Filament

Filament
by Gideon Burton
inspired by Walt Whitman's "A Noiseless Patient Spider" (below)

Not anything can measure it, not light
nor miles nor time nor words like "depth" or "height"
and I am, insect-like, a speck, so slight
so blank so mute so pale within the white
yet poised along the cusp of sound and sight
some primal part, down deep where neurons bite
where forces stir that blurred primeval night
with white-hot wonder, blazing through the fight
to see: the sea, the scene, each atom bright
from here from me somehow so wide despite
my jellied lenses, dulled by mortal rites
yet lasering through all till all ignites.
   Some filament is cast that cords the kite,
   I board the flight, I soar though sore in sight.

image: creative commons licensed by John Barton

A Noiseless Patient Spider 

by Walt Whitman

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

Provided For

creative commons licensed by James Jordan

Provided For

by Gideon Burton

after D&C 78:17-18:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye are little children, and ye have not as yet understood how great blessings the Father hath in his own hands and prepared for you; And ye cannot bear all things now; nevertheless, be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours.

What copious abundance, ready, set,

awaiting and prepared by Father's hands

but hidden to your little eyes: the grand

and great, the fishes heavy in their net.

Too little, children, yet to see or bear

the rush of grace, the hush of others' pain,

the cresting crush of deserts' sudden rain,

the blooming flush of flesh in fresh repair.

Yet I will lead and cheer you, find your way,

will clear the tangled knots and smooth the road,

will coach and calm and cry and seek and pray.

In joy await: the kingdom keeps for you,

eternities that surge and swirl and flow

in blessings, riches -- quiet, promised, true.

Love and Time

Love and Time
by Gideon Burton
after Shakespeare's sonnet 73

Though great with green the trees were sheared to bones,
their knobby joints in silhouette like ash
against the greying winter sky, cold dome
of twilight. Time, for me, is cruelly cached
behind horizons, cooling in the seas
that empty to oblivions beyond
the west of night -- now sinking by degrees,
now sealed in rest, now slowing till its gone,
no more in fiery-embered springtime spark,
no more in citric tongue-tart liquid flow,
expiring as a single day turns dark,
now faint, now fainter than all mists we know.
     No way to stop the time nor stem its flow;
     we love with passion all we must let go.

________________________________________

Sonnet 73
by William Shakespeare

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Photo: flickr - JimmyMac210

Illumine Me

Illumine Me
by Gideon Burton
after opening lines from Milton's Paradise Lost

Within this soundless depthless darkest waste
beneath an icy ocean's ashen tide,
a turning, mute, and just enough to taste
the casting moonlit motions shifting wide;
a cry, redrafting in the half light, please,
a dare to open skyward one desire,
the foam up rushing, downward by degrees,
reflecting amber in wet-embered fire--
illumine what within me lingers dark
or anchors low raise up, support and steady.
I've watched in waiting, stoked this hunger stark,
I've faced the broad abyss, and I am ready.
     Oh, God, creator, stir again thy might
     and raise my verse, my eyes, above this night.

Photo: flickr - bbluesman

What a Piece of Work

What a Piece of Work
by Gideon Burton
after a passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet

How is it no one, nothing pleases me?
I am not blind to how our sweaty dust
retains bright shimmers of divinity,
despite the vinegar, the bile and rust.
We are these demigods of sense and flesh,
as fair in form and movement as the stars,
the waves, the wind; our stirring thoughts enmeshed
in reason, action, music, spreading far
into infinities beyond, within,
as golden glorious as fretted skies
afire; as magical as newborn's skin.
And yet I stop. I sink in heavy sighs.
     Though heaven dazzles earth with brightest beams,
     so heavy, bland, and sterile it all seems.
  

Photo: flickr - susy

---

From Hamlet:

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me: no, nor woman neither...

Manta Ray Love

Manta Ray Love
by Gideon Burton
after Shakespeare's Sonnet #18

Shall I compare you to a manta ray?
The manta sucks salt water all the day
to siphon plankton from the waters temperate;
while you upon a straw make dainty sips.
The manta stretches twenty feet across;
your girly girth is slender in the hips.
He has a stinger; you? I'm at a loss.
But if by some dark trick of radiation
you are transmogrified into a fish,
I'd still feel flush with maritime elation:
to swim with you would be my fondest wish.
     So long as sharks can swim or algae breed
     So long I'd paddle after you with glee.

Photo: flickr - massdistraction

Will

Will
by Gideon Burton
after passages from Shakespeare's Hamlet

Give me that man that is not passion's slave,
whose words untie the knots that fortune binds
behind our backs and deep inside the waves
of pushing blood; that man who when he finds
divinity will shape our every end --
rough hew them how we will -- will carve again,
reject and mock all blunt denials, bend
and shave and bludgeon, hack and dent
defiant of all auguries, content
to strive and fail but know no errant star
could force his hand. The gods are tender friends
to strivers, though they tax them deep and far.
     The earth itself with iron wills complies,
     and such a man, though mortal, never dies.

Photo: flickr - ChiBart

The Shining One

The Shining One
by Gideon Burton
after D&C 88:6-13

The Shining One, because he has ascended,
ascended from the depths where he descended;
he spans the frame where timelesses is ended
and having all transcended, comprehended.
This is the light of Christ, the son of suns
and master of the monthly moons that run
against the ermine fields of stars begun
in aching eons past when Jesus spun
the elements, the cosmos kindled bright
brought forth from brooding bosom depths divine
to shine again, again against our night
and spangle gracious knowledge, godly wine
cascading liquid light from God's abyss,
eternities with words as brief as this.

Photo: flickr - Lynn (Gracie's Mom)

---

D&C 88:6-13

He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made. As also he is in the moon, and is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made; As also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made; And the earth also, and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand. And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space— The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.

The Dead

After reading a blog post by Terresa Wellborn about her visit to a cemetery in London this winter, "Monuments to Death and the Collection of Time," and being struck by the poetry of Terresa's prose, it reminded me of a similar lyrical passage from one of my favorite works of literature, James Joyce's story, "The Dead" and its final passage. That is the source of the following imitation.

The Dead
by Gideon Burton
after a passage by James Joyce (below)

Again the snow taps lightly on the panes
in sleepy flakes all silver-dark, oblique 
against the lamplight. And it is the same
across the central plain, where snow in bleak
arrest confounds the bogs and clogs the waves,
and softly settles on the treeless hills.
It falls upon the churchyard and its graves,
in thickened drifts it gathers till it spills
on crosses, headstones, on the the barren thorns,
within the chiseled recesses of names.
As it had ever snowed since we were born,
as through the universe the snowfall claims
our fainting race, displaced by warmth till bled;
it covers us, the living and the dead.

Photo: flickr - Marko_K

---

from James Joyce's "The Dead"

"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

Unto the Least

Unto the Least
by Gideon Burton
after Matthew 25:35-40

Unto the least of these as unto me:
the hungry, thirsty, those who are estranged;
the naked, sick, or those in custody;
all souls distracted, desperate, deranged.
To him a loaf of bread, a plate of meat;
to her a cup of cool and quenching water;
to them an open door, a ready seat;
a shirt for him, a dress for this one's daughter.
An hour spent beside the sick in bed;
a visit to the prisoner in jail;
a healing word where injury was said;
encouragement to those who try but fail.
     Provide for them and you provide for me:
     as you come unto them you come to me.
  

---

Matthew 25:35-40:
"For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Kingdoms Many

Kingdoms Many
by Gideon Burton
after Doctrine & Covenants 88:37

No portion unapportioned, worlds on end,
No space without a kingdom large or small,
Nor kingdom absent space where matter spends
Its gravity and energy, its tall
And broad expanse of hot and breeding light.
And yet across creation, strictest walls
Divide each realm from realm as wrong from right.
The emptiness must answer as He calls
For order, lines and clarity and form,
The elements obedient in rows
Of ready molecules. Not even storms
Will disobey the ordered ebb and flow.
     Let lightning burn, the stirring waves compound,
     The dawn must tune with silence all its sound.

Photo: flickr - Andy Saxton2006

---

"And there are many kingdoms; for there is no space in the which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space, either a greater or a lesser kingdom." (D&C 88:37)

The Lord's Prayer

The Lord's Prayer
by Gideon Burton
after Matthew 6:9-13

Oh, walker of the clouds, we call thy name.
Our spirits' parent, Father, hear us now.
We welcome here thy kingdom, let the same
who made it find our happy yielding bows
unto divinest will on this dark plane,
as answering angels in illumined courts
above rain manna plain below, that gain
of simple life may in us (out of sorts)
regain forgiving grace for those who harm
our Christian peace -- deliver us as fast
to charity as with thy saving arm
away from worldly ills whose poisons last.
     Thou canst our prayer answer, sure and strong;
     for kingdom, glory, might to thee belong.

Photo: flickr - cmcgough

---

Matthew 6:9-13:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Having Seen and Heard

Having Seen and Heard
by Gideon Burton
"Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord, and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard." -- 2 Nephi 4:16

What I have seen and heard and clearly known,
recorded in inscriptions graven wet
and red and ready flowing, flying, flown
to thundered pulsing silent in the net
of wonders tacitly sustaining me
with memory unmeasured, steady beats
beneath the surfaces, as though the sea,
unfurling currents, washes me with heat.
Let comets burst, let mountains sink or melt.
Let even Jesus cleave the crimson sky.
What I have seen and heard and clearly felt;
what I have tasted past all questions why--
     No tongue can tell, nor ocean sound such peace.
     What cannot be contained needs no increase.

Photos: flickr - HAMED MASOUMI (modified); My Name Is Taylor (modified); Dick Rochester (modified); Paul Evans - RG& B (modified)

Not Your Average Love Sonnet

Okay, this is NOT a poem about my wife -- of whom I love to write so often. It is an imitation of a parody. That's right. Shakespeare was making fun of the poetical tradition he inherited from Petrarch with all the over-the-top, lofty comparisons that were made for the idealized objects of affection. Well, I'm just taking it a step further in the same spirit, creating a persona that is certainly not me to write about a woman that is certainly not my wife. Just wanted to be clear about that. (By the way, I did a kinetic typography version of this same sonnet by Shakespeare awhile back).

Not Your Average Love Sonnet
by Gideon Burton
after Shakespeare's Sonnet 130

My mistress could compel the rocks to woo.
Though bald, there is a twinkle in her eyes;
So coy, her blushes flare up her tatoos,
And no one could her nasal rings despise.
She’s not the girl that papa married, yet
My father may have had some quirky tastes–
He did not like a female heavy set,
While I enjoy some handles round the waist.
Her fingers may be stained with nicotine
And though she hacks and spits upon the ground,
For her, my sworn addiction, I am keen,
Despite the blows upon me that she pounds.
     We all have baggage, faults to some degree
     Just give me her along with all her fleas.

Photo: flickr - rofanator

---

Sonnet 130
by William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Bleak Midwinter

Bleak Midwinter
by Gideon Burton
after the traditional carol

Midwinter, bleak with moaning, frosty winds;
Across the iron earth the mounting snow;
the water, stony ice a layer thin;
beneath the snow, the dark compacting snow.
A stable place remained and was enough
when heaven couldn't keep him in its home.
A bed of straw, a mother's milk and love;
it was enough, though cherubim had flown
and seraphim attended in the air;
no worship but a weary mother's kiss.
He is enough, no offerings compare.
His is enough, and all has come to this:
     Within my bleak midwinter shines a son,
     I kneel in warmth and winter is undone.

Photo: flickr - manfred-hartmann

---

As a bonus, enjoy this audio version of the traditional carol, sung by my wife, Karen, and her friend, Juliana.


In the Bleak Midwinter
traditional

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Prone to Wander

Prone to Wander
by Gideon Burton
after Robert Robinson's "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing."

I wander, prone to wander, prone to leave
the God I love. Be fetter, ballast, stay,
that fountain source of living water. Cleave
and seal and bind me as I slip and stray.
I stake my all upon who will not fall
nor prove inconstant as so constantly
I do. And yet I tune my spirit small
to resonate with thine persistently.
With streams of mercy bathe my upturned face;
with holy rhythms regulate my prayer.
As thou before, again restore my place;
unstranger me within thy bosom fair.
     As tongues of fire spark the heavens above
     I feel my weakness and I know thy love.

Photo: flickr - modenadude

---

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
by Robert Robinson

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

Rose

Rose
by Gideon Burton
after the 15th century carol

Of flowers none so precious as the rose,
whose silken petals coil a spiral flame.
She swaddles Jesus in his birthing clothes.
This rose of roses, Mary is her name.
The bud of love, as soft as baby's skin,
a universe enfolded in its grace:
the heart of Jesus, swollen wide as sin.
She holds the baby's cheek against her face.
Among us, with us, like us, blood and flesh
and child to boy to man and stilled to dust.
Perhaps as she looks East she feels that West,
her son who will be stilled by living's hush.
     As Mary rises, constant through each night;
     so Christ arising, risen, rose to light.

Photo: flickr - jon|k

---

There is No Rose
anonymous 15th century carol

There is no rose of such vertu as is the rose that bare Jesu.
Alleluia, alleluia.

For in this rose conteinèd was heaven and earth in litel space,
Res miranda, res miranda.

By that rose we may well see there be one God in persons three,
Pares forma, pares forma,

The aungels sungen the shepherds to:
Gloria in excelsis,
gloria in excelsis Deo.
Gaudeamus, gaudeamus.

Leave we all this werldly mirth, and follow we this joyful birth.
Transeamus, transeamus, transeamus.

Alleluia, res miranda, pares forma, gaudeamus,
Transeamus, transeamus, transeamus.

Who is Kurtz?

Who is Kurtz?
by Gideon Burton
after a passage from Conrad's Heart of Darkness

I say a name that's hemoglobin red,
a talisman, a paradox, a charm.
I might as well attempt to raise the dead.
Can you perceive the man? Hence my alarm.
No wealth of words can say what can't be spoken,
absurdity, surprise, revolting tremors;
the circled squares, a dreamer's logic broken.
How can I speak what I can scarce remember?
Impossible to summon or preserve
the essence of a decade or a day;
whatever is the truth is bent in curves
that language will confess as it betrays.
     Our mind in isolation hosts our dreams;
     we live just as we dream, alone, it seems.

Photo: flickr - Baronvonhorne

From Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

He [Kurtz] was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream -- making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams. . . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence -- that which makes its truth, its meaning -- its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream -- alone. . . ."

He Bears No More

He Bears No More
by Gideon Burton
a remix of Parley P. Pratt's "Jesus, Once of Humble Birth

Once humbly born, a lowly lamb and meek;
once groaning in his bloody tears and loss;
once left alone, rejected, bowed and weak;
once weighted down while lifted on the cross --
In glory now returns to waiting earth,
His chariot a blaze of fiery cloud;
in glory comes to give us second birth,
the Savior meek and mild with thunder loud.
Exalted to a throne, Almighty King,
debased no more, ascendent and supreme.
With hosts of angels shouting as they sing,
He breaks the night with morning's brightest beams.
     I shouldered all, all suffering I bore;
     my sacrifice complete, I bear no more.

Photo: flickr - brainedge

Red Wheelbarrow

Red Wheelbarrow
by Gideon Burton
after William Carlos Williams

So much depends upon the window pane
above the double sink that frames the yard
where she is watching as the evening wanes,
The light is growing heavy, thick, and hard.
The wheelbarrow is sitting on its side,
its rust invisible against the mist,
the tire caked with mud.  She stays inside
and sometimes wipes her forehead with her wrist.
The chickens do not seem to feel the rain
or hear it tap the metal barrow's edge.
She tries to see how little day remains
by peering from her kitchen's little ledge.
     So much depends upon the glazing wet
     arrangement inked in silty silhouette.

Photo: flickr - sgrace

The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carols Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.