Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Proxy Invitation (To Mephistophelis): A Poem By This Faust

 



Upon Being Given My Choice Of Gift:

(& Presented With Two Rare Editions Of Goethe's Faust)


Often when we want to show our love's Extant

And of course also do preserve our own selves well 

When we aim wisely we care not so much how money's spent

As we do to preserve our freedoms well as we can tell


And so the rarer items We come to think show more

(The more uncommon things we think are better),

But what we think the symbols chosen – for –

May turn out to be far too much like debt or debtor


So I ask that you consider a different kind of present

And if you wish it not or wish it also that is fine

In that case from the pool of choices you present 

From which you'd have me choose, the first edition's mine


But far away what I would fancy most, consider, please:

On some occasions – for a few conversations – be my Mephistopheles



Saturday, January 6, 2024

To The Swan: A Poem Without Poetry

(Or, Get Well Soon, Please, Thank You) 




To The Swan: Get Well Soon,

(a poem without poetry, hopefully a fragment)

by johanna Faust




i want to write a sonnet gleaming 

but heart in my mouth, i keep holding my breath

it has been so hard for me, to do any good thinking

hard for me to breathe, to get breath


excuse me, hard for who?

um, me, um, i am breathing fine actually, that was, um

meant as a metaphor.  seems a bit out of touch

the meaning when literal,  seems apt, not so much


when its literal you stay in touch 

with the anchors to this world in the here now beauty

where you feel sick & feel happy & laugh & cry

feel tired and weak & i hope not often, alone


i hope someone is there with me

like i want to be there for you

i hope that someone could even possibly be

because then you’d still be around, even you


machines beepingly dripping, they keep my friend breathing

they keep his heart beating as he is reading my verse.




Tuesday, December 5, 2023

The Palestinian Problem, 2023 (revised from The Palestinian Question, 2014) - a poem by a female Faust

 




The Palestinian Problem

Or, even as Gaza is being bombed again, like some Polish ghetto


to, when and no matter how frightening,

abandon that civilized ruth --


(useful obviously not whatsoever)

and see their Solution in all of its truth;


to see in all the reporting how they invent,

slightly rephrased the same and I quote

Problem end quote ever brought;


to it all the World taught responses, wrong, right;

now tricked and now treated this manufactured consent

will rest assured soon again have this horror be wrought;


observe before you react.

sometimes you will be called

(coarse, too biased, or slight)


but stand up and witness, think, plan, and act

tell what you know

teach how to speak truth —  not to fight —

how by paying closest attention —

how by citing your sources —

how it is Truth may be made to come into the light:


the overweening pride, the sheer vengeance, the power

of a people let it please not repent me are mine

of Zion, a cancerous ill:


the horror

of a father's cries in Palestine

if his child

 this final

Solution

will kill.



by a female Faust; 

written 08/2014 revised 12/23

Sunday, November 5, 2023

To They Who Run When No Muse Chaseth -- a warning by a Faust

 




Nothing That I Less Willingly Part Withal — Except

Or, To They Who Run When No Muse Chaseth

a warning by a Faust


A bird is preening: & the likelihood,

all things weighable of course considered,

that it would read this, even if it could,

may be in fact too small to be conjectured —


yet — in my near absolute certainty

that, given my verse for a chance inspiration,,

the bird, if it could, would enjoy this, & happily,

I find, somehow, a fit consolation —


one I doubt can be found, now, or ever

by any who call themselves ‘Poet’ by theft;

their wit finds no thing with which to be clever

because of authenticity — bereft —


The experienced Sacred, made tangible, real:

Nevermore felt deserved by motherfvckers who steal.



the poem

that you stole from me

I too had stolen

from a wood thrush

preening in a sand pine

@sagestone_ 22 Oct 2017

Thursday, November 2, 2023

Ourselves We Do Not Owe, Or, On Expectation Wielded (revised & completed)

 

(a revision & completion)



Ourselves, We Do Not Owe

(Or, On Expectation Wielded)


Like a prophesy recursive, the present condition will frame future chance

with a dependence most sensitive upon the initial, same, unknowns

So my projected, misinterpreted, sometime wrong exquisite dance

may be damning me as surely as were I Dylan's Mr. Jones --


--- at least didn't know.  Or did he? The heart confident & loyal

may  all-too-human be, perverse, perfection find in such;

but: he damns himself who thinks it curst, yet watches water boil -- 

for watching changes nothing --- if, in fact, you watch.


& Watch I did, & watch I have, for days it seemed I stared

Alone,  in twos, in crowds, indeed — within, without, withal —

Never found a  present perfect I could prove for certain shared

But always found my means of observation at the center of it all.


Character is Fate, born of the quotidian, perforce;

To True My Self  I conjure my True Will anew: O Fate! Show me thy force.


"...Fate show thy force

Ourselves we do not owe

What is decreed will be

& be this so..."


William Shakespeare 

Twelfth Night, or, What You Will

Monday, October 30, 2023

Finding Mine, Or, Lengths Versus Distance, Part Two




Finding Mine

Or, Lengths Come From Versus Distance Out

a poem by a Faust



I have jumped from the twentieth floor.

I have walked weeping, alone, to get lost in the rain:

In unison derided, have not hidden my pain;

among the indifferent, the diffident, have been different, sane. 

Taught to pray fearful, taught myself to pray grateful.  Over, over again,

out there before God & everyone, have caught myself, all along,

-- & if one day I know better, let this verse be my song --

deciding for no good enough reason to decide myself wrong

when sometimes some things just need to be looked at some more.


Lest fœtid perfidy sidle up to me, wetly grinning for its due,

peremptorily I'll leave -- & forcédly -- any Face of me unsaved: to follow, or lead, or,

better understand than demand when I'm needed as leader.

No flaunting nor hiding. No leveraging either.

Because becoming the person I'd very much rather

the thing worth all this working, & working, & working until

-- will at least -- surely -- have to have -- gotten easier still --

if I thought I could tell if I knew what I will

won't or can't do when I need me to.


Which I will when I won't when I want what I will.

The which one of me's me, then, surely being the kicker,

if I stand up too fast, could I be even quicker?

if I'm shock proof, determined, however pricey the sticker,

camelback then unbroken, chaining patience to care

to remember to begin to follow on up out of where

so ever through valley from shadow it leadeth, to dare

to find out one day maybe soon -- myself -- already there,

maybe to find myself soon out there already still.

Finding Mine, Or, Lengths Vs Distance — Part One






 






Talking To Strangers

(Or, Lengths Come From Versus Distance Out)

some philosophizing by a Faust


"The lengths that I would go to, 

the distance in your eyes"

—— Michael Stipe, "Losing My Religion," R.E.M.


you know, it's just like the chance interaction

to — be able to — bring you back here to the now

to stave off — for a moment — that too often reaction —

that one if you saw what it looked like you'd know


as if knowing the what meant any knowing of how

only true for a handful of cases, a fraction

so small I would think myself wise to allow

as much room wide as deep — to see — my reflection


but just getting ahead of that knee jerk redaction

just not settling again for some impromptu show

takes on all my risk averse dealing in action

risks again taking in what i'd keen disavow


if such lengths served me like measure of real world success

to even greater i'd go — much more often — than less




Saturday, October 28, 2023

all of me to All Of You — a poem by a young Faust






all of me (to All of You


reflected in the eyes you see i

live forever Now & never

once the same)


as Gods we walk as mortals dream

alone together fear

(the Secret in the game(


i find i give you All -- of me -- 

& you

i know you know

that Beauty is a dare)


for what you see you merely seem

though everything is) here

i am (a mirror)

stare




a female faust

nyc 1983