{"id":251241,"date":"2023-12-25T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T12:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=251241"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:20:05","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:20:05","slug":"poetry-bleeds-from-the-shattered-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/12\/poetry-bleeds-from-the-shattered-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Bleeds from the Shattered Normal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/em>20 Dec 2023<\/em> – What\u2019s ordinary about life suddenly becomes sacred. This is my definition of poetry \u2014 my deepest plunge into being alive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems more relevant than ever, as innocent blood flows in the wars being waged by military-political bureaucracies across the planet. How many more stunned facial expressions will I see on YouTube, of parents who have just lost their children, their spouse, their siblings?<\/p>\n

As I have noted, I have recently released an album of spoken-word poetry<\/a>, plus crazy artwork, thanks to my good friends Andy Mitran and Scott Wills. Much of the poems go back to an earlier period of my life, shortly after the death of my wife from pancreatic cancer. At the time, my daughter was not quite 12 years old. Dad and teenage daughter \u2014 those were the days! (We both survived, I\u2019m happy to say.)<\/p>\n

Losing myself in these poems so many years later is a mind-blow not merely because of the memories they unleash. They also have a relevance \u2014 so it feels to me \u2014 to today\u2019s news . . . the ongoing abstraction of human life, the dismissal of the value of every living soul. Poetry is the opposite of that \u2014 not in simplistic but, rather, paradoxical ways. Its essential purpose is to break through the shallowness of normalcy, quite likely in surprising ways.<\/p>\n

. . . God bless every finite movement
\nof your heart\u2019s laughter,
\nthe rich earth of your love,
\nthe milk of your breasts,
\nthe tremor of your flesh.
\nAnd God bless diapers and tricycles
\nand \u201cMake Way for Ducklings\u201d . . .<\/p>\n

This is a passage from \u201cLetting Her Go,\u201d one of the poems I wrote in the aftermath of my wife\u2019s death. The poem is awash in the small details of family life, so easily overlooked in the moment. The day simply pushes on. But when the normalcy is shattered into fragments \u2014 soul fragments, you might say . . .<\/p>\n

God bless tantrums,
\nice cream, swimming pools,
\nbugs and curiosity.
\nGod bless every dropped pearl,
\nevery birthday cake,
\nall the soft inner matter
\nof family life,
\nfelt, lived,
\nand pushed along with
\ntoo much hurry.<\/p>\n

The value, the depth of each moment, starts pulsating. As the poem pushes on, as I describe \u2014 relive \u2014 the last months of her life, I even write: \u201dGod bless cancer. . . \u201d<\/p>\n

Those may be three of the strangest words I\u2019ve ever written. They bled forth from my pen almost as a Zen koan. Do I know what I meant? Not really, but not knowing can be deeper than knowing. Indeed, \u201cnot knowing\u201d is the human condition, and it includes knowing. For instance:<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s streets are alive
\nwith the eyes of beggars. . . .<\/p>\n

This is the beginning of another poem, called \u201cOpen Souls.\u201d Here again, \u201cnormalcy\u201d conceals the troubling reality in which we live.<\/p>\n

. . . They poke through the glass skin
\nof prosperity,
\ntoo large and too human.
\nI am disturbed anew each time
\nI step around them,
\nbut I seldom break stride.
\not to look
\nwould be to ignore
\nopen souls . . .<\/p>\n

Ordinary guys, homeless, asking for spare change. They\u2019re just collateral damage of the system. But the poem isn\u2019t political \u2014 it\u2019s pre-political, just like every poem is, or should be. It\u2019s about feeling the pain, the love that hovers beyond the codified world. Poetry is one of humanity\u2019s windows into the raw unknown \u2014 which happens to be both beyond our wildest dreams and deep within our inner being.<\/p>\n

In the world of poetry, there is no separation between church and state. The homeless guy at the subway station helped me grasp this.<\/p>\n

The northbound train arrives;
\nshoes clatter faster around us.
\nFrom the wracking depths
\nhe moans
\n\u201cPray for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

I did my best to gather together the pieces of this moment in my words. Yes, I prayed for him, in contradiction of my own beliefs (because, what do I know?).<\/p>\n

. . . Let him have
\na room tonight
\nand breakfast in the morning
\nand a lucky break,
\noh Lord,
\nif thou art merciful.
\nLet him not be the one
\nto die for our sins.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him at <\/em>koehlercw@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20 Dec 2023 – It seems more relevant than ever, as innocent blood flows in the wars being waged by military-political bureaucracies across the planet. How many more stunned facial expressions will I see on YouTube, of parents who have just lost their children, their spouse, their siblings?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":116626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[554,1199,1268,87,865,88,2415,2462,427,688,868,278,961,70,481],"class_list":["post-251241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-children","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-european-union","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-israeli-army","tag-military-industrial-media-complex","tag-palestine","tag-peace-journalism","tag-poetry","tag-russia","tag-ukraine","tag-usa","tag-warfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251241"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251244,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251241\/revisions\/251244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}