Month: February 2018

Free Verse # 422 (her light is my blessing)

Pierre Mhanna2 Comments

Could it be that this fire
burning under my skin
is a remnant of an ancient star
that still recalls your name?
That in this star
you and me
burned selfsame?

~

In this life
we love a little,
we dance a little,
then are folded
back into the sky.

~

What I wrote you
during the day
I wanted to read to you
at night,
but you are nowhere to be found;
and so, I’ll whisper it to the wind,
and pray the wind
will find your ears tonight.

~

With every poem
I am making my way to you,
through the loneliness,
through the crowds,
through every day’s toils
and misunderstood smiles,
so I write to make my way to you,
to fill my chest a little
with the breath of homecoming,
to be able to survive.

~

Not much has changed, sister,
my hair is still growing grayer,
our dad is still waiting
to win the lottery.

~

Her light is my blessing;
to touch her is to know
the essence of my heart.

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Wandering Thought # 64

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The most deeply damaging thing one might come out with after reading authors such as Georges Bataille and the Marquis de Sade, is the idea that sexual impulses cannot be controlled, and that we are fated to live in a universe where we either suppress them and become ascetic and puritan morally or where we give them their sway and playful ground thus becoming libertines, and modern. The idea of “control,” which is different from suppression, does not enter the minds of both authors, and why? — because they themselves are the offshoot and a reaction to the morality of suppression, because the ascetic and the liberal are ultimately two sides of the same coin, mirroring each other. Sexuality suppressed kinks the heart, which is why the sexual forms prevalent in the imaginations of both men as seen through their writings is so tainted with darkness; it detaches itself from one’s emotional centers and becomes something cold and almost mechanical. Sexuality cannot be suppressed, but its discharge can be controlled, its form and quality can be given a different shape, and can be branched in one’s heart becoming an expression of one’s emotions and sensuality. Only control can pave the way to a sexuality of ecstasy, of which the former types haven’t got the slightest hint.

I want to touch her

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I want to touch her
with the reverence of a candle
for the stillness of the night,
with the awe of a saint
uttering the name of God,
with the longing of a birdsong
for the first light of dawn.

I want to touch her
with the ache for the rain
after a long season of drought,
with the sigh of a breaking bud
anticipating the air and light,
with the joy of burning incense
as it rises to the sky.

I want to touch her
as an oak seed taking root
on the mountain high,
as a stream of thawing snow
from cliff to cliff runs,
with the red lips of a poem
writing the history of mankind.

I want to touch her
like eternity blossoms
in the present moment,
like the breath of the seasons turns
with the endless wheel of time,
I want to touch her
and for this touch to be
my breath and life.

Letter, February 17, 2018

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One moment with you, however fleeting, is preferable to an achievement that would immortalize my name. The dust of your love is a better reward than the world and its riches, which men so adore. Lover, my longing for you is the only constant in an ever changing world, and if I have to call you by one word it would be this: Openness. You are the openness of my heart, and a world flung open in the arms of God.

Haiku # 554

Pierre Mhanna2 Comments

My graying hair…
proud of being
a leaf in the wind

~

Turning to my books again,
to the whirling world of stars.

~

One last haiku
nearing death…
another hike home

~

Monitoring the sales…
out of the window
the falling rain

~

Hazmieh, February 13, 2018
Hazmieh, February 13, 2018

Even an ugly city
can be beautiful…
falling rain

~

Writing to no one
but my future self
and the silence of my grave

On my struggle with philosophy and poetry

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My approach to poetry has always been intuitive, and it is this intuition that lead me to truths that clashed directly with what an intellectual or philosophic grasp on the world might propose. Poetry draws from the source, and philosophy, regarding that, was, rightly, cynical. Which lead me to an impasse — I could no longer surrender to poetry and its source, and yet when I attempted to subjugate myself to the lessons and outlook of philosophy it felt like I was suppressing a huge and essential part of my own self, a part without which I couldn’t be myself. This struggle ate away at a good decade of my life, diminishing the best of what I could offer, philosophically and poetically — I was diminished and weakened in both areas. This struggle is so essential to my identity and to my well being. I’m not sure how to proceed, except to say that an either/or approach to the matter is not in the least fruitful, and that the repression of poetry even at the risk of being “dogmatic” to the rational side in me is also no longer possible. Maybe what is required is a leap of faith, one that does not deny reason and philosophy, but that comes from a deeper place in the heart, a place unconcerned with appealing or being granted the approval of philosophy and reason. This while retaining philosophy and reason as essential tools with which to handle the self in its relation to the world.

Letter, February 07, 2018

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Winter solitude…
the camellias of her breath
flowering in my soul

~

Once I needed to touch you in order to feel you. Then the mere thought of you invaded me and soaked my soul. Now I realize, I am a flame rising from that which lies between us, the white chasm of love. Now I realize, to think of you or not to think of you is a false paradox — the sun and the moon, even out of sight, are always in each other’s company; the thread does not bind us outwardly; we rise from each other; in each other we live and die; we are the creative thought of love.