EARLIER POEMS

MY  SISTER

A lady of lightness and elegant disposing

my sister was not . . . 

 yet she could charm the birds

to light upon her. 

And she knew the names

of wildflowers . . . like the salsify . . .

she called it Johnny-go-to-bed-at-noon.

The name wasn’t, I suspect, with her

original

but she made it hers by a fierce

enjoyment of the joke. 

She taught me well

how violets sing, how periwinkles

dance

                    Ted Black, 9/9/2011

A PRESENTATION OF GOD

I would speak, now, in the language of love.

I would present God the protagonist

On the stage of his own creation.

I would write as the author of Job wrote,

Who gave us in his book God

Talking, gave us God showing himself,

Gave us God laughing and shouting

And glory-singing the wonder of his words.

For what God says in the words of his life

And in the laughter of his going

Is you and I and the thousand millions

Of our creature friends.  We

Are his words, are his life, are his love.

We are his language and his tongue.  We

Talk not as talking to God.  No, we talk

To one another with his voice, and . . .

Love happens in our talking.  God

Happens, and the universe

Smiles.

                        Ted Black 7/26/2006

A PRESENTATION OF LUCIFER

Of course sometimes we don’t

Exactly talk God-words, we

Instead offer to criticize,

We offer to condemn, we

Offer to repudiate and collapse

And the universe has then no means

Of smiling.  Satan grins (that’s

Us).  Satan grinds our teeth and . . .

Joblike we stumble and stammer

“O God, save me!  O God, I

Trust.  O God, I believe.  Help, help

My unbelief!”  No answer, then—.

No use talking to God.  Talk

Rather to one another, but with

Whose voice?  Whose words?  Surely

Your words, God—?  Oh!  My words, purely

Then, soberly, then, return, present

Lucifer rising, Lucifer praising,

Lucifer at his wit’s end, and

His heart’s beginning, was the Word

And the Word was God and

Yes, yes, yes, the word is

Yes!

                        Ted Black 7/26/2006

RELEASE

I didn’t see the moon rise

When I was mortal.

All I could know in that city

Were days and months dripping away

In digital procession.

I didn’t hear a baby’s cry

When I was mortal.

All I could turn my ears to

Was the tumult of populations

And the anger they birthed.

Where on the concrete pathways

Could I find music?

Where could I sing the airs of mountaintops

And the starlit harmonies

Of tenderness?

How many times did I go to the city walls

To beg release…

But the guards turned me back jeering.

For how can a mortal walk out of himself

And carry his eyes with him?

There is no time for healing

In the city of mortality.

The sun does not rise there

Except to burn the deserts.

And I stayed how long in that horror

And in that sleep?

How long…years long…

How long…too long…

Until one cried to me

Out of the deep of his misery.

And I said, “Come friend, let us go!

Come, I will carry you and lead you,

And in tender heart we will go.

For I have heard of a fountain

In the midst of the city

In a place of sanctuary.”

After many days we found it.

We discovered the place,

And the fountain and sanctuary,

And together we went in.

And behold there was no city.

And behold there were mountains,

And moonrise,

And a child crying for joy.

For by leading I had followed,

And by going in I had gone out.

And the sun was warm

On the seas of paradise.

—   Ted Black

December 8, 2005

WINE

“Wine maketh the heart glad.”

It also maketh the belly glad.

It maketh the eyes glad, the ears and nose and lungs and guts.

It truly maketh the big toe glad.

Let grapes be gloried for their gladness.

Yes, and corn for its bourbon sweetness and gentility.

Let him be praised who first distilled happiness.  

      

                                    Ted Black, 7/21/2012

DIALOG

— Say now . . . and when began
the patterns of your folly?

— How old am I?

— Yes, but the strange shapes of
your perception?

— Have I known other?

— But tell me what the difference?

— It is all different . . .
yes, I believe, I’d say
it has always been different . . .

— Different from what?

— From how it was!

— Was when?

— Why yes, that’s it!

— What’s it?

— It’s when.  Or yes, you see
not when, out of when,
away from when, free of when . . .
that is the terror, that is entirely the terror . . .

— What terror?

— The terror of when.

                                  ~ 4/11/2012