Chris Harden: Four Poems (and Two Spoken Word Pieces)

Ineffable Bond

Praises be to my beautiful Goddess of Love and Light,

This thing we have, this thing we do, feels so good, it feels so right.

I am blessed by your gaze and to stand in your Light.

This ineffable bond we share that draws us in,

Its name we may never know,

it must be nurtured, it must be fed,

with Water and Sunshine, we will watch it grow.

Our union leaves a shimmering trail of golden dust.

Our Lust shone bare and carefully laid before the feet of the All.

By the All, for the All, and in the All we dance a timeless motion.

Chaotic donkey rhythms ripple the fabric of our world,

creating sounds which deliver the sermons of forever.

We chant as the universe harmonizes with us.

Our symphony of Life springs forth in the Joy of our rapture.

Down below, the Ruach will know,

how to capture these sentiments we seek.

Until we arrive we both shall strive to hover above the think.

For as soon as we think, we surely will sink,

bathed in the matter of Malkuthian lather,

birthed in a place filled with Joy.

Our adventurous stories are written for glory,

in the tombs of wise men of old.

And if once again, you would take my hand,

the dance shall start anew.

Through mystic Love we shall rise above,

while the universe is birthed and renewed.

© 2018 Chris Harden

The Face of My Goddess

The Gold of her hair, the Blue of her eyes,

shine forth like the face of my Goddess divine.

Inside we find a lambent flame of Blue.

Her curves like the continuity of existence,

convergent and smooth.

I accepted the dance with an unending expanse,

the omnipresence of her body did arch for me.

Her hands rained down like kisses to the ground,

the dew of her Light flows free.

Infinite Space and the Infinite Stars thereof

embrace me with sweetness and Love.

Division for its sake provides but the chance,

for our union birthed the world up above.

Her kisses transport me to another dimension,

a space which is timeless and vast.

Peacefully I rest, nestled in breasts,

of my Star Goddess whose face I caress.

Our timeless embrace creates just the space,

for hopes and dreams to manifest.

The bliss of our union and the dew of our Lust,

creates a gravity pulling us in.

The All is upon us devouring our bliss,’

there is no beginning or end.

Whirling and stirring we knew from the start,

that the Devil and Death make Art.

Abide with me, my sweetest Love,

always more, never the less.

As you bend down the Joy wells up,

another opportunity for Yes!

© 2018 Chris Harden

Love Conquers, Even in Filth,

or The Quarter Star Motel

Late night stop, O' Lucky U,

no vacancy here.

A shit hole by any other name should smell as bad.

Dried bubblegum on the ceiling,

a mess on the floor was much worse.

A tub filled with shit stains, and a fridge too gross to touch.

Sheets stained with piss, blood, and cum

had never been washed.

What a place for Stars to crash land.

How does one profess the Love of their Star Goddess

amidst the scum, garbage, and shit?

Her halo, brightly shone as I lay her gently on the bed.

Her eyes burning like Twin Suns.

Love conquers even in filth.

Curling up to place my head upon her breast.

A feeling of sand on our feet, under the sheets,

but someone had dumped out their whole bag of meth!

We pushed through to arrive at the Dawn.

The morning light only grossing us out even more.

We embraced through the night but left in great haste.

Love conquers, even in filth, and cuddles are never a waste.

© 2018 Chris Harden

The Mountain don't lie.

It's something you can trust.

Three J's lined up,

but a Master is only slain once.

The illusive power of the almighty Us,

but only a fool would think

they could kill a pile of dust.

© 2019 Chris Harden

Spoken Word

Letters to Women

Quadratica

"The legend of Chris Harden is a long and winding tale. He lives in his

pirate-ship shaped house on the side of a glacier in the continental

divide of the Rocky Mountains. Here he is known as The Wizard

of Alice Mountain. He is a philosopher, magician, mathematician,

poet, musician, teacher, wizard, and a great devotee of Love. As an

avatar of Slack the Wizard of Alice spends much of his days working

to be an exemplar through the demonstration of Fun. He begets the

Art of Pushing Through. He daily strives to help others with pushing

through fear, doubt, confusions, etc ... He wields the weapons of the

Adept, Love and Light, striving to be a beacon of hope and to ignite

the fires of Love throughout the world."

Karen J McDonnell: Two Poems: "An Invitation to the Late Mr. Yeats" and "Corridor Assessment"

An Invitation to the Late Mr Yeats

Return. Regenerate

like Coole's flooded gardens.

This birthday, renew

your initials on the copper beech.

Stay awhile. Listen to swan

wings whack October's lake.

Look for light: svelte,

slivering into the seven woods.

© 2019 Karen J McDonnell

Corridor Assessment

He is in the Assessment Unit.

We are in the corridor.

Later, I fetch coffee.

Plenty of time for small

talk. For memories of the aunt

who insisted on sea

dipping, in her nineties.

Shells and her swimming togs

in the coffin. She sent us

post-decimalisation envelopes

heavy with fifty-pence coins

she sellotaped to birthday cards.

Diagnosis is around the corner.

We might make ninety.

There's laughter in the corridor.

© 2019 Karen J McDonnell

Karen J McDonnell is published most recently in Irish Times New

Irish Writing, spontaneity.org, and special Irish editions of The

North and CoastToCoastToCoast. She has won several awards and

been listed in competitions, including 2018’s Anthony Cronin, and

Bangor poetry competitions and the 2017 Robert Monteith, Poems

for Patience, and Dermot Healy Poetry prizes. She has read at festivals

and spoken word venues around Ireland, and on RTÉ Radio's Sunday

Miscellany and The Poetry Programme. Awarded Tyrone Guthrie and

Birr writers’ residencies, her debut poetry collection is This Little World  

(Doire Press). She lives in the Burren, beside the Atlantic.

www.karenjmcdonnell.com

www.doirepress.com

Brendan Constantine's "Bouncy Bounce"

Say this aloud: the sky is not a river

                        It won’t deepen if you fall in. - from Bouncy Bounce

    For those of you who’re not familiar with the poet Brendan Constantine,

or have always wanted to read his work, and have yet to do so, a good place

to start would be his new chapbook, Bouncy Bounce (© 2018 Blue Horse

Press), or his back catalogue of excellent work.

    More than Constantine’s other works, Bouncy Bounce, as the title suggest,

is a buoyant volume of poetry; highly enjoyable, and quick to breeze through,

until you find yourself mesmerized, and then, like a wayward ball on the

playground, it smacks square you in the face. There’s a trick built into

Bouncy Bounce, like that infamous scene from Lawrence of Arabia,

where Lawrence imparts to Potter, his British comrade, “The trick,

William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”     

    Poetry should hurt, otherwise, what’s the point in writing it. The more

painful, the more memorable, and this is where, Constantine, like

W. S. Merwin, succeeds beautifully. There’s an intimacy in Constantine’s

poems, which make the reader feel like they are being given the privilege

of being taken into his confidence, to share his upside-down view of the

universe, in regards to family (“Open Heart Perjury” and “Crib”),

anthropomorphism as a means of accessing empathy, and recognition

of ourselves (“Field Trip” and “At a Stumble”), and who we are, in

relation to, as well in our relationships to each other (“Out in the Air”),

and what the most powerful poem to illustrate this, “The Arrival of

the Sleepers”:

The sleepers came like curtains in the blown in the wind.

The sleepers came here

The came and blew softly into the firelight

And they were sleeping

And they were sleeping where they stood

And more sleepers came

And they lay their bodies down

And they lay their long bodies over each other

And they did not stir

And they did not stir

The sleepers slept like stones in a bog

They slept like a bog

They were a bog of sleeping sleepers

And if you had been here

If you had walked over them

You would have sunk down into them

Until just your head and arms could be seen

And you would have waved and struggled

You would have struggled

Like I struggled

Until at last you slept beside me

© 2018 Brendan Constantine

     If, for no other reason, you wish to grow, as a person, through

poetry, then Bouncy Bounce is the perfect choice to initiate that

process. As with all of Constantine’s work, it deserves a permanent

place on your bookshelf.

Bouncy Bounce, © 2018 Blue Horse Press, Brendan Constantine,

ISBN-10: 069282096, ISBN-13: 978-0692820964, 33 pages,

$10 (US)

© 2019 marie c lecrivain