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Nat Lipstadt Mar 29
~ for the poet by the same name,
Melan,
a name derived from the Greek "melas"
meaning "black" or "dark"~
<>
oft have we warned you, be wary,
every phrase, a provication,
a cribbed script from a message,
a poem, even a pen name, says,
marke me man, the notion of the

Melancholoy of Innocence
a burr buried in my head's bed,
a sleep robber, a pseudo~scholar,
so intriguing this grand challenging
notion...
of the purity of melancholoy's essence


my oldest friend from an early age,
before I knew the word to grasp~capture it,
in my youthful
tristesse grave,
what rendered my soul so vulnerable
to an emotion that had no direct visible cause,
but powered me with a puzzling
strange insight of keen visibilty,
that filtered a glow about all, about what
my eyes saw, my heart felt
...

nearly now, the better part of a century,
I recall the first days of exploration,
of a world, that
dished out equal portions of
ecstasy and misery,
and well taught me the value
of silence
of observation,
and how to record
a memory so that so many, so many decades later,
is crisp with its original fraglity
that overwhelmed way back when
I was but a toddler


a world that was cruel,
a lesson, that came very early,
but made me quiet but not surly,
observant of the human quirks and their potential,
the people surrounding acting in an up dated version
of a Bible Tale
..

where guilt and innocence were precise and clear,
and there was no middling muddle,
to confuse, or be abused,
to obfuscate or obscure


lines of demarcation in black clearly drawn,
so it was soon gone, the innocence,
that was gifted to us all at birth,
and though I mourned its loss,
very quick came the silent thought of
,
well, that's no surprise!

that melancholy matures, extends and distends,
now and then, even shocks,
by the newness of returning old sadness,
and the ceativity of its constant reintroduction,
accompanied by a startled,

well, that's no surprise!

and here the shocker though,
acts of human kindness are not so far and few between,
just perhaps, less well advertised,
so when spotted. self similar words emerge,
even happy shouted
,
well, that's a surprise!
3/29/25
Ryan Jones  Apr 2012
Eternal Lamb
Ryan Jones Apr 2012
When the sunrise kisses the sky and meets the the vast canvas with fluorescent splashes of love I know it's you. When I watch the violets violently push their way through the soil searching for your light I feel as if I'm looking into a mirror. Every so often I arise from my midnight slumber and gaze upon the lifeless world and wait for the morning dew to dance against the leaves I, quietly ponder your journey, Jesus, The heart & tenderness of life who pours love over this sorrowful sphere of souls. I missed the days of your prestigious youth as you "born by a river in a lil' tent"- and we should have known then that "A change was gonna come". Before long you were walking the roads of jerusalem healing the sick, rasing the dead as beams of his fathers light fell upon his head. I missed the day John dipped his gracious head and his spirit fled into the immense depths cascading along towards the pure stream of inifinite life.  Far below your rightful place you performed the great hymm of love, blowing peaceful choruses to your orchestra of twelve, with a simple stroke of the bow. Here, There & Everywhere people of all walks of life heard about this man spreading love and bliss but I guess it just wasn't enough, as he was betrayed by a kiss. And in the night this man was moaning, in the night the ground was groaning, in the night the price was paid, yet after the night the world would be saved. So the next morning he had awoken aware of what the judge had spoken, beaten with massive blood loss, his fate to die on the cross!... So he had to die for our sins as he dangled on the cross like hair does a bobby pin. And I can Imagine upon his last breath we were given our first, an eternal quench  of our thirst. And so he had to renounce his earthly home as his spirit fled to his heavenly throne. His death was for us, for our cycle of life to continue.Even nature is englufed into his plan, just like the silent trees cradle the songbird God cradles man. Jack Kerouac spoke to me one night;glowing, illuminated prose set from the tip of his ink glaring off of the ruffled, dusty beat book and he said Ryan... "Man loves in lilly's and lives in milk and in his milk he lives in creamy emptiness"- (yeah, I hear you jack)- So I ask when will man, like a young calf feeding from his mother, draw from your word which is filled with immense light and creamy fullfilment. And this word was put here to illuminate our souls so we can rise in boundless love from the prison of doubt to the freedom of love.. Is it too late... and when the Storms sing, and floods us all will we stand there and moan, frozen in spirit?...when we see him sounding the horizon with flames in his eyes will we give him holy redemtion?.. . When the sky cracks against the dismal night, and his hand  stretched out, like it always was from the beginning, will your heart finally become welcoming?... When the world begins to tremble will we do the same and make the mistake and feel we are dismissed from the betrayal of our own kiss. I feel like we are weighed down under a tomb of ignorance and have fallen from our mothers womb, punished by doubt, that gloomy bird that strikes us with his wings and pushes us further into dark sands of eternity. Now, I am not saying that I am completely free from the ignorance...for at times I've turned the blinds on his light, in fright that I was in the wrong place  as darkness shadowed my weary face. I felt like the vulture standing over a dead carcas, thinking, maybe this doesn't belong to me, maybe I shouldn't sink my teeth into his flesh. My life was vaguely lit like the winter moon, as fear traced my every move.  I let his love be ignored, At times I would throw him a kiss into a pale ray just to say this is me, I wonder if you hear me, do you see?, your child so caught up in a crippling fear of expression, sitting here listening to the tick and the tock two sounds so prevalent to a sheep out of flock, yet all the while waiting patiently like a boat at the dock sitting here waiting for you to realease my anchor and allow this ramblin' mind to tred along the rippling waters of your spirit. Bob Dylan -  prophet of captivating thought once said: "He not busy being born is busy dying"- oh yes, I hear you Dylan and that the conductor of our life drives a slow train and he's waiting for you to drop your luggage and only then can you hear his train-a -comin'. And since that morning after listening to the rain and melancholoy sounds of John Coltrane I realized that I must acknowledge him, pursue him, and come to a resolution that he truly is a perfect being our one and only love supreme. So, I lastly say to you, beautiful lost souls of undeveloped spirit- Love is the source of your being, so unlock the chains to your sunflower- gypsy - butterfly soul and spread your wings and fly. Set yourself free from the decaying flesh of man and woman who suffer your radiant thoughts, thoughts so deeply seeped into the lamb, yet ,slaughtered like the pig in the farm-green, cool, spring wind. Never mind the words of man rather the words of the lamb.
This is a poem I just recently completed. I wrote it in 2009 with the title " Jesus Christ Revisited"- I've been working on a poem called "Soul of Man" for the past two weeks and I happen to stumble across the first mentioned poem and I fused the old poem with the poem I've been working on, and out came an entirely new poem I call : "Eternal Lamb"- Give me your ears for a few minutes. Thank you.

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