"In the large dark room"

In the large, dark room I sat waiting for God.
The hills had all crumbled into desolate dirt,
The beautiful faces mere specters of shame.
The words could not come out; I could not
find the words.

In the stuffed and stuffy dark I sat;
The cool breeze brushed a door I could not see.
"Let us hang ourselves," said my strange companion,
"If he does not come tomorrow, we hang ourselves."
Shall we accept springtime from God
But not the dark captivity? Shall we?
Silence is louder than any symphony.
Shall we not listen to the songs of stillness?
Shall we not sit at His feet and hear the
needful thing?

The stars have their sonnets and the sea its horns,
But my God has His own song: silence---
Thick like the itching wool sweater, twice as warm.
You know its presence on the cold winter's day:
It the cocoon that waits for the morning
Past mourning, when the world will be
as a star.

It the cavernous closing; the descent into hell
Before the ascension into heaven. Hang ourselves?
We are already dead; we wait for the resurrection.
In the large dark room we wait for perfection,
For the cracks of dawn to split the sky and cast fire
round about.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

...fragment of the madman...

...
(folio continues)

So leave us our pillars,
The concrete covens of the new witchcraft.
We recount with joy the list of our spells:

The asinine acumen of mindless minutia
  in the halls of theory and query, halls
  hollow and sick like a diseased bone,
  vomiting academic pus onto the dirt.

The clothed cubicle, riddled with red
  thumbtacks like drops of blood
  splattered across the dull gray,
  companion to the endless clocks
  nailed to the woody office walls.

The inciting smells of sewage and sin
  rising from the cracks crawling
  on Bourbon Street. Myriads of
  mothers and men (insanity
  feigning sobriety) all cast
  their children down and
  drown them in the filth.

Leave us, then, oh God,
To our cups running over
With madness and the machine.

(folio cuts off)
...

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

...fragment of a voice...

...
(folio continues)

I am a voice
With no story to tell.
My muse is dead; my pages blank
Like my head and my face.

(folio cuts off)
...

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

...fragment of the discouraged ...

...
(folio continues)

Against the bleak backdrop
I sense the insurmountable height looming near.
How can we be heroes when cowards command,
Making virtues out of vice?

How can we speak the enchantment
When the noise of the enemy is the vast voices
Swallowing our words like the grave?

(folio cuts off)
...

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

...fragment of the Divine...

...
(folio continues)

I am the culmination and execution
Of all perfection. The logos -longing
That's been haunting the habitats
Of humanity.

The cracked mirror has not splintered
My light, neither is the madman's sick sponge
An end to my ocean nor a hazard to
My horizon.

I am the Constitution of all subjectivity,
And the harmony of my fullness fills up
The ever-expanding escape velocity that
Outlines ontos.

The many facets and faces of the mind's
Latent content are but a jewel, one of many,
On the crown of my head; each soul
Is but a spark shed from my
Infinite flame.

(folio cuts off)
...

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

At Sandusky

"In the century old cemetery, where cracks
Etch the features of the granite faces,
Monuments to moments lost in the dirt,
See how the leaves, drops of blood and gold,
Burn off the many names of the
Mossy stones.

See the trees of the cemetery!
See the sad green limbs and woody fingers
Bearing their burdens low,
With the chalky sky slowly creeping
Through the scars scratched
Between the leaves.

See the hands that hold their final
Sacrifice, a frail yet fine offering
For autumn's fires. See the shades
Of green, like a many faceted emerald,
Give way to the vibrant death
of fall.

See the golden blood sprinkled across
The doorposts of the earth, doors
Continually open to the winds of the
World, ever receiving and losing; green
Then gone.

See now! The fruit of the fire tree is a
Shimmering star that, like a
Candle before a canvas, makes vivid its
Object: the red curtains that drape across
The arms of bark.

When the world grows weary of itself
At last, it takes the cold autumnal heat
Into its bosom and is burned to death.
Then the pure white snow will come
And melt, bringing the resurrection
Of the dead.

So burn on you trees of jaded green;
Burn on you shimmering stars!
May the burning snow rattle the bones
Planted by one, who in fear
and trembling, leaves the dead and looks
To Spring."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

(Update: This is a revised version of the original. The original can still be found posted on Facebook.)

Nightlight

"A cloudy evening sky:
Smoky black, tinted purple,
Deep and dark like deadly pitch.
The only illumination is the
Electric orange glow of the
Chemical plant.

But in the west a dissipation
Appears, and in bleeds the night
Sky, a curious light, its ghostly
Gray hues shine like a beacon
Scratching through the silent
Ceiling.

It fades; the clouds resurge
Lazily, enveloping the sight in
Apathy. Yet the damage
Is done. I have seen behind
The smoky shell the edge
Of infinity.

Beyond the blanket that covers
This earthen bed lies the
Endless expanse, the great dance
Floor with innumerable participants
Twirling and twinkling
Without end."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Moonlight and Me

"As my eyes grow accustomed to
This midnight hour, the dark
Hues of the shadows deepen,
And I am troubled to learn
That the night is darkest when
It is brightest.

The moonlight is a curious thing:
Its light seems to be still.
It sits, like its source, without
Motion or gesture, bathing all
Without effort.

Moonbeams are lazy. Daylight
Is not so: it seems to dance
And romance everything that it
Touches, enriching all
With its fire.

But the silv'ry spill of that great
White throne covers all like a
Man collapsing into his bed. He will
Not be moved until the morning
Bids him 'Come'.

Yet never has something so
Static been so alive, enchanting
What it lands on: the billowy
Foliage of the near oak tree
Seems to me a giant; its branches
A low leaning hand.

The grass is given faces: every
Shadowy crevice is the rim of
Some eye or mouth. They gaze
At the tops of the trees, at the
Lingering giant, their mouths agape
As though to speak.

How I wish that they would speak!
That the lazy moonbeam magic might
Animate leaf and bark, and that the
Distant creaking that I hear would be
The old bones of the oak baron bending
Down to greet me.

But those creaks and crashes
Are but the fall of the dead
Branches: too heavy to remain,
Though leafless. They strike the dirt
Without a word.

The moon has magic; just not
The kind that I am looking for.
One day the trees will talk
By the light of the moon. They
Shall answer the grass and me
At last.

For now, let the silent influence
Fall where it may, like snow
The night before it melts.
I shall enjoy the stillness
Before the daylight wakes
And bids me 'Come'."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

In Church

"Within these warm milky walls
Where hangs the brazen fixtures
With spheres of light, specks of white,
There hangs the satin curtain
Red like wine, dark like blood.
Upon it lies the golden icon,
The emblem of the amalgam
Of suffering and joy.

The rain clouds outside make
Gray the tall windows, but
The voice of the violin within
Warms like a fire in its hearth.
And as the bread and blood
Passes from mouth to mouth,
I pray that beauty and holiness
Adorns this house forever."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

A Car Ride

"The sky slides slowly along,
Its clouds like a great stone wall
Etched with snow-filled cracks
And stained with indigo oils
Along the edges.

The last lingering glow of daylight,
A river of golden copper,
Underscores the solemn shroud
That sits like sackcloth on the
Shoulders of the sky.

And at the pinnacle peak of
That gray sky plane, a flare
Of white creeps along like frost
That clings to the car windows
In the cold.

The darkest shades of the sky
Spread far and wide like the feathers
Of some great and terrible bird
Of the night, chasing the sun
From her nest.

The gray cloud curtain holds
Bumps and bubbles like the
Laminate sticker that just won't
Hold its grip to the edge of the
Foggy glass.

A burst of orange on the horizon!
The high hilly clouds still hold
The daylight on their crests like
Crowns of fire, jewels beyond the
Wealth of kings.

The fiery hills peek out from
Amongst the deadened gray.
Their wispy influence stains
The sky with flakes of bronze
Warmly bright.

The burning snow of those highest hills
Puts to light all the blues and
Deeper hues of the granite vault.
The snow-tops burn quickly, like
Most fires do.

A gash of white streaks across;
Like a steam-filled crevice, its airy
Contents reach higher than its
Source, and inch into every nook that
They can find.

The darkest blues raise like a wave
Their presence, but halt their
Advance and linger without one
Word. They are fearsome, friendly,
And silent.

One great and dark cloud,
Like a spot of ink, hovers over
As a hooded specter lost in
Thought, its song made still by
Its hesitation.

The night now comes and colors all
With coal tinted blue; hinted through
The smokey puffs, the meager moon,
Like a headlight in mist, offers its
Blurry light.

And in the distance, beyond the edge
Where the night crawls and claws
Like a shadow across the ceiling,
The golden ribbon lingers just beyond
Billowy mountain tops."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Memoirs from the Vansihed Horizon (Second Draft)

This is an update to the original poem found here. The following changes were made: I have set each line (save one) into a strict 10-syllable meter, giving it a needed sense of control and structure; I have changed/added various words; and I have added an additional stanza at the beginning. The word changes/additions and the addition of the stanza were to give the poem smoother transitions, something that the first draft sorely lacked. Enjoy.

I.
"Oh Jerusalem! Oh unreal city!
City of man! City of dust and blood!
Hear, oh hear! The lord your god, the lord is
Bits of hair and lint in your coat pocket!

Streets stand silent with the noisome static
Of cars and the falling of fretting feet.
The sewage smell comes up from the gutters;
It comes, and seasons the food vendors' wares.

The dead ditch-diggers etch the street with graves.
(Even in death we are not left alone!)
See now! Their sweated backs are pictured much
By the plastic youths with plastic cellphones.

And the old clock-tower was tightly wound,
Its hands sit spinning; they spin to no end.
The coal black swords that carve out the hours
Are accompanied by the man in black.

There he walks the edge of the gray stone ledge,
There on the old clock-tower's meager lisp.
He casts down words that crack the hat-ed heads
And shatter, shatter, shatter on the ground.

'Misery, misery! Misery all!'
Croaked the clarion cry from up below,
'Misery! Misery!' raised the voice
That fell like glass onto the passers-by.

'Come down, strange fellow!' cry the passers-by,
'You'll trip. You'll fall. You'll break your foolish head!'
'Oh, broken, broken! Oh, all is broken!'
He cried anew before he fell as dead.

The grisly gravity did its best work
As it dashed him against the earthen floor.
The onlookers did scatter; voyeurs did hide,
When the man kissed the world and broke to bits.

'Misery! Misery!' his final cry,
The final call he let fly as he fell.
And the passers-by, inconvenienced, knew
For certain that he had gone straight to hell.

'A special hell!' they all seemed to agree
With many talks and nods and committees
That they formed just then, on the bloody street,
The dead man's head sitting fresh at their feet.
'Misery! Misery!' the head did cry,
And the committees did argue and flatter and lie.

Soon every man and woman heard the news
Without ever leaving their office seats.
The Internet had pictures, film, and words
Before any feet left the bloody street,
Filing the empty heads of soulless meat
With information devoid of knowledge."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Sonnet for the Thoughts that Plagued me Sunday

"Happy people feel the strength of Your peace.
Every mirror shows no reflection. They
Love to lose themselves, forgetting the face
Plastered against the glass, a mere doorway

Made to the house of God. How often I
Yearn to unmake myself, let the tap'stry
Unravel, each thread let loose to fly on
Never-ending winds. Hope in the myst'ry

Breaks all stability not found in You.
Everyday my atheism breaks loose,
Leaving me a wretched wretch and less true.
In truth, my promises lie in a noose

Ever ready to fail again, again!
Forgive; fearing to fail has been my sin."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Memoirs from the Vansihed Horizon

This one is a bit more experimental for me. I'm trying my hand at my own kind of narrative poetry. Let it be know that I appreciate those who willingly submit themselves to being my guinea pigs.

I.

"Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem! Oh unreal city!
City of man! City of dust and blood!
Hear, oh hear! The lord your god, the lord your god,
Is bits and pieces of hair and lint in your coat pocket!

The ditch-diggers etch the street with graves.
(Even in death we are not left alone!)
Their sweated backs are pictured much
By the unpensive youths with plastic cellphones.

The old clock-tower was tightly wound,
Its hands that spin without an end,
Coal black swords that carve the hours,
Accompanied by the man in black.

He walks the edge of the gray stone ledge,
The old clock-tower's meager lisp.
He casts down words that crack hatted heads
And shatter, shatter, shatter on the ground.

'Misery, misery! All is misery!'
Croaked the cry from up below.
'Misery! Misery!' raised the voice
That fell onto the passers-by.

'Come down, strange fiend!' cry the passers-by,
'You'll trip. You'll fall. You'll break your head!'
'Broken, broken! All is broken!'
He cried anew and fell as dead.

The grisly gravity did its work,
And dashed him to the earthen floor.
Onlookers scattered; voyeurs did hide,
When he kissed the world and broke to bits.

'Misery! Misery!' his final cry
He did let fly as he fell.
The passers-by, inconvenienced, knew
For sure that he went straight to hell.

'A special hell!' they all agreed
With talks and nods and committees
They formed just then, on the bloody street,
The dead man's head fresh at their feet.
'Misery! Misery!' he still did cry,
And the committees did argue and flatter and lie.

Every man and woman heard the news
Without ever leaving their office seats.
The Internet had pictures, film, and words
Before any feet left the bloody street,
Filling the minds of soulless meat
With knowledgeless information."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Someone Asked Me Why I Read

"Line upon line, precept upon precept,
Image upon image, theme upon theme;
Conceits and words wedded together
Fall soft along the sharpened beam

Of light, the white refracted blade.
The empty page, like mirror of nickel,
Catches the falling coals of fire:
Rose red petals, cracked like a jewel
Whose facets house the sunset's orange.

The page, a drum the embers strike;
Its vibrations send sparks flying upwards.
Breathed in, purging tongue and mind and soul,
They fit a fool for the enfolding Flame;
His language fire, and Love His name."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Mags and Megs Read a Book

"The old music man gave up smoking;
offering to the gods' frustration.

The gray child born in January left
spring in a drought and desolation.

Old land corrupted with fraud and failure
demanded a virgin, but found none.

So old music man went under the knife;
the burnt leaves finally come undone."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Sonnet for the Dusk that I Saw From My Car

"Blue sky, bed soft; purple rimmed, peach and gold
Crease the angel's pouting face. Billowed wings
Lined with sunset scene: an orange disk. I'm told
It burns out colors like fire does smoke; sings

"Its rays like the marching band in the street:
Trumps blow; drums roll beneath the burning blue
Of sky and cloud, in celebration; feet
Stamp in exaltation. They know what's true.

"Sound is true. The sound of the sun. The burn
Of its light, symphony of sight. The night
Lets stars take up the bars. For now we turn
To the dusk's deep dance; trance of color. Right

"Now the band creeps on; the road is silent,
But dusk is not. It asks us what it meant."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Penu-el

"Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" -Heathcliff, from Wuthering Heights

"I hear the angels are here to kill us.
Oh happy day!
God still hates us! He has not
forgotten us.
We are the mote of His eye!
He will pluck us out.
We are the desiccant ditch water!
He will spew us out of His mouth.
Oh happy day!

"Clouds and fire, you have been
(or once were)
Obscurity in our daylight, and
Clarity in the night season
You were there; now we come to the garden
alone.
We walk about with stiff-necks and
straight strides;
We miss our broken hips, your
hand against
The hollow of our thighs.

"Once you wrestled against the
sons of man,
Against flesh and blood; fleshy
Hearts were the reward for
broken legs, and ribs, and skulls,
and stone,
Shattered against your hate,
grounded into powder.
'The son of man,' they said,
'You wrestle against him,
you visitest him.'
You, the highwayman, you
the bone-breaker, you
the heart-stealer:
How we miss you.

"Once again, put the stone
at our head, and the ladder
at our feet.
May we feel dreadful in the dark,
sleep soundly in your horror
and great darkness,
once again.
Once more (as it once were)
let your cords flail our shops,
Your hammer hit stone
and bone
with the cold and deep thud.
Let your hand touch the hollow places
that we may go halting and whole,
Worshipping and leaning
on the top of our staff."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

On Despairing in a Bookstore

"Oh dark dark dark. They all go into the dark...." -T.S. Eliot, from "East Coker"

"We fall nine floors down, nine rings
of death.
And further still, but not still.
Even lower, even lower.
Further down and further out,
Into the burning dark
Where we shatter against its
Rocks and Ridges, rough and ragged,
Burning and hollow, stuffed with straw
and dirt.
It burns our eyes, ears, and throats.

"The dirt dries us out and burns.
The straw, hay and stubble, kindling
for the burning dark.
Our fragments fall, with no light left
to refract,
Like obsidian tears; they disappear
Into the dark, burning dark,
Hollow dark, stuffed dark.

"We walk still, still-born, burnt and dirty.
Dirt, straw, stubble, burning.
It fills us up, fills our cup.
Sweet like honey from the hives
of the house of the dead.
Toxic syrup, sweetest poison.
Who dieth thus dies hell.
I mean well! I mean well! Oh please,
let us die well!

"Lightning's crackle cracks the
iron sky and sea
of the burning dark.
From east to west it cries;
It cries, it cries, it weeps.
Tears of water, clear and cold,
Freezing cold, burning cold.
Its ice fills the dark; a burning winter
rattles our bones.

"We break apart, a house of cards
shuffled back into the deck.
Proper places are the pieces that
are missing in our heads,
In our souls, in our bones, as
they rattles on the ground,
In the dark, burning dark, the
only sound."

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Children of the Night

Some thoughts after listening to Jeff Buckley:

"Children of the night cry,
'Is there more than this?'
With these stone-faced, dead eyed Judases
Who kill us all with a kiss. (Those kisses burn!)
The blind lead the blind in an
Everlasting near-miss.
We cry in the night shaking
Our fragmented fists.

"I am a flaming coal
On the tip of your tongues.
I burn right through your arteries
Your reigns, your hearts, and your lungs.
No more feeding Moloch our daughters,
Daughters and sons!
Children of the night cry,
'What have we done?'"

-Jon Vowell (c) 2009

Rumblings

More of the same. I can never tell if this is something good or mere blather. You be the judge.

This is a fairytale, a
Frantic fracturing of fumbling fables with
Manic metaphors and malicious magnanimity.
Ye yo-yos yearn for youth, and yell out your
Dirty deluge, and dig deep into death's dark
Shadow and shame, showering silhouettes with
Favors forgotten by fortunate fiends. For
Love is like life, and that life is the light of
Hearts hollowed whole by hated happenings,
Crushed to contain the cold concoction of
Primeval perdition. Please place all passes in the
Fire and flames, for foolishness is forged into
Righteousness, a revolution that rights all religion, and
Wakes weary wanderers from witless whims and
Brings beneath the billows the bleeding benevolence of
All-out altruism, augmented by adversity,
Sealed with sweet sounds of savor and
Favor from fearful figures that form forever the
Line lost to love and life, lifted to larger
Horizons, heaved unto hope half-heartedly
Known by the know-nothings of night knolls
That think to trap the tempest and tapestry of time in tragedy so
Divine and delicious that deeds are dumb to deliver the
Full flavor and fantasy of fulfilled fortune and
Mystery mingled with mirth and men. Memory
Calls the cold killers of childhood to catch a
Sight of seamless sounds and syllables sent sailing on
Wind and wave, wishes and whims, the water and the
Blood boiling with big business, bouncing with
Glee over golden gaps that grow with gladness,
Till the tricks and traps of timeless torture are
Lost to love and life and light let loose upon
Mere mortal malformities. Might
Cannot count the cost, cannot crawl with care, cannot
Violate vile volition, a victim of vicious vivisections and
Delusions done by deaf dealers of darkness and
Night. No one knows the new news nailed to
Every earthly enclave and encampment, except the
Still small simpletons who sold their souls for a
Cup of cold crimson cleanser, curiously cured of
Old oddities, and offered as obligatory oblation to
The towering terror that tells all tales with truth and
Beauty bound with bonds broken by
None. Never near to nothing, the Neverland nuisance
Mesmerizes our meek mimics and murmurs, until
Every evil incantation is evicted, and enlightened
Plowmen park their perilous psalms in praise of power
Fallen in form, fearless in feature, fathomless in fact.
Lift lightly your lithe limbs and limber loves, and
Sing with sounds sought by souls still sinking in
Haughty hands, heavy hearts that have heard
No knowledge of nightmares nevermore. Noise
Quietly quickens the quirks and queer quintessence of the
Shady silence where sober souls sleep and show no signs of
Fearing the phantoms fraught with force and fright,
Hallowed hauntings of heavenly heart heaved
Upon utterly unsuspecting unities unbelievably
Broken into bits, till black bowers break the back of
Countless calling caricatures that cry and cackle at
Light left lingering on the lisp of longing.
We are the weary ones. We have no webs to weave.
Leaves like luminous liquid leave our limbs, and leave us
Naked and no more, never to know the nearby
Piercing pitch of pleasure preaching and pleading:
Jesu contra mundi.
We wreak our wills with witless wanderings.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2008