Posts Tagged ‘poetry by Bruce Whealton’

Here’s a revised poem, that I wrote a few years back, called “Honest Confessions.” I end this latest revision with the lines, “I am a poem/ revised too many times.

Honest Confessions

I've been explaining myself
over and over and again,
to you, my sister,
my brother -

My reader -
confessing some of my deepest secrets.

I left a nice home...
Yet I have nothing against
the beaches I left,
with those hypnotic waves

that kept me still       and steady
how much better to nurture a poet
than any other place.

Why leave or move to anywhere?
Is there anything
about a place
that defines what a
poet becomes?

Perhaps, it's through
the persons we meet
that we become
who we are.

Psychiatrist, Dr. R. D. Laing explains that I
am defined by
my social interactions.
I am a poem
revised too many times.

By Bruce Whealton -
revised June 5, 2009

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Here is a poem I wrote some time back in a different form. This is a new version of it. It’s about that hypnogogic state of mind, when dreams seem to merge, blend and fade in with what our eyes are actually seeing. In hypnosis, we’d be talking about positive and negative hallucinations – a phenomena of certain hypnotic states of mind. In addition, the somewhat lucid knowledge that this is just a dream, makes it enticing.

Vicarious Dangers

I awake to the alarm,
then quickly fade back to sleep,
and another (bad?) dream.
 
My cheeks are still burning.
The fever?  or flu?
 
A sensation of danger -
and a voice demanding,
"Get up!"
 
I'm trying to move -
(Is this a dream?)
the bedroom door seems
to fade
becoming further and further away.
 
Again the sense of danger -
someone coming at me from somewhere.
 
With that sense of fear,
there is
another feeling
a fading sense
of hope
	and
comfort -
	that everything
is really ok - there is no
danger
and a sense of
excitement
no too different than
enjoyment.
 
An alarm - far away.
 
The scene snaps back toward clarity.
The room is empty and quiet...
nothing or no one there.
 
I'm drawn back
to that place – wherever it was
or wherever I was...

I'm drawn back
to return to that
place

Revision on 6/3/09

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The Things that Endure

It is a question of method.

Don't be surprised,
as if you didn't see it coming.

You may think you know me,
but you do not...
though you should have known me -
I've revealed myself
more than enough -
I have nothing more to offer.

I only hope to be different
than Anne Sexton,
“Wanting to Die”
or Sylvia Plath confessing
her suicidal intentions.

First my aunt did it
back in the 80s and
it seemed a bit strange back then -
I had no idea she was
so depressed.

I've seen her since then.
She seems fine now -
in dreams.

How can this be?
Don't ask me
I just know that she seems fine.

The native Americans
believed that the dead,
or the souls of the dead
visit us in dreams...

So maybe auntie Rosie
was telling me
all is well now.

Then there is my first cousin
Karen, who hanged herself,
back in February of 2007.

I miss her and want to know
why.  I didn't know she was
depressed either.

When it comes my turn
I don't suppose anyone
will really be too surprised.

I could be wrong...
maybe finally, in this last act,
someone will find something
interesting about me
and what I've done.

In all truthfulness
though, I hold out no hope
for this.

I only know
that the only thing
I can imagine
that actually lasts
is this one act...

otherwise
I'd have nothing
against life itself
but nothing
ever lasts!

Bruce Whealton – poem for April 22nd, 2009

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The Vampire that Fed on Me

Vampires walk these streets
	day and night.
You wouldn't think something
this sinister would be found
on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill...

And you wouldn't recognize them
for what they are
I know, because I didn't recognize
what she was – she seemed
nice enough

the vampire that drank my blood
for a year and more.
Sometimes I feel like quite the fool
for not knowing what she was.

I was warned and told how how
she would use me to feed her craving
but not being the type to judge
I believed in her and what she told me.

She used the word love
like a snake uses its forked tongue...
and had I looked deeper
into her eyes I would have known
she had no conscience 

no morals, no sense of right and wrong
no guilt.
And now the shroud of this memory
hangs over me like a quiet lonely night.

And I wonder how I'll find
someone different, someone to trust
and believe.  And I wonder
if I'll believe in myself – for I must
have believed I did not deserve better

Or perhaps I believed I deserved some
punishment.
Once you see evil, it's hard not to feel
somehow dirtied by the encounter.

by Bruce Whealton – April 1, 2009

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This is a follow-up poem to the previous poem in this series of 2 poems.

Faith and Doubt #2

I go about my activities
with the church
and wonder how my questions
are received by others
when it's time to share one's faith.

There is such confusion for me -
Doubts?
	Not exactly doubts but
confusion.

Let me explain...
            please, if you will indulge me...
We read from the Gospel accordion to John,
chapter 3, verse 16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life.”

Why?
I've been a Christian my whole life;
you'd think I'd know the answer and would not
have to ask why.

I feel very much like a child
in my approach to certain matters -
matters relating to finding meaning in life,
what is real
              and the nature of things – everything -
and so I ask “Why”
quite often...
just like a child does,
so an explanation must be that simple
just as one might explain this to a 5 year old.

Why did God give his son away?
He gave his son to die for us?
Why?
Because we are bad?
Was Jesus Bad?
No?  Then why was he killed?
I wouldn't kill him.
Did God kill him?

God let his Son die?
Why?

Do you see where this is going?
We keep returning to “why?”
because it makes no sense...

When I think
about that little boy that I feel that I am
in these moments,
when I ask this,
I find it rather strange
to be asking this...
Because
I always, for so long, understood these things.
I was taught the answers
and they seemed to make sense to me...
the answers made sense to the boy that I was
going back as far as I can remember...
I don't know what the 5 year old boy
that I was understood...
but then into my adulthood
and for years,
it made sense.

Now and of late,
I keep thinking
“that doesn't make sense,”
and I want to add,
“I do want to understand
and believe.”

March 26, 2009

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With the help of my co-editor for Word Salad, Jean Jones and his edits to a longer poem, I came up with this new poem. One could consider this either a new poem or a revision of another.

Trying to make an old love poem work

I think that what makes this
poem powerful to me,
is the scene that I capture,
it lasts just a moment
but only now, 17 years later,
did it hit me,
what it is about.
In the scene,

three of us are walking
in a small field -
the girl I loved,
myself and her friend,
that we had come to visit.

We came upon a swing
and as I remember it,
I’m in front of her
pushing her gently…

It wasn’t the way her hair
was caught in the sunlight
in front of me,
it wasn’t the smooth
calming, undulating motion
of the swing.

It was what happened in that moment.
For a moment there,
one hypnotic moment,
looking into each other's eyes,
how long, I don’t know,
half a minute or ten minutes,
and everything faded from my awareness
and I knew she was aware
of nothing else, as well.
I remember.

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People have been publishing poetry magazines on the web for some time.  During this time, the online version of a magazine, made me think that perhaps the name “magazine” didn’t fit for what we were publishing.  I’m very open to new ways of looking at things but a magazine just didn’t quite seem like the word to describe an online publication of poetry.  That has changed.  I found a new tool, or application, that creates online books and magazines on the web.  They run in the Flash player on the web.  I wasn’t worried about that because 98% or thereabouts, of all internet users have the required version of this software, necessary to run these applications,  installed on their computer, and so they are going to see what I publish just as I intend it to appear.

So, this tool, or type of tool (there are different designs that implement this in very similar ways), presents on the web page, an interactive application that looks like a magazine or book.  You can have a cover, and then open up the book to different pages.  When you open up the book/magazine (let me use book as a general term to refer to magazines or books in this format), you see  a two page spread.  One can even include the sounds of turning  a page.  One can drag the corner of a page or click on the next button to move to the next page.  I find it very exciting and creative.  I feel I can be creative with this application or type of application.

To see an example of how this works and how I implemented this on Word Salad please click on this link here:  http://wordsaladpoetrymagazine.com/VolumeXIVNoIV/books-published-by-word-salad.html
I setup two categories.  The first category will be for the different versions of Word Salad that are published on the site, specifically, Volume XIV, No IV, the winter 2008-2009 edition.  I will be adding other editions as well, in that category.  I’ll post the next upcoming edition as a book/magazine in this format, soon after the newest edition of Word Salad comes out next on March 21, 2009, and then I’ll add other previous issues as options that you can view here.  The other category is titled “Other Poetry Publications.”  Here I have published two collections of poetry by Jean Jones and one by myself.  These are not complete yet, as new pages are being added.  These collections by Jean Jones, for example, which were published by St. Andrews press, have additional poems included.

Again that link is:  http://wordsaladpoetrymagazine.com/VolumeXIVNoIV/books-published-by-word-salad.html

Allow me to add that this software, needed to implement this, is not free.  So, we are asking for donations or to support us, please purchase a print version of Word Salad on our Lulu.com storefront here:  http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=2331883

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Let me continue with my discussion on becoming and the subsequent idea of being a poet, which I began with a prior posting here entitled “Comments on my poem ‘Gifts’”

I had started to explore my interest in poetry, some time in 1991 when I had a mentor by the name of Martin Kirby.  I would visit him on Sunday’s and read some of my own poetry, get guidance, and listen to poetry that he wrote and we’d read poetry from famous poets.  His wife was there as well, Peggy.  These were somewhat like “readings” but at the time I had never read to a group of strangers.  I knew them from the church that my parents and I attended.  My mother had said to Martin that I was interested in poetry.  So, I guess I had started to think of myself as a poet back in 1991.  Martin was a professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at Paine College in Augusta, GA.

It was the advice and support that I got from Martin that helped me see myself as a poet in the making.  He offered so many suggestions, guidelines and more.  He would also tell me if and when a poem was “publishable.”  He also strongly pushed the notion of many, multiple revisions in writing poetry.

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Poetic Crimes

I think there ought to be punishments,
upon those who misuse poetry.

Two sins,
two wrongs
in the use of poetry.
One is to claim to have written,
something written by another -
to plagiarize…
a wrong deserving of shame
or that one should be shamed by others
if caught.
These things should not go unpunished!
It is more than just a theft -
there is a greater wrong involved
because of the sacredness of poetry.

I think God gives us this
as some divine gift.
As a Christian, I’ve had somewhat
specific ideas about certain things.
The Muse, as they say,
I believe to be something of the essence of
God or perhaps we can represent her
as an angel – but still she is
an essence of God.

There is another serious wrong
or sin
and that is to lie with poetry.
One need not bare one’s self too much,
or reveal that which is private,
or over-expose oneself.
That is a reasonable right of any poet.
No poet though, should ever knowingly
use poetry in a deceptive fashion…
to create a poem that is false…
that should be a serious sin.

I have been the victim of this sin,
this wrongful use of poetry.
She had chosen to deceive me
with a poem on Valentine’s day.
She got the idea that she needed to make me think
that she loved me.
To use me.
The poet in me feels a certain
fury for her use of a poem
in this fashion…
she claimed herself that it was a poor poem.
So what.
What was wrong, so wrong,
was to use poetry
in the commission of this deception.
There ought to be punishments
for those who invite the Muses
to deceive
and create false
and abusive
poetry.

Bruce Whealton March 16, 2009

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I think some poets write
because of a deep anxiety
we feel about the finite
nature of our existence.

This may not be
something conscious
that we feel -
some of us -
but we may want to live forever,
in our poems
or in some way
not fade away
with no one to remember
anything at all
about us.

If this is so,
then I may be
one of those poets
and now, I’m writing
as fast as I can
these poems that I share.

I write this as a letter
“To whom it may concern,”
I turn to you my friends
family and other relations –
my readers,
and I ask you,
if anything were to happen to me,
I entrust to you
my poems -
the ones I’ve written
and the ones I will write.

If anything were to happen to me,
help me please,
to ensure,
that poems live,
on,
that should I fade away,
others will have something to say,
something about what I contributed
how I made some contribution -
some impression,
some way that I touched you
and that I lived for something.

It’s so easy for things to get lost
and then what will remain of me.
What do people say about me?
Or what will they say?
It is my greatest fear
and the source of my greatest
despair that the answer
to that can be summed up
in one word,
“Nothing.”

I think of these things
not because I think something
will happen soon to me,
but because life may not present
time or opportunity,
no matter how many years
I may go on writing.

Bruce Whealton – March 13, 2009

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