This week's Poet of the People is local arts activist and icon, Bentz Kirby. His poetry utilizes self-examination with a dose of grace and humility and we are better for it. Unafraid to grow, he will soon add MFA to his long list of accomplishments.
Bio: Bentz Kirby lives in the Rosewood area of Columbia, South Carolina. Educated first as a social worker and later a lawyer, he has been writing poetry since around 1969. A survivor of a Sudden Cardiac Arrest, he is a big fan of Automated External Defibrillators. Other than enjoying life with his wife, May, their children and a brood of pets, he writes and performs music with his friends.
Failures
Failures from the past should
hold no sway in the
arena where missteps accrue.
Imagining us seated on a pew
with worshipers at Mass
or in a strict teacher’s class.
Chalise contains toxic brew,
without a promised breakthrough.
Behavior clings, bound fast
to patterns and fate cast by trauma.
Days of queued rolling rocks.
Absurd hero, false faces,
ingrained strife, prevents
pursuit of life.
These failures slice like the dull knife, or
live birth without midwife.
Infrastructure
Trauma creates defensive strategies to
Escape pain, unwelcome memories.
Strategies create mechanisms to layer
Protection on the frightened child
By forgetting unwelcome memories.
Eventually, coping mechanisms construct
An infrastructure to protect this child,
And for a while,
It works.
Eventually the child matures, but not
Beyond the fear.
This infrastructure becomes a jail,
Protection becomes an impediment
To the adult.
Yesterday resides within internal infrastructure,
Prohibiting today’s garden from growing
Unless the child can dismantle coping devices
Creating space for all desires — to blossom.
Ritual for Submission
I submit the following,
this mechanical world consumes all to
ensure your capitulation.
Stop, pause, listen to the magic,
whether you believe or not. Give thanks — grass, flower,
bee, hummingbird observe your response.
Faeries dance among stones on hillsides while you
believe in Santa Claus, but disbelieve in faeries.
Mushrooms, birds, dogs, and cats who
speak in the forgotten language.
Pretending you are not blind and
accommodating the unholy
calling you to obscure this one true language
we should hear. Religion assimilates imprinted rituals,
leaving you forever forgetting all you know.
until we no longer listen to the trees and
mushrooms who speak the one true language.
Theia
Sounds welled above labyrinth, breaking glass
Startled us, awaiting in the womb
Secured by fairies, like us, once chained,
By stunted hollow disbelief, a construct
Of Gaia, Uranus, twelve Titians and magic --
Dawn, sun, moon, gold, shining glass reveal Theia.
Blue-sky, wide-shining, fails to dim Theia,
She who reigns over silver, gems and glass.
Giving sight to those who seek her magic.
Eos, Helios, Selene from her womb
Reveal Titans blueprints for their construct
Obscured by disbelief and those in chains,
Blinded from birth and accepting our chains
Denying the glowing face of Theia.
Men attempt to create their doomed construct,
Science built to shatter myths into glass.
Umbilical torn, scattered from the womb
Blasphemers scoffing, denying real magic.
We obscure life, magicians lack alchemical magic,
Crafting spells while the abyss creates our chains.
Expunging knowledge existing before the womb.
We forget the Titans and gifts born by Theia,
Appropriating mirror images, breaking glass
Allowing illusions to replace the construct.
Illusion births illusion, we create false constructs,
Deluded generations deny unerring magic
Creating sight through a murky glass.
Leaden mental deception, conceals our chains
Restraining our eyes from perceiving Theia’s
Previous prophecies embedded within her womb.
Dawn, Sun, moon, children sprung forth from womb,
Light beams reveal destiny and unavoidable constructs.
Radiant intrinsic value issues forth from Theia.
Mortal men observe such light as magic
Believing removes obstructions, we are unchained,
Heroes see face to face beyond dark glass.
From this womb proceeds what we call magic,
From beyond this construct we are in fact unchained,
From Goddess Theia all light illuminates through glass.