deepundergroundpoetry.com
Love Poem on Theme by Whitman
3
God met my three faces at a crossroad grist mill,
wind pouring from a single nostril.
If a Ghost is Holy,
it must be alone in a space devoid,
of thought,
where being is fuselage,
in a triage of acceptable loss,
in light pouring aimless,
through a cracked window kaleidoscope,
pacing the room in ambling amputations,
in gaze lowered softly,
to the cradling grave,
where Whitman and Ginsberg,
and everyone,
have finally come,
and accepted one another.
It must be love.
Will you answer my letters,
I wrote only in thought.
Legs that rise in meters,
mornings bulge with muscle,
tense and slackening,
in earthward pistons.
Teeth ache,
and smiles remain intact,
beneath filmy skins,
shedding more slowly,
than clock second hands,
unable to be watched,
for patience lack.
Purchase me on a thrift store rack,
in humble coat of untouched dust,
for a dollar and a bargain,
for a smile and a glance.
Purchase me with fingers,
gripped in my hair.
Hurt me if you have a stomach,
to suffer retaliation.
If you’ve a perpetual engine of forgiveness,
somewhere behind your sunglasses,
and lipstick,
applied in a dance club bathroom mirror,
before and after saccharine alcohol shots.
I’ll see you in this herd of pilgrimage,
your face so like the others,
eyes so full of sadness,
you are an oasis,
and entirely alone.
Heart of loss to carry on toward Mecca,
always kneeling easterly,
gaze unwavering,
through the padded gauze screen,
and the noise of fucking and killing,
with impunity,
is hammering my rib cage,
with nonsense,
unquantifiable bleatings of an animal,
held by a dangling rope,
unable to test its slack.
Heart of meal and antimatter.
Heart of frozen cataract.
..
2
Baal,
headdress strewn with fluted strawbone fingers,
and eye knots of dark stain mahogany,
he whose name has no relevancy.
Heart of media and ore.
Who may have been mighty,
by virtue of sex and war party sacrifice,
by virtue of carven idol,
placed at a tumorous elevation,
is remembered as an afterthought,
between an ekphrastic morning sermon,
delivered between ceremonial dunkings,
a rumor of thistles,
pushed by invidious palm,
and an afternoon of sidling,
room to room,
in the rhythmic murmur,
of largely meaningless music videos,
pedaling sideshow ego.
Heart of balsamic and wormwood.
Hands that grasp me by the machine pistol,
and tug at the roots,
where nature is rendered,
into a psychologically bruised organ,
asking for the correct conditions,
for arousal.
Heart a tremble with fragile parameters,
with lunatic hope,
that you have a Babylonian fish,
in your ear,
and something compatible,
that will make ten or fifteen minutes,
of your body heat,
sustain a comparative decade,
in lack luster plastic packaging.
Heart of tesseract and flame.
Are you God or one of my three faces?
We meet at a deadlock standstill,
each unable to push the other,
(aside),
unable to warm cold limbs,
black from exposure,
unable to embrace.
Chessboard of orbital geometry,
arrows sweeping into the fathoms,
beneath your blouse and cunt,
we stand,
aching shoulders locked,
into pillories,
as decades knock a slow freight train,
beside the bed,
closet hanging with clothes,
too large,
too small,
and what currently fits,
is nothing that goes deeper,
than this,
page snow white,
iris black with impotent rage.
And I wail genius and miracles at your bored face.
And I hate nothing besides myself,
and what reminds me of me,
in you.
And I plunge the waters of ice,
and cold,
and enlightenment,
into the rent cavities,
of my ragged upturned palms.
And I pause to take a piss,
before I walk the hall,
to what duty awaits.
What’s for dinner tonight?
What was for dinner last night?
I can’t remember.
And by some power,
that pours,
perpetually,
from absolute nothing,
sustain,
in tesseract and flame.
..
1
The God we know manifests from intent.
My God must be loneliness,
foetal posture,
in a unwombed void,
though I know,
there is something,
beyond a glass,
forgotten,
sitting emptied of content,
of ink,
and your mercurial tenderness,
denied,
whimsical,
with a child’s evil,
into a peripheral blur.
Knowings I,
(necessary madness redact),
deem tertiary to function,
in this blue abyssal,
baying for insatiable suckle,
in far flung mists creeping,
like unperturbed godhead,
form a hard kernel abscess,
somewhere between longing hours,
bundled into acceptable pill form,
coated for distaste of tongue.
Read away the silence,
my voice fills up,
with experience from other.
Watch something happening,
that isn’t familiar tread,
in prison hamster circles,
in pain that chisels me,
into something more symmetrical,
some white eyed bust,
we can loathe,
a bit less.
Exercise,
tear,
and recover,
this flesh,
praying in absentia,
that structural bone,
withstands,
force and fracture.
And I stand on the wreck of mistakes,
and won’t bend,
to forge a crystalline star,
from shrapnel,
sharp in my hip flexors,
moaning with ignored complaint.
Miles are mute,
beneath this well tread mill.
Silence is a God absent,
of tenderness,
full up with Holy,
Holy.
Remember something,
anything,
that had roots in happiness,
in the terror of trying,
something different,
in being somewhere,
other.
Pain is my weakness,
that in youth,
was thought strength,
now,
to lie in dust,
making manageable piles,
into artisanal forms,
is enough to pass an evening.
Rank,
file,
column,
serial and number,
emptied of context,
remnants of dreams,
shoved into the corner of a sock drawer.
Observed form,
emptied of the bile,
that stills and cools,
in a pressure release mantra,
in the belly of some whale,
denying its commanded purpose.
And I am wracked by the rankling brow,
that smooths itself by virtue of wisdoms,
amassed,
answer me everything,
with soothing clinical imperfection,
with hands raised on splayed knees,
eyes stilled,
in a lidded brow.
Buddha laughing with me,
always with me,
and never derisive.
Zoroaster calming winds,
with wave of palm.
Nietzsche crackling with naked madness,
dancing with lusting fire sway,
intimate to my neurology,
thundering with Celcius absolute zero,
skeletal inertial grip,
upon this misted rocket ship,
with absolute interlocking certainty,
with everything.
With the forehead eye of Zeno,
blinking at a midnight stoplight,
which blinks back,
in companionable metronome.
And I am wild misbegotten sooth,
that bleeds from healed wounds,
in the hands,
feet,
in the drawn flank,
pierced by wrought iron,
and the needs of many,
filling the coffers of few.
And I am standing,
on the shoulders of allegory,
strong,
somehow,
in all this heap of welded broken,
babbling calmly in stream of memory,
rise,
in breath phantoms,
of steam,
and trans-orbital circumlocution.
We have made the calculations,
and everything checks out.
Geometry,
both Euclidean and Analytic,
concurs.
We have a usable window.
Jupiter and Saturn aligning,
in Aquarius,
we can feel,
in tesseract and flame.
We have lift off.
..
Love Poem on Theme by Whitman,
by,
o filos sou, o drakos
God met my three faces at a crossroad grist mill,
wind pouring from a single nostril.
If a Ghost is Holy,
it must be alone in a space devoid,
of thought,
where being is fuselage,
in a triage of acceptable loss,
in light pouring aimless,
through a cracked window kaleidoscope,
pacing the room in ambling amputations,
in gaze lowered softly,
to the cradling grave,
where Whitman and Ginsberg,
and everyone,
have finally come,
and accepted one another.
It must be love.
Will you answer my letters,
I wrote only in thought.
Legs that rise in meters,
mornings bulge with muscle,
tense and slackening,
in earthward pistons.
Teeth ache,
and smiles remain intact,
beneath filmy skins,
shedding more slowly,
than clock second hands,
unable to be watched,
for patience lack.
Purchase me on a thrift store rack,
in humble coat of untouched dust,
for a dollar and a bargain,
for a smile and a glance.
Purchase me with fingers,
gripped in my hair.
Hurt me if you have a stomach,
to suffer retaliation.
If you’ve a perpetual engine of forgiveness,
somewhere behind your sunglasses,
and lipstick,
applied in a dance club bathroom mirror,
before and after saccharine alcohol shots.
I’ll see you in this herd of pilgrimage,
your face so like the others,
eyes so full of sadness,
you are an oasis,
and entirely alone.
Heart of loss to carry on toward Mecca,
always kneeling easterly,
gaze unwavering,
through the padded gauze screen,
and the noise of fucking and killing,
with impunity,
is hammering my rib cage,
with nonsense,
unquantifiable bleatings of an animal,
held by a dangling rope,
unable to test its slack.
Heart of meal and antimatter.
Heart of frozen cataract.
..
2
Baal,
headdress strewn with fluted strawbone fingers,
and eye knots of dark stain mahogany,
he whose name has no relevancy.
Heart of media and ore.
Who may have been mighty,
by virtue of sex and war party sacrifice,
by virtue of carven idol,
placed at a tumorous elevation,
is remembered as an afterthought,
between an ekphrastic morning sermon,
delivered between ceremonial dunkings,
a rumor of thistles,
pushed by invidious palm,
and an afternoon of sidling,
room to room,
in the rhythmic murmur,
of largely meaningless music videos,
pedaling sideshow ego.
Heart of balsamic and wormwood.
Hands that grasp me by the machine pistol,
and tug at the roots,
where nature is rendered,
into a psychologically bruised organ,
asking for the correct conditions,
for arousal.
Heart a tremble with fragile parameters,
with lunatic hope,
that you have a Babylonian fish,
in your ear,
and something compatible,
that will make ten or fifteen minutes,
of your body heat,
sustain a comparative decade,
in lack luster plastic packaging.
Heart of tesseract and flame.
Are you God or one of my three faces?
We meet at a deadlock standstill,
each unable to push the other,
(aside),
unable to warm cold limbs,
black from exposure,
unable to embrace.
Chessboard of orbital geometry,
arrows sweeping into the fathoms,
beneath your blouse and cunt,
we stand,
aching shoulders locked,
into pillories,
as decades knock a slow freight train,
beside the bed,
closet hanging with clothes,
too large,
too small,
and what currently fits,
is nothing that goes deeper,
than this,
page snow white,
iris black with impotent rage.
And I wail genius and miracles at your bored face.
And I hate nothing besides myself,
and what reminds me of me,
in you.
And I plunge the waters of ice,
and cold,
and enlightenment,
into the rent cavities,
of my ragged upturned palms.
And I pause to take a piss,
before I walk the hall,
to what duty awaits.
What’s for dinner tonight?
What was for dinner last night?
I can’t remember.
And by some power,
that pours,
perpetually,
from absolute nothing,
sustain,
in tesseract and flame.
..
1
The God we know manifests from intent.
My God must be loneliness,
foetal posture,
in a unwombed void,
though I know,
there is something,
beyond a glass,
forgotten,
sitting emptied of content,
of ink,
and your mercurial tenderness,
denied,
whimsical,
with a child’s evil,
into a peripheral blur.
Knowings I,
(necessary madness redact),
deem tertiary to function,
in this blue abyssal,
baying for insatiable suckle,
in far flung mists creeping,
like unperturbed godhead,
form a hard kernel abscess,
somewhere between longing hours,
bundled into acceptable pill form,
coated for distaste of tongue.
Read away the silence,
my voice fills up,
with experience from other.
Watch something happening,
that isn’t familiar tread,
in prison hamster circles,
in pain that chisels me,
into something more symmetrical,
some white eyed bust,
we can loathe,
a bit less.
Exercise,
tear,
and recover,
this flesh,
praying in absentia,
that structural bone,
withstands,
force and fracture.
And I stand on the wreck of mistakes,
and won’t bend,
to forge a crystalline star,
from shrapnel,
sharp in my hip flexors,
moaning with ignored complaint.
Miles are mute,
beneath this well tread mill.
Silence is a God absent,
of tenderness,
full up with Holy,
Holy.
Remember something,
anything,
that had roots in happiness,
in the terror of trying,
something different,
in being somewhere,
other.
Pain is my weakness,
that in youth,
was thought strength,
now,
to lie in dust,
making manageable piles,
into artisanal forms,
is enough to pass an evening.
Rank,
file,
column,
serial and number,
emptied of context,
remnants of dreams,
shoved into the corner of a sock drawer.
Observed form,
emptied of the bile,
that stills and cools,
in a pressure release mantra,
in the belly of some whale,
denying its commanded purpose.
And I am wracked by the rankling brow,
that smooths itself by virtue of wisdoms,
amassed,
answer me everything,
with soothing clinical imperfection,
with hands raised on splayed knees,
eyes stilled,
in a lidded brow.
Buddha laughing with me,
always with me,
and never derisive.
Zoroaster calming winds,
with wave of palm.
Nietzsche crackling with naked madness,
dancing with lusting fire sway,
intimate to my neurology,
thundering with Celcius absolute zero,
skeletal inertial grip,
upon this misted rocket ship,
with absolute interlocking certainty,
with everything.
With the forehead eye of Zeno,
blinking at a midnight stoplight,
which blinks back,
in companionable metronome.
And I am wild misbegotten sooth,
that bleeds from healed wounds,
in the hands,
feet,
in the drawn flank,
pierced by wrought iron,
and the needs of many,
filling the coffers of few.
And I am standing,
on the shoulders of allegory,
strong,
somehow,
in all this heap of welded broken,
babbling calmly in stream of memory,
rise,
in breath phantoms,
of steam,
and trans-orbital circumlocution.
We have made the calculations,
and everything checks out.
Geometry,
both Euclidean and Analytic,
concurs.
We have a usable window.
Jupiter and Saturn aligning,
in Aquarius,
we can feel,
in tesseract and flame.
We have lift off.
..
Love Poem on Theme by Whitman,
by,
o filos sou, o drakos
Published 22nd Dec 2020
Author's Note
Copyright © 2020 by Daniel Christensen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
likes 26
reading list entries 15
comments 26
reads 4074
Commenting Preference:
The author encourages honest critique.
22nd Dec 2020 1:21am
22nd Dec 2020 6:35pm
22nd Dec 2020 3:34am
Holy man.!. Fantastic pour... You've covered a to z and Buddha to Zoroaster beautifuly here with your twist of insight... I'll be reading and rereading the depths of deep thought portrayed in a complex yet simple manner... "standing on the shoulders of you allegory" great poetry... fantastically portrayed from an interesting mind 🔥🔥
22nd Dec 2020 6:39pm
Elias I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. I've been reading Ginsberg and have learned from him a couple of techniques I am calling soft tangent and anchoring line. He tends toward these brief but charged rants that have a lot of passion in them. I keep returning to that line beginning with Heart, as an anchor that flows throughout the poem. Above all, Ginsberg turns his private woes into strengths by being so open about them, I found that particularly inspiring. It's always a joy to appreciate others and learn from them. 💖🙏
23rd Dec 2020 7:02pm
Upon reading your comment to this lol... I glance over my shoulder at some Ginsberg "Deliberate Prose" I discovered a little while back... I completely understand what you mean about his powerful passionate rants... they can be captivating in a style different from the others... leaves you feeling the charge... 🔥
22nd Dec 2020 12:26pm
Wow - I'm often frustrated by my inability to read long poems... but this held me all the way through - twice! I love your vocabulary and obvious breadth of knowledge. Although I can't pretend to understand all the intricacies of meaning (yet), the feeling comes through (especially in part 2, for me).
I'm not much of a critiquer, but I'll just mention that your use of commas distracted me a bit - I felt many of them were unnecessary, as the phrasing they suggested was already signalled by the end of a line. But it may just be that your poetic punctuation choices are different than mine! And of course, it matters not if one is just listening and not reading...
Happy Solstice! I'm going to keep this one and hopefully come back to ponder some of its meanings in greater depth.
Bravo!
❤ k
I'm not much of a critiquer, but I'll just mention that your use of commas distracted me a bit - I felt many of them were unnecessary, as the phrasing they suggested was already signalled by the end of a line. But it may just be that your poetic punctuation choices are different than mine! And of course, it matters not if one is just listening and not reading...
Happy Solstice! I'm going to keep this one and hopefully come back to ponder some of its meanings in greater depth.
Bravo!
❤ k
22nd Dec 2020 6:43pm
Absolutely the commas were a format I was playing with, as I try to keep the writes changing. I connected each line by a comma and ended with a period, for a sense continuity and then of finality. Also I decided to delve a bit more into the abstract in this one, inspired by my friend Nomoth, who has an absolutely mastery of economic, imbued images that convey so much in few words. I try to learn from everything I experience, with mixed results. Also I have been reading Ginsberg and picking up technique there. Check out what I wrote to Elias above about that. Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. 💖🙏
22nd Dec 2020 7:41pm
This poem, like many of your poems, is a mad explosion of sketch and impression, little flashes of image and persona in a sprawling chaotic landscape. The sheer length of this one threw me a bit given how there’s no clear narrative line, and I think it would be better chopped up into several posts. But it has a crazed intensity that kept me reading. I feel like the poem is about the struggle for self-actualisation and connection with others.
22nd Dec 2020 8:29pm
Absolutely you hit on the heart of the poem, which is the heart of romantic love, I think, the desire to share our loneliness and, by sharing, arrive at those beautifully brief moments where we truly feel seen and understood. I love the bit about sketch and impression. Thank you so much. 🙏💖
Too may effing complicated things to say why I love this:
I'll try - pure inspiration - you dare brighten the corners - you know your weakness but you know/trust the eye in your heart - like a dream where you find a jewel...then another...then another - love is everything, open, the way, the honest source to overwhelm the cruelty - we all have photographic memory - 'We have a usable window"...you say this after all that...magic, a pinprick in a dream. I could go on.
POM naturally but you won it already you bastard, so I can't.
I'll try - pure inspiration - you dare brighten the corners - you know your weakness but you know/trust the eye in your heart - like a dream where you find a jewel...then another...then another - love is everything, open, the way, the honest source to overwhelm the cruelty - we all have photographic memory - 'We have a usable window"...you say this after all that...magic, a pinprick in a dream. I could go on.
POM naturally but you won it already you bastard, so I can't.
22nd Dec 2020 8:35pm
lol after three POM wins they kick you out and that's fine. Plenty of us here deserving to shine for a moment. 💖🙏 I had you in mind when I was writing this, which indeed hit me like a fever dream, picking up jewels as I went, so well intuited that it gives me great joy. I wrote it all in an hour yesterday, just reading, rereading and adding lines as I went, filling it out. Check out the comment I left Elias. I picked up some technique from Ginsberg and I loved how unafraid he was to be intimate, to expose his weakness, fear, ugliness. From you I've glimpsed the potent alchemy of metaphoric images that are so deeply imbued with unspoken meaning, truth and vulnerability, though I could never approach your ability, your writing has been as meaningful to me as anyone we hold up on pedestals for their wide renown and voice now ensconced in thick tomes.
It is always a privilege and honor my friend.
It is always a privilege and honor my friend.
22nd Dec 2020 8:49pm
Well I personally believe, in a ideal world, we should be billionaires, maybe with a few others here (some who have gone missing).
You are both a friendly, and warm encouraging rub on the shoulder and an inspiring slap/wake-up-call in the face.
Honor is mine.
You are both a friendly, and warm encouraging rub on the shoulder and an inspiring slap/wake-up-call in the face.
Honor is mine.
Beautiful schematics drawn in perfect wording of a life accumulated. Ginsberg would love this poem, methinks. I know I do 💜.
22nd Dec 2020 8:09pm
23rd Dec 2020 3:46am
23rd Dec 2020 4:51am
24th Dec 2020 2:09am
24th Dec 2020 4:47am
I think this a testament of brilliance and skill, both in written form and in verbal presentation. Once the music hit, I knew this was going to be epic and you certainly took us a journey Daniel.
It is truly a masterpiece.
It is truly a masterpiece.
25th Dec 2020 3:44am
Walter thank you so much. I have been reading a lot of Ginsberg and wanted to try out some technique I picked up in the reading, but more saliently, I was moved by how personal he would get, how he would talk about the things he didn't like about himself and I appreciated the courage of that, so I decided I would write something in that spirit.
24th Dec 2020 9:58pm
Truly epic - I never use that word lightly. Funnily enough, was watching a televised play of when Whitman met Oscar Wilde. Funny pair of old buggers. Rob
I guess that's where we all end up if we step over enough potholes along a time line. lol Thank you Rob. Experimenting with a bit more abstract metaphor here and trying to talk a bit more about my interior life, things I've been appreciating in the writings of Allen Ginsberg that I've been bingeing. 1116 page anthology of his work which will probably be the longest book I've read. Idk War and Peace was thick enough to stand on in a flood and stay dry.
I really appreciate it my friend. I'm always hoping to improve my technique and dig down to something meaningful, with varying degrees of success. 🍻
I really appreciate it my friend. I'm always hoping to improve my technique and dig down to something meaningful, with varying degrees of success. 🍻
Anonymous
- Edited 18th Nov 2021 8:45pm
2nd Jan 2021 11:10am
<< post removed >>
2nd Jan 2021 8:57pm
Thank you so much for such perceptive insight, reading not with bias, but with open heart and mind, it is such a gift and I appreciate it with all my heart. 💖🎶🙏 I couldn't have explained the entire journey of this write better.
I really enjoyed your expression in many of the metaphors you’ve written here . And when I think I understand the meaning it changes. My view changes . I simple do not have the fortitude to interpret this correctly Daniel but for me what this means to me, was beautiful for what I understand this all to mean ☺️
I think this is about love but also history and love therein. The love you speak about is compared to many things here but also for the past . Maybe you compare your love to that which you also love.
I gave it my best my best shot :)
I will say
Will you answer my letters,
I wrote only in thought.
And
Purchase me on a thrift store rack,
in humble coat of untouched dust,
for a dollar and a bargain,
for a smile and a glance. << god
Then I realize this is about god / religion
But Man U can spill
Thanks for sharing Daniel
Really something this piece is layered
Always
Jackie 🤗🌹
I think this is about love but also history and love therein. The love you speak about is compared to many things here but also for the past . Maybe you compare your love to that which you also love.
I gave it my best my best shot :)
I will say
Will you answer my letters,
I wrote only in thought.
And
Purchase me on a thrift store rack,
in humble coat of untouched dust,
for a dollar and a bargain,
for a smile and a glance. << god
Then I realize this is about god / religion
But Man U can spill
Thanks for sharing Daniel
Really something this piece is layered
Always
Jackie 🤗🌹
2nd May 2023 8:17pm
Daniel, I came across your poem while researching Ginsberg/Whitman for an immersive dance theater piece we are making. With your permission, we would love to use an excerpt from it in our performance piece that goes up in a couple of weeks. "1968: The Whole World Is Watching." We're a Houston based non-profit dance theater company and while we would pay you for the rights to include it. (Open Dance Project, www.opendanceproject.org) I hope this comment will actually reach you - as I'm not sure how else to contact you. Feel free to email me directly at annie@opendanceproject.org if you're willing to talk about the possibility. - Thank you!
3rd May 2023 4:50pm
Hi Annie I would be honored to contribute to your project. I will email you soon.
