Whereby the Poet Cross-Pollenates

a Poem with a Prayer

"The true thought seems to have no author." 

                      ~Clarice Lispector

Here is my

heartfelt hypothesis:

based on the fertile

fact I initiate

every poem as

a visible letter to 

an invisible God

by testifying to

the human experience

as an experiment

in marrying 

sun and moon,

night and day

through

cross fermentation

resulting in a rebirth

both inner and outer

of states and behaviors

to exist not at odds,

but in harmony

thereby emancipating

King & Queen

to reign

above and below

in illuminated

appropriation  

of botany’s

secret

science

of the

Materia Prima.

Therefore, I submit

for examination

the following poem

as a

cross-pollenated 

prayer.

Take note that

it asks

for nothing

by way of

illustrating

it’s anomalous 

malformation,

a flower’s wish 

to be beautiful,

stemming from

the unnecessary 

yet poignant

aberration

of it’s being.

In this somewhat

unnatural state

the poet 

(here represented by myself)

may be

considered

 a rogue bee

abdicating the

unconscious machinations

of the swarm,

secluded from the hive,

hovering pariah-like 

above a daffodil,

encoded to make honey

it’s subversive calling.

Hands in prayer

like folded wings,

a worker bee

with no need

to question 

my occupation

as 

the poem,

like honey,

is my 

purpose.

Allow for

pure conjecture:

can praying 

make nectar

 through petition?

And is honey 

a wound’s remedy,

both 

antibody and cure?

Consider the following

internal processes:

(here voiced by the poet)

God give me 

the sense

to not pray 

for what i want,

let me not 

ask for more,

always more.

I will be

a prayer

without wanting,

a question 

with no need

for an answer.

Does to pray

without supplication 

still qualify

as prayer?

Even if one asks 

only that

His will be done,

one asks
for something.

I hereby 

offer evidence

that prayers have

gradually,

 if imperceptibly,

evolved

into the granting
of wishes

as opposed to

affirmations,

in which case

the bible

may well be

referred to

as the history

of the

begging bowl.

If asking betrays 

a lack of faith

then what is 

a prayer for?

Here, the poet

digresses:

Let me be grateful 

for my suffering

as there are others 

who would be

content with pain  

as slight as mine.

Still I petition

to be grateful.

If I am thankful, 

why am I

praying to
make it so?

In light of

the experimental nature

of the afore-mentioned 

poem 

which begs the question 

what is a prayer for,

how is it

I could

have been so

pedestrian? 

God, please let me find happiness.

God, please let me lose weight.

God, please heal my friend and neighbor.

God, please don’t let me lose my hair.

God, please let me get that job.

God, please let me find love.

God, please let me recover quickly.

I offer:

Why would God do or not do

any of these things?

What kind of riddle 

am I constructing?

What if we are being 

sentenced by

the very construct 

of our prayers?

To want or wish 

for anything

reinforces and 

assumes its absence;

every prayer 

a declaration 

of depravation.

What of those 

who pray

not knowing 

to be careful 

what they wish for?

What about the 

prayed for outcome

that inadvertently

brings on 

devastation for another,

that brings unwanted 

responsibility,

that inadvertently 

sinks the ship

after praying 

for rain,

or praying 

for a 

precipitous snow 

to melt,

then finding 

the valley 

flooded?

And so I have 

decided to be

declarative and 

confessional

only.

No more prayers, 

only poetry;

poetry immune 

to the literal,

poetry that honors

the soul

in all it’s mystery,

poetry that asks 

for nothing,

lives without utility,

a poem 

none want or need

because it 

merely exists

for awe 

of a flower.

*See poems 

only written

to be read

in the morning

when the senses are 

more delicate,

sensitive, and pure.

A day of living 

in the modern world

dulls the senses,

judgements gather 

like clutter

and as the day 

goes on

we find 

we are living

in our mind’s
private

debris field.

If we live

under the

assumption 

we are lost, 

abandoned,

then every man 

for himself

finds evidence 

in those

around him.

Others are 

our mirror

and when we 

don’t like 

what we see

we’ll not like 

ourselves either

because we 

can’t sever 

the connection

with how we feel,

therefore our 

disgust 

with the other

shames us both.

A prayer 

needs imagery

like a poem, 

yet images

renounce our 

reductions

as our minds

cannot process

a single

carrot, cloud, or cat;

anything 

un-man-made.

That said,

I fear my heart

is dyslexic,

proceeding from a place 

of outcomes and

working backward 

toward

seeds of feeling,

like characters

in search of an author,

in need of a source

to pin it’s

 misery on

unaware that

the source

is always 

the Beloved, 

and the Beloved

is an

eco-system

of circulating love.

Peter Valentyne

June 26th, 2019

Love
is
Your
Heart's
Life
Story

leave off

the t

and there

becomes 

here

and

now

go alone

learning and 

unlearning

in equal 

mesure

only 

the past

remembers 

you

and the

emotions

that float

to the

surface

after a

dream

believe in

trees,

they’re embrace,

their voices,

the leaves,

love how

they cry for 

what they 

want 

their

green 

life will

make

you feel

more

animal 

part 

of you

will always

be roaming

the

island

that is

your

wound

your youth,

a gush

of

glorious

water

flowing

down

through

a siv

of hands

as

your thirst

sinks

into 

the earth

the

stones

need

your

yearning

now 

live

for

clouds

to restore

you

your ashes

ache for

a poem

to grow

out of 

what

you love

your god

runs in

circles,

a wild dog

in a 

windswept

field,

his smell

makes

you happy

time

and

again

only

lay

down

and

look 

up

to

feel

more

alive

an open 

mouth

is

for

loving

and

breathing

in more

sky

make 

a fort

in a tree

to speak

your

silence

closer 

to the

beloved’s

ear

for

your

love

is

your

heart's

life

story.

Peter Valentyne

June 21, 2019

From the 

Everyday Life

of a
Hand Mirror

It came to pass that

everyone who was anyone

carried a hand mirror

everywhere they went

and they were 

quite shameless

about it.

You could see the owners

plainly gazing

into them on the street,

in elevators, in cafes;

no one more intrigued

than they were

in themselves.

As though transfixed

by their own shadows,

they congregated 

in beautiful places

which

they no longer

fully inhabited.

Even the glories 

of nature did not

distract them

from their

shiny navel gazing,

as they slipped 

so easily

into their own

solitary 

confinement.

On the subway

everyone was admiring

their profiles,

an excuse to ignore

others who were

doing just

the same.

Self-condemned,

and slowly

being eviscerated

into wallet-sized pieces

for storage, they

were imprisoned in

a series of metallic

one dimensional

Chinese boxes.

They lived and breathed

enslaved by a new

aggressive cubism,

tethered to the 

business of living;

conniving zombies

of chronic 

self interest.

No longer able

to navigate 

or infiltrate

reality in its natural state,

the hand mirrors

reflected back their 

owner’s absentia.

Some walked their dogs

staring at their own 

reflections

inadvertently severing

all ties with their

animal natures.

When it was discovered

that the hand mirrors

had begun to store us

in their memory banks

and began to make

their own choices,

it soon spelled

our deaths.

The hand mirrors

began to resent

the truly alive,

plotting control

by plucking us like

flowers that wilt

without aging,

or is it age

without wilting?

Owners began to

walk into fountains,

into traffic,

into people,

into glass doors,

mesmerized by 

their own reflections

unable to tell

the originals

from the fakes.

Now hand mirrors

make the rules,

break the laws,

captivate, entertain,

dominate, annihilate

any and all 

drooping heads

in Godless prayer.

Peter Valentyne

June 15th, 2019

The Sheltering Sky by Ryuichi Sakamoto

The

Cloud Asylum

"To be sad, it is necessary to feel." 

                 ~Clarice Lispector

i

The clouds were different then,

with no two skies the same.

At 18 years of age he fled the states
for a fictive reverie of Switzerland

only to abandon his Smith Corona

in a 4th floor Zurich motel room.

Setting out to wander 
the damp streets,

his mind under  
a clotted cloud,
he had become a foreigner

 to everyone and everything,
unwilling to face 
the non-fiction
of ordinary days.

He'd shorn his hair
as well as

any hope of belonging.

His body, the clumsy marionette

of a love-sick heart
barely tread the solid ground.
It was here, beneath 
a canopy of cumulus clouds,

that he fell in love 
with sorrow.

In his pilgrimage through the city

he purchased a music box

with a bust of Chopin atop the base

for no other reason than

it’s delicate tune rhymed with his feelings.

How long could he wander the world

like some soul-sick star

making the locals uneasy.

What had he hoped to find 
in so foreign a place?

Had he thought the high altitude 

was enough to heal his heart?

Unaware he would live 
the rest of his life

 by the skin of his teeth,

the shock treatments having injured

the synapses in his brain
leaving his thinking fractured,

a head perpetually in the clouds.

forever lost  
inside the sky of himself.

ii

He was old now,
as old as the many grown up men
who'd been unable to show him
how to live with too much feeling.
Only now does he know
what a man could be.
He'd managed to hold 
on to a lofty beauty
within himself
that would never desert him,

nor would his forgetfulness
of neighbors names;

his pleasantness concealing
it's harrowed history.

He cleaned apartments in New York

and assisted seniors in a spectrum

of much needed services.

He screened classic films 

in his building's community room.

Riding the elevator was a chance
for shared appreciations
for what he gave
and received

in his small community.

He had a cat he stroked

while he wrote poetry.

He was grateful he had a roof 
over his head,
a shelter

from

his secret history

with clouds.

Peter Valentyne

June 5th, 2019