In the Name of the Father :: Salvatore Poeta

To Filippo
(1915-1996)

I confess that at times I have sensed your presence
from behind the iris of eternity,
as you contemplate gleefully, implacably, like a muted Pan
the sacred union between shadow and light,
and not in starched hands that lift
a eucharist into the air;
rather in the faint wisp of winged DNA,
hanging in the air,
as a bird in silent flight,
before settling delicately on a stream ablaze in auroral light;
and not in the words of prophets sent by you,
false or otherwise,
but in the anguished cries of the raven
bouncing against ashen lunar skies
before descending into the black hole of perforated flesh.
In dreams I have wandered through labyrinths,
winding aimlessly beneath motionless seas of tears
only to be led to the vacant stare of a fish
lying lifeless across a barren stage;
stone-faced puppets staring into space,
their heads aglow in flashing neon
and arms extended miraculously by invisible twine;
and yet the lilies of the field beckon to me with their albuminous smile
and their promise of filial paradise,
dressed in their starched pristine tunics
and crystalline wings fluttering in the sun-drenched breeze;
atop the mountain the dark stallion of oblivion rises on its hind quarters
as it casts a shadow across the sky;
its silent rider tugs at the reigns with golden grips
that glisten against the beast's nocturnal mane.
Do I dare pose that great Telemachian question;
and if so in which valley of shadows do I begin my search for you?

WRITING & NAMING: the medicine of acquiring knowledge
Joseph Robertson

Language is that point of contact in the abstract, that plane where the intellectual life within us is enabled to assert itself as part of the overall experience of living. Language is that plane where the individual self is allowed repeated attempts at manifestation. What takes place in the process of writing, in the spilling of ink or the posting of digital characters, the slip toward defining a landscape, however brief, is the sanctification of an individual, and by extension of the human condition as such...

Not every person is a writer, by trade, nor should they be, but there is something about the act of writing that serves the writing individual as if it were a medicine for selfhood, a healing venture into clean waters. Especially so when its intent is to be expressive of secret regions of the mind or to lay out new experimental vessels for such expression. [Keep reading...]