"Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere."
--G.K. Chesterton
"The man's body is sacred and the woman's body is sacred.../Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you."
--Walt Whitman
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According to the Buddha, right speech is a statement that is timely, true, kind, helpful (connected to liberation), and spoken with a mind of good-will. Let us all try to observe this precept.
My prison pen pal "Conway" has been experimenting with the prose-poem format while continuing to develop his gift for lyric poetry. I've been writing to him about my struggles with religious concepts of sacrifice and submission as I see them being misused in the church. I see those discussions reflected in his latest offerings, below.
Leap Frog
Imagine, what His hand and throat began through all of the silences we chopped out in front of our father's shining eyes.
I've no need to sing it anymore or finish the melted words melody. We can all see & smell around the burning nights nettle,
as fluttering moths fill this scene's backdoor screens tendering an irresistible invitation to attack in search of a crack in the curtains' narrow track.
While chance packs another perishable skull tight enough to subsist, in the spiritual shimmering lushness, of dawn's faithful light.
The tears diminish in the theft of a wilting heart bent willows seeking flesh, have wrought every salt-sprinkled drop on our pillows;
To slit the silent throat of sacrifice, tossed the herded cross, lost in prayers petition. But it was broken breath,
following the trail to the bitter end of this deep ravine, winding its way south of Heaven...
****
Proof of Perfection
Do you ever stare at your finger wonder, if it could pull the trigger or write the warrant for the Judge's execution
Imagine when a melting word had burnished the herded cross
His head, was wrapped in nettle from ear to ear But, who really smeared the bloody spear all over the doormat of our existence?
whispered questions what is this shimmering silence, this twisted blow, we'll never know
the pagan eclipse, locked us all out of an over-exercised church door falling through the floor unsure of our homeland, of a hollow reed still singing a satisfactory song
long after its death dancing among the barbed smiles that stole our breath...
