in-one, not a three-in-one; four is a much more sacred number. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Godhead, which is called Mystery: that deep silent Unknowing behind the imago dei; that one can only arrive at by sinking and cooling into release; a still small voice one can never quite shoehorn into image or word. That dark day I had gotten lost, been waylaid, found deep pools of reasonless waters; I had driven myself hard, and gotten nowhere. Now I return to the unknown and silent. I knew this once, and lost it. Now I must re-learn it. Like starting over, maps are useless, the territory uncharted. Every structure stripped away, in order for the voice of Mystery to re-enter, rebuild, again.
I am too tired to resist, to fight. The day empties me. I am dying, and just want the powers that be to take me now, and get it over with. I am willing to die to the old life, to be void. That emptiness that is what used to be; that hole in the air that used to be shaped like a body. So the dragonflies might dance through, and catch light in the indigo twilight.
Hesychia
and come to rest not in struggle's evasion
not in some sense of duty or disregard
not ever as escape to lands seen only inward
not to stay, to saturate in drowning sorrow's plagues
but come to rest here even as everything else still happens
to rest in pain, hate, suffering, judgment, angst, torpor
and joy, and clean water to bathe in, in wings wrapped out
in red berries by a rainsoaked trail, mist on the lake,
the sun absent and present, moon full moon bright sun
moon sun gray light
to sun like noon even cloud arid desert dry ice
in wings alight obscure veiled brilliant gleam
fold of ear canal into labyrinth void red loon's eye
emerge chipmunk den summer cave cedar stripling moss pine shout
to cave of caves the land being the land
duress spent tented at treeline's edges, peering
to silence interrupted unvoiced articulate speech of doves
run through still to where stillness can be silent, unanswered
and those pure narratives of self reflecting self detach
and drift away into no need to know if they self-exist
those sunlit fields of words deep into necessary twilight
and self comes to rest in silence as deep as mountain root
and world spine and snow-scraped waste
and long days of nothing much
intrusive between these poles of rabbit and god and sacrifice
into in out of out between every point of sapphire outcrop
in presence of time becoming timeless each night
inner absence make sky into stone into seal door
door of worlds opens out silver blue gold black
frame of entry make heart to stone to prayer
circles enscribed in air over stone spiral sun dagger
star of reclamation invitation moon risen to sun scribe
Apoptosis
Long walk down a long incline, long exhaling,
slow long disintegration, and you sit there
curled in your easy chair wondering if you should go on.
Spent all your energy today trying to care either way.
Fingers stroking root to keep you going, fingers
in the cleft of a life, somehow tickling the soul.
Some rhythm, some fuel in the mitochondria that could be
the power that powers the soul, which the body is inside.
A long cloak. A long remembering of winters.
Death and rebirth are all you have to live for.
Still a reawakening, a cold morning cocooned in wool.
Then a bleak cold rainstruck day full of wind and ire.
No impression made on the flow of otherness, though,
since everything seemed to be smooth on errantry.
Dying to live in the same precession as living to die.
On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,
the path turns to leafmold and ash. Flicker of werelight.
You have to die and be reborn to be transformed.
A lot less theoretical than it used to be, this threshold.
The renewal and replacement of nature. Why did the Buddha
die from eating a mushroom? Like all fungi, mushrooms
break down old useless dead things, making way for
new life that is to come in its place. The Buddha died
a natural death. You can't go on till everything is shed,
shriven, taken from you. The transformed life is emptied,
first. So many days of wander.
Long dream of being unable to either wake or dream.
Some days you just live, inside a disposable bag of separation.
Dying and living, the same. Out back the mold smell
comes from trees in high cold winds. Comes down the chimney,
comes over the threshold, where a new world begins.
Doesn't make a scene, just arrives. The gray and the green,
eternal conflict of growth and dissolution. The gray takes down
what the green has wrought. Elemental Pan, spirit of growth,
of life, Green Man, his twin brother the Brown Man, Gray Man,
cloaked in wet rotten leaves, autumn threshold of decay.
One enters the woods, one leaves the grasslands. Wave
as you pass on. Cells eat each other when it's time to go.
I've died and been reborn. Again and again. This time, skin slotted
by knives, thin hard scars seeming an ecstasy of drowning,
seepage and sainthood in one flesh, this time the healing begins
with dying. The creative destruct, end of the world. Clear out the old,
bring in the new. Have to demolish the living world to make room
for the next to come. Clear out the old dead things. The Goddess said,
Your heart didn't heal right last time, so we'll have to break it again,
and reset it so it heals properly this time. And struck Her anvil.
It was a true dream. The morning birds pulsed with light.
Oh but this suffering and endurance I've witnessed 40 years of days
in the wilderness is supposed to be for my own good, my healing,
If only it didn't ache so. Rather be in bed with four naked souls
exploring the death of epidural skin cells under massaging fingers,
than spend another day in ascetic cemetery glut. What hospitals
lack in their chapels are those sacred temple prostitutes of gone eras.
Those lovers who give you a reason to want to live, to come back
from the dead, thereby healing you faster, bringing you back to life.
Love and death, the only reasons to go on living.
If we are hollowed out and emptied, it's to make room for spirits
to enter and entwine. It's we who are the vessels. Greenmantle is the shell
that sheds a cloak of leaves that burns in autumn to make new spores
for spring renewal. And so the house that Pan built. You have to be broken,
again and again, to become soft enough for the god to enter you.
A million years to make this black earth soil. Blown to dust in a dry season.
Desert wind that hollows the heart, make mine a pilgrim's cave.
Have to let go of what you thought you knew. Have to empty the teacup
in order to be able to fill it with new tea. Each drop of pure water
into the bucket filled with scum pushes one contaminated water drop out.
Eventually, a million or so drops later, the pure replaces the oilslicked.
It takes no naked skull to know that the god created a mechanism
of making, the power under life. It takes no bridge to stretch the chasm
between the making and the mechanism of the made.
Now we fall down. Now we slow to winter's sleep.
The dead of the dead. That spring will come around the wheel
once more requires a leap of faith. This could be our last winter,
the gods' sleep when wolves eat the moon and the father-god, half-blind
so he could see, loses hold of the runes that hold the worldtree
in its shape, so it all goes to snow and frozen fire. We come from
a dark abyss, we end in a darker void, we call the luminous
interval between those life. When we stare too long into those
silver-edged voids, they tend to stare back. Everything unnecessary
gets stripped away. That can be a great undoing, or a little one.
A thousand sayings, a thousand days. All of it unnecessary fog
over the mind of clover. Too much of mind, now, the overflowing
teacup, let's return to the body's inner fire, blue stars in our flesh,
blue sun on a necklace sparking out hearts, fire inside bones and thighs,
and the long return to life, after long dark, each dawn. Shut up,
now, in the cabin of words, and watch birds flash in the fire of green.
At last it's morning, after nightlong embers have fed the dying.
Poetry Index New Poems Haibun eros, eros, eros Basin & Range
short forms The Books Solo Journey The Fire Sermon Prose-Poems
New Poems 2
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