[stylist] Another One

[John Lee Clark]

This here is one of the most fascinating poems I've found so far--and
modern, written in the seventies.  The poet was a grumpy fellow who lived
alone in a harmit's life--his mother waited on him hand and foot, and
realizing that his mother would die, he desperately sought for and found a
wife to serve him, to read for him because he refused to learn Braille,
refused the cane or anything.  And what's more he taunts people like you and
me for being independent instead of waiting for a miracle to happen, as he
believed in miracles and visited many witches, monks, priests in an attempt
to get a miracle to happen for him.  When nothing worked to cure his
blindness, he later intellectualized this failure by saying the real miracle
was that he got a wife.  

As much as Ii disagree with his worldview, there DOES exist blind people
like him, and this poem represents their attitude perfectly.  After this, I
think I'll stop sending poems here and just gather in private, so not to
overwhelm the list!


Outsider

You are so civilised, so alert
In your tunnel, arching the drilled brain,
So dextrous in control
Of the tricky signals, the obvious gain.
I am outside, a truant soul,
Deep in the Word, stung by the dirt
Of primal clues which you disdain.

I cannot be a comrade
To you who find your victory
In affliction’s craft and trade.
I am angry with your tunnel life,
For a free wind, out here, storms the base
Of resignation, topples the perch of suffering,
Slits like a knife
That bladdered boast, the wan competent face;
And it seeks you also, but you hide from its sting.

I pioneer for you,
But the gulf is too wide
And you cannot see my clue.
I do not have to overcome,
I do not face the worst, I do not accept:
I just speed home
With no flake of darkness admitted or defied.

Your skilled courage is not for me;
I have overstepped,
By God’s grace, some mark or boundary
Where faith branches higher
And its vagabond thrills never cool.
I am wild with expectation, full of strange fire
That would scorch a mundane soul.

You miss that fire through your efficiency;
Your triumphs only prove
You are too sleek for miracle. It takes
An unkempt faith to make a mountain move,
Unsheltered savage trust, bare to the mud,
Till your ego’s clay-seam quakes
And the Kingdom seethes in your blood.
This fierce old pilgrim’s way I have known,
But you despise it, so I sing alone.


No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG. 
Version: 7.5.557 / Virus Database: 270.11.40/2039 - Release Date: 4/3/2009
6:19 AM