Sunday, November 08, 2009

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , on November 8, 2009 by marcladewig

In Memorium

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I

 Birds sing through gray soft misty morn.
The baker frees warm smell of bread.
The earth can’t feel the loss it’s borne.
It’s I, alone, who cries she’s dead.

II

 Word dreams by chance fall as a poem
As seas of ink on paper splash
Like tracks in sand where seagulls roam
Before the waves of flood tide crash.

III

 Eternity, memory, now.
With single heart, I edge along
A misty cliff and wonder how
I lost the home where I belong.

IV

The sea of water you can drain.
The sky of stars you can sweep clear.
You gone, my heart’s so full of pain
It never will run dry, my dear.

V

Dreams more clear than reality
Wish on mind’s stage lost love so true.
At haunts of our sweet used-to-be
I have to close my eyes to see you.

VI

This life gives one last hope to soothe me
Now that your earthly race is run.
The rarest flowers blossom only
With the setting of the sun.

VII

Older than our language, a tree,
A world complete, fell to the saw.
Out of the stump, green sprouts break free
Reborn past death’s unhappy law.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 1, 2009 by marcladewig

Irrepressible

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 Man has a long history
on this earth
as hunter and hunted.

 It was easy
for him to fancy himself
as falling into the belly
of a whale.

 Today some say
it’s like walking
into whirling propeller
that makes you
dust in the wind.

 Some argue
that the faithless
don’t even know
their own hearts and minds,
for all they can follow
is their own noses.

But in no human
who ever lived,
did hope not come
unbidden to his or her mind,
whether embraced fondly
or crushed rationally,
it came.

 Life is no such fool
to feed you falsely,
for you have been selected.

 Maybe life knows
your own mind
better than you do.

 While understanding
might not be possible,
hope is an eternal chance
that cannot be repressed any more
than ever returning hunger.

 Where hunger compels
humans to hunt,
hope is our best eyes and ears.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Saturday, October 31, 2009

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , on October 31, 2009 by marcladewig

Monster

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 I am a beast of many stolen parts
stitched higgley-piggley fingers, toes and head
into a mockery, and jolted out
of several rest by anxious genius.

 I am a war of grieving souls denied
the freedom death bequeaths of peace,
to prove the fundamental unity
of teeming dirt, and fallen lightning bolts.

 Though I am kin to all, I’m love of none.
Men drive me off into the friendless wild
because my looks unhinge their customed minds.

 I live cut off, but craving human ties.
Lonely rage disjoints all joy, and so, I bear,
in lieu of warm embrace, a blood-stained claw.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , on October 25, 2009 by marcladewig

To Forget You

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 I’ve tried to do all I could to forget you.
You turn up down each new path that I start.
Fever might scorch the plague from my body.
Your absence can’t burn the love from my heart.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Posted in Poetry on October 18, 2009 by marcladewig

The Graveyard of the Dying Winds

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 The graveyard of the dying winds
cannot be found with compasses and maps.
A blind man is as good as anyone to scout the path
and lead the way for those who trail behind,
but really, loneliness is more reliable.
It seems at first that any landmark out
on the horizon is a worthy beacon but
with every step you take, your choices narrow if
you’d find the fable at the heart of everything.
You learn to laugh along the way because
a kindness can be twisted into murder
and betrayal germinate a noble good for all.
The oneness of all journeys makes
all men all one family, rooted in confusion,
boggled by infinities both small and big,
laughing, lying, loving, crying and above
all else, surprised upon arrival there.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Posted in Poetry on October 11, 2009 by marcladewig

Young Devils Who’d Be Gods

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 His mother cried nine months alone until
she bled him out and died before he reached
her breast. He grew with strangers passing him
from floor to floor, all budding tears kicked dry.
The muscle in his chest pumped bile for schemes
and playgrounds left ambitious knuckles skinned.
His teeth grew chipped and jagged with revenge
that sought to be ground zero for a plague.

 He only held destruction holy in
the constant ache between his ringing ears.
He claimed achievement of his appetites
his education, hazarding it all
upon a single, self-made gamble that
young devils who’d be gods must kill old gods.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on October 4, 2009 by marcladewig

In Such Warm Light

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 The hammer sun pounds fiery gold
Upon the anvil sky at dawn.
I rouse you in the morning cold
Before the play of light is gone.

 In awe, you murmur, “Miracle,
To rise to such a lovely sight.”
But lovelier a spectacle
Is you, my dear, in such warm light.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , , , , , on September 27, 2009 by marcladewig

Rain Drop

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A mountain blew
its top and winds
swept up the dust
and bore it all
around the world
a thousand times.

A billion years
and million miles
and just one speck
was still aloft
because there is
a first and last
to everything.

Water vapor
coalesced around
that final speck,
transforming it
into the heart
of one rain drop.

It fell to earth
upon my tongue
defying fate
because I claim
all dreaming men
are singers of
audacity.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , on September 13, 2009 by marcladewig

I Angered You

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 I angered you
and you cannot forgive
nor put it in the past.

 Now there is a distance
between our hearts and minds
like dying ultimately brings
to every human relationship.

 You work to be deaf
when your hearing is acute
and to be blind
when your vision is sharp.

 This isolation
that you impose
upon us
is only an imaginary
isolation
and cannot lead to
truth
or
happiness.

 I would join you
in your anger
if I could
harden my heart
but this is like
playing with poison
for a mere thrill.

 But how can I find
a way to keep on
loving you past
your dear anger?

 If everything
is somehow
connected to
everything else,
how can I resonate
welcome to you
through this heartache?

 I met a traveler
from an ancient land
five miles high
up in the sky.

 He claimed that every single thing
upon this spiraling Earth Mother
has its own soul,
its own spirit,
its own nagual;
trees, volcanoes,
lakes, rocks, weapons,
even the food we eat.

 He said that for absent loved ones,
food is set aside at meals
so that the nagual
of the lost one can partake
of the nagual of the food
and know that home
is still a force
in their lives
and that they are still loved.

 That’s what I’ll do for you,
Angry Young Ones,
to keep my love alive
and keep the path
back to me resonating
in this cosmos
where everything
is connected to
everything else
down to each thought
and feeling
and not even anger
is strong enough
to break this bond.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero

Monday, September 7, 2009

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , on September 8, 2009 by marcladewig

The Bone Healer

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 Her only teacher was her god.

 She was born with a caul.
The membrane covered
her head like a shawl
and her hands like gloves.

 The mid-wife removed it
with sacred care
and swore her parents to secrecy.
She told them that one day
when their baby girl
began to bleed monthly,
the dreams would start.

 Her parents were poor
and she could only
finish second grade
but it was time enough
to learn to read and write.
And once she started
to wash clothes
on a rock by the lakeshore
alongside her mother and aunts,
the dreams began.

 She would meet pregnant women
and people pleading for help
as she wandered
steep, cobble-stoned streets
winding up to the central plaza,
the open air market,
the old church built over
an ancient temple,
all eyes turned toward her
bright with expectation.

 Her dreams frightened her
because she felt unworthy
of their calling
so she prayed and prayed.

 Her god kept telling her
that she must use
her gift to heal broken bones,
but still she felt unworthy.

 Then down by the water
she found a shining object
filled with power
beckoning to her
in a crying voice.
She ran home but that night
her dreams were filled
with the shining object
following her thorough
the pregnant women
and pleading people.

 The next day
she went and picked it up
with trembling hands
and sewed it up in a cotton cloth.
She always carried it with her
but never showed anyone
her secret bone
nor did she yet dare
use it like her dreaming god bid her.

 She married her only boyfriend
but nothing seemed to ever
go right for their little family.
Then he fell from
a three-story building
and broke bones
in a dozen places.
One by one, twelve angels
came to her in dreams that night
bidding her to live her gift
or the young father of her babies would die.

 She woke in a sweat
and gripped her cloth bound bone
and prayed for her god
to work through her.
And upon entering
her husband’s sickroom,
she went to his side
and laid hands upon him
and found each fracture.
She rubbed each break
with her secret bone,
pushing pieces back in place,
praying, blowing puffs of breath
where the hurt was worst,
treating him with all her faith.
For three days
she worked on her husband
learning as she prayed
how to use her secret bone to heal
and on the fourth day,
he stood and walked slowly
out under the open sky
to offer thanks to his god.

 And since that day,
taught by prayer alone,
she’s healed all comers
of broken bones.
People come to her
from all over the lake
and even as far away
as the capital city
and foreign parts
to be made whole again.
She asks for nothing in return;
therefore, she lacks nothing.

 But never,
even to her husband
or her daughters,
has she revealed
just exactly what
her secret bone
is made of.
Her family only knows
that upon her own death,
it must be thrown
back into the lake.

Marc Ladewig
Author of Odysseus-The Epic Myth of the Hero