The Mission

Part I: Why I Write
a. Young lust

True poetry can be found on this earth.
I lusted for her once.
She . . .
had eyes, deep and dark,
as the space between stars,
as the eternity ‘tween thoughts.

She . . .
was wild and of the earth.
Feral and magical, she hummed with the ground.
Poetry beaded off her skin, tellurian:
like the dusky dawn chanting of Shamans.

A pure tincture of poetry and passion charged
through her veins,
illuminating her skin.

She saw visions
and through her
I did as well . . .

This is not why I write.

b. Then and Now

Then:
Meaning was wrung from life
and left to dry on the rack.
Then:
The juice of poetry dribbled
down
our
chins and only the pit remained.
I did not stop to enjoy the fruit.
So heady was the Quest for Truth and Beauty
that I took to interrogating her with harsh light and demanding tones.
Her wondering moans of pity and fear still haunt me in the darker
tender times of night.

Now:
I am of a softer disposition.
Beauty must be encountered like a deer in the field,
taken for the wonder it is
and stalked delicately for every additional moment
one has in its company.
Truth must be recognized in the crowd,
like a long lost friend one has not met before.

c. Command

Poetry must not be written
not be created.
Breathe poetry. Drink poetry.
love poetry. FUCK poetry.
Worship poetry, then whisper sublime wonders in her ear.
Smoke a cigarette with poetry in bed.
Warm yourself with hot chocolate and poetry.
Run to poetry’s house in the rain.
Scream and don’t stop screaming til she comes out.
Kiss poetry with the kisses of your mouth.
Promise poetry you’ll never leave her.
Love poetry.

Part II: Why I Fight
a. Preamble

I’ve been writing ever since I could remember.
In fact
my life can only be proven through creation.
By all accounts
my life began when I put words on paper
into the souls of the world.

To live well,
what one creates must be beauty.

I stand here
knowing my life is no longer mine alone.

Tremble.

b. Reminisces

Once she kissed me and her lips felt like the shed scales of a snake.
I wanted to draw back in fear
in revulsion
but I dove deeper hoping to make soft whatever appeared rough.
To find beauty hidden among the discarded skins and lies.
Her eyes were like the soft mud of the earth
as was her hair, and her beauty was something I created.
I did not want her for her body.

c. Present Time

One day I will look back on my time here,
and I will see only words,
echoing in the hearts
of friends and former lovers.
Each one chosen carefully to
elevate the potential inherent in mundanity.
Poetry is raising the sparks.

d. Reminisces II.

Once -
Her back up against the glass of a bus stop -
I -
her nose with a single blemish and our bodies pressed together
at awkward positions -
told -
even while in embrace, my mouth moved against hers
with its own purposes
her -
all my eyes could see were her, her face, her lips, her eyes,
the poetry beneath the vision of her skin, the faint hum of her breath
that –
every inch of her was beautiful.

For a while
we both believed it.
We used to listen for each others’ heartbeats, gasping like fish out of their bowls.

I did not want her for her heart.

e. The Mission

I walk with my neck at odd angles.
I listen for the poetry of the world.
It is found in disparate places:

the squawking of geese
the insistence of car horns
the percolating pot of coffee
the bird calls of early morning
or late afternoon
the last school bell
the music of Spanish Harlem
the beat box on the street
the lilting dialogue of Black women.

I search frantically, wildly, desperate for beauty.
Smells are beautiful. Touch is beautiful.
She tasted beautiful; the poetry I found in her was of lilacs and vanilla,
brown sugar and cinnamon, jasmine and chamomile.

I did not come here for pleasant faces and witty exchange,
for the haughty aloofness of youth in art.
I do not care for your hearts or your minds,
your opinions, your politics, your affectations!
(“The opposite of love isn’t hate; it is indifference”)
But I did not come for your love,
I came for your souls!

Beloved:
I came for your soul.


~jss
12/03

more from the vault of josh's maddeningly prolific literary past

Pulse

Now
in the forever
Now
spiking crystal spires
tearing armageddon holes in the sky
then
and Now
I press my
fingers to the flesh of my forearm.

Pulse.

dew drops of imagination
fusing in the ionosphere and
when they fall
they shatter just
like dreams, frozen.

Now and Then
I wonder, steal
glimpses of a future forbidden
I ponder stealing
and other glamorous sins
written in the stars.

Pulse.

in the
forever. Now
arrogant towers of purity
and Truth tear apocalypse holes
punching wide and raggedly rending dreams.
Then
and Now.

I gently ponder loving
in the dark.
No one can see me.
I hope
You understand?
I am not a disembodied heartbeat
nor an eidolon, phantom-like ideal
I am pulsating memory & purpose tentatively approaching infinity
forever eternal Now.

~josh schwartz
4/23/02

Hey everybody. I hope you enjoy this poem from my sophomore year in high school.
On the upside, it was one i read on NPR!

Meditations on a Dying Woman

The streets are overcrowded with salable goods
and people too sick to move
and people too sick to live - without someone else
telling them how ...
In the midst of all the refuse, rotting fruits and animals,
struggling workers tearing at their bonds that they’ve been told
bind them.
Walking along on the street of metaphors,
between the beggars painted gold, dancing away their lives, for a buck
and all the almost corporeal odors, that have been here so long
they pay rent ... a woman dies.
On the corner of Society Avenue and Universe Drive,
In Symbolism, Illinois, someone falls and can’t get up.
A scream wriggles free from the claustrophobic crush
of the Communists and heterosexuals. Shop owners sweep their brooms.
Kids just out of school stand atop boxes preaching
to their congregation of the unfeeling masses about a Utopia.
And a cancer patient, female, age 32, slips on the sweetly disguised black ice,
feels her feet slide out from under her
feels gravity and other natural laws betray her and laugh cruelly.
Her head strikes the corner of a box containing oranges all the way from Flahrida.
Suddenly there is enough room for her to die.
Meanwhile, prophets preach, children complain, and children’s programming plays on.
A man who had been playing guitar and singing about freedom with responsibility
puts down his yogurt and rushes to the poor woman.
“Those poor people” grumble the suits as they step over around her and move on.
The guitar playing man lifts her head off the cold inhospitable sidewalk.
Her blood bids her body goodnight and abandons ship
her red blood pumps from the heart to the outside world
and her benefactor realizes he has her life in his hands
he resists the urge to rinse them off
but the blood won’t stop
bleeding unclotted and he’s scared
and prophets without a god preach about a perfect world
and a woman dies
and good Americans stand proudly with their country
and a woman lies bleeding on the unsympathetic concrete path.
Her life is in his hands and he can’t afford to wash it off.
He wants to comfort her and her breath comes belabored now.
He begins to sing softly to her
he’ll meet her in heaven, he swears up and down,
he’ll see her through thick and thin
this is nothing, he’ll see her next week right here, same time, same place
and she can help him sing of a world where
a man can find space to live without having to die.
She can help him, he promises, and she begins to relax ...
Slowly. Gently. Softly. Like satin sheets sliding off a pre-made bed.
She dies.
He wipes the tears from his eyes
and her life onto his denim pants. One more stain ...
And suddenly, he knows he will sing again
sing to all the self styled prophets, saviors, rioters, and protestors,
who didn’t know a woman can die.
He sings; and he accompanies himself with his old guitar.
And the body is beautiful and serene and is swept away into the sea of metaphors
and the shop owner comes out from his store
and wonders how those oranges will ever sell now
with the blood stains and all ...


by Joshua Schwartz,
2003