Call me crazy
but I am
completely
and madly
and utterly
in love with life,
its manifold fingers
on the pulse of the sun,
its fleshy, ripening
portents, and winged hushes,
I have become
the guy
that sees rainbows
wildly spitting color
as if
to rechristen the gleam
in my eyes,
the lover of historic
gray silences
coursing through
the veins of stones,
to walk,
with my head
tilted skyward
in praise of hawks,
their lofty, gliding
amens
a salve for my mortal heart,
how I became this guy,
I don’t know,
Catholic-Italian Brooklyn
boy
from rough-hewn streets
and corners
I was,
and now,
a single blade of grass
has the power
to slow me down,
the bark of olive trees
has left imprints on my lips,
and clouds bundled
in a snowdrift symphony,
play me to the reveries
of Mozart’s ghost
in fleece,
or how the sea
tailors its own
furl-fringed script
and pearlescent art,
tandemic
to Mister Shakespeare’s
wisdom-pop,
There are more things
in heaven and earth
Horatio
than are dreamt of
in your philosophy,
yes,
the sudden turns
of wonder,
and sorrow,
fill the heart’s bask,
and here I am,
a scarred feather in a gale,
carrying the scrim of wonder
to its most lucid
yield.
You say you want a revolution?
We’ve got a moon,
a blade of grass,
and windblown petals.
Bring your white flag,
and let’s get it on.
Falling
in love
is easy,
it’s just like
getting drunk.
Loving,
in balance
and sobriety,
is the true art
and challenge.
Untucked,
she came to me,
a pensive fairy
gleaning motes
of pollen,
and the pearly scintilla
of dew,
after having been
locked away in an attic,
far away from home,
for so very long.
She rested easy
in my palm,
breathing tiny puffs
of fragrant air,
and melted specks of light
that filtered through the heaven
of my veins,
warming me
to a state of woozy cherish,
to love, unbarred.
We,
as humans,
have the inalienable right
to bare hearts,
pouring molten
light
and lush vines
of dark,
to practice humanity
in all its patterns
and forms,
we, the living
revolutionary works of art
forever
in the process of becoming
what we already are.
The secret to becoming
a true revolutionary,
lay yourself
out upon
the world’s limitless altar
of secrets,
and praise
the hidden roots
of everything
you encounter
daily,
heart bared
as proof of light’s
need to air.
I am learning,
or perhaps unlearning,
to believe wildly
in the fresh crop
and siege of miracles
that are happening
right under my eyes
every day.
If I fail to see them,
if my self-limiting perspective
narrows into a myopic squint,
that’s on me,
and I shouldn’t blame
the miracles
for my dearth of vision
and lack of imagination.
Outside,
an orange poppy
trembles
when drops of rain
kiss
and silver
its petals.
A child bumbles
along a carpet of fresh grass,
its cherubic face
lit up like a Mardi Gras
lantern
as she journeys newly
into the world of toddling.
A wrinkled hand,
roped in vines
of blue veins,
clasps
another vine-veined hand,
husband and wife
of sixty-four years,
this simple gesture of
you are my home
repeated over and through
many moons, laughs,
and tears.
Gulls bop-ambling along a shoreline
as a fishmongering choir,
the thousand broken azure
fingers of the sea
reaching toward
a glittering bounty of washed-up shells,
clouds as wooly prayerbeds
holding the incalculable breadth of God,
an anchored ballet of lotuses in a pond,
autumn winds turning stray leaves
into golden migrants,
stones nobly
carrying the true history of the world
in their gray silences,
the riotous joy of children
playing in the park,
a religion of its own
with no pulpit
or doctrine required,
that person
passing you in the street,
or standing next to you
in line at the supermarket,
who is you,
how they hurt
and struggle
and dream
and wonder
and worry
and grow scared
and want to be loved
just like you,
humanity
the simple common denominator
which is infinitely greater and richer
than the big-budget, whiz-bang
special effects, spectacle-scope,
my-religion-is-bigger-than-yours
form of miracles
that so many eyes
are turned toward,
breeding the skinned, reflective laments
that our souls, brute
in their divine, unrelenting wisdom
and foresight,
pose to us repeatedly
(sometimes
as inner screams,
sometimes as rippling whispers):
How much you missed today,
my love, there were miracles
everywhere,
right under your eyes, your nose,
at your fingertips,
but that’s okay, today is today
and it’s never too late
to embrace the wild gospel
of revolutionary seeing.
Optional Post-script: After you finish reading this, play the song “You Sexy Thing” (I Believe in Miracles) by Hot Chocolate, and wherever you are, the car, your living room, your office, the supermarket, commit a simple, joyous act of revolution and start dancing.
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized
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Tagged dance dance dance, dreamscaping, i do believe in miracles i do i do, John Biscello, love is real, miracle-crop, poem, the revolution is here and now, the school of unlearning, Walt Whitman was a badass visionary
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All the merciful Marys
gathered
at the brisk pool
of light
and through
the silvery meshes
of tears
recalled
the angels
to mother
the favored arc
of true grail
and unflagging love.
I haven’t
been sick like this
since I was six
or maybe nine
that deceptively mild
hazily pleasant
heartbleating ache
and motherseek fever
that takes you
to that tender place
of breezy white flags
and euphoric yield
and there, you,
the fever-softened six
or nine year old
is inspired to climb
the honeyblonde vines
of a girl’s pigtails
up
and up
and up
into that secret attic
so nourishingly dark
and quiet
where you cloister
in a nook
and allow your fingers
to register the heart’s Braille
by rowing across
the musky, yellow pages
of books
harboring timestained
print
pulsing
like dollops of viscera
and beads of skin
beneath
the ginger marvels
of your touch . . .
And you stay there,
just as you are,
a future child
of no tomorrow,
a purveyor of dark, trembling matter,
and golden drifts of snow,
you stay there,
quiet, happy,
unfinished,
somebody’s ink
bled through
the slow fever
of dream.
Where words fail
touch
registers
the seismic heft
and molten seize
of hands-on
earthquakes.
John Biscello 