P E T E R   O ' L E A R Y
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TWO POEMS

 

 

Dante

 

The amygdaloidal, animating enclosure
God's mind is:
                     unresting,
its faith is manifest, thus proofless. Not confined
in hidden roots of things or dark knowledge costly harvested.
Its human feet of brass — fuming smoke — are real. Depth charged.
Just so, its secreting, anagogical halo.
Conscience obfuscated
with its own shame or someone else's will forever find your poem
to be worthless, detached from current conceits.
Nevermind. Manifest
your whole vision —:
let them wonder why they keep itching. If at first the taste
of your voice repels them, don't worry. They'll feed
on its savory notes when they've tasted
otherwise empty fare.
Or wind. It smites the world's summits. That's
what your poems are. An honor
the atmosphere circulates up into the oxygen-starved strata
God seeds with mossy light —: Fame
is for purgatorial fools. Song's credo
minds God's venomless
dwelling, whose scorpions kiss
rather than sting.

What happens to energy that once joined the mind in synaxis
now lost in science's lifeless horizontals? Vivid idea
turned rumor. Between
above & below flows the waterfall; between hot
& cold there is a turbulent exchange of aerosols. Between
opposites arises spontaneously a symbol of unity & wholeness. When something
impressive occurs in the outer world — weightless, psychic —
a human personality can organize
the force of this projection into
numinous & mythical powers. Even so,
there's only a hazy idea at all of the changes
unconscious content undergoes in the process of becoming self-aware; transcendence
isn't hypnotic — only a borderline concept.

No one is so godlike
to know
the true word.
Every errant considerer stargazes
into the dark glass in which dark myth
takes shape, adumbrating
the invisible's lunatic light.

Light.
From stars in thermal deteriorating exfulgurations.
Dynamited hydrogen fused.
In whirled gravity blares. This light from many stars
questions me, even as it pours down into me the supreme
mingled effluence — soul & awe, the two innate
human aspects — heavenly constellated. “Let them hope,”
intoned the psalmist, “in Thee who know Thy name.” Theody
is to song what stars are to light.

The trinal breath; the spiritual expiration: Why
do you dazzle yourself in order to see something that has no place here
in this light?

I should pour the water from my internal fountain forth.
I should allow for its formlessness.
I should meet this impoverished imperfection of my nature as a grace.

Among the substances & among the arguments, faith
hoped for, unseen: its elucidations
remain incomprehensible to us. The downpours
of the Holy Spirit which gush
over the old & over the new
parchments are a syllogism, typology's predatory invariability.
A forecast.

This is the beginning, this
is the spark gathering into vivid flame & like a star
in heaven it shines
in an upper vault
in me.

PARADISO 24/25

 

 

 

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