The original artwork, is of course no longer extant.
Let's Do & Say We Did
Monday, March 11, 2024
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
Thursday, January 11, 2024
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