Mary Barnet's Poetry Ramblings

It has been said :
"American yearns
to breathe Free !"

I am grateful to Live for my Nation -
Better to Live a day Free
Than a thousand years in any 'unjust cage' !

And, like any serviceman or servicewoman
To serve my Nation
'Til God calls me !

This morning, I heard the Children playing ---
Then I saw the Children making music,
and Singing !

Praise the Lord !
My old husband is dancing !

Every race, celebrating the Glory of God !

We are the messengers too strong,
Too fleet of foot to kill :
Messengers for The Great Khan
We have ridden since Time Immemorial,
We have always had Free Passage
By the Gifts of God : Our Wits, Our Fleet Horses,
And Our Eternal Friendships,
Have Been Nurtured by the Love of Amazon Warrior Women ---
Created and sheltered
By those who understand
That we come from the first felt huts of the Mongols,
That We Speak the Truth, carry it to it's 'Rightful Court of Kings'
Have always ridden
With Safe Passage ;
That Our Blood is Mixed With that of Honorable Norwegian Kings,
The Strongest Viking Blood,
Scot Princes, the least ancestors ;
We are Direct descent of 'Olaf the Black' by his son,
'Eric the Red'
Our People were in New Foundland by 1000 A.D.,
By the Grace of a Lord
No one has ever met
But We Know in Our Hearts.

We are the Heirs to a Truth that that No Tyrant Can Extinguish :
This Message Has been carried so long it cannot be murdered or executed, by any Puppet Monarch !
Ride Free Also Humankind !
Claim Your Birthright !
The Americas,
North and South
As My People Have Always Done !!!

The Only Thing

Sometimes when I remember
'The only thing' I can do

is write...

Remember the 'Chestnut Man' ?
with his brazier :
His fingertips gnarled & calloused
from retrieving the burning hot chestnuts ?

Out in front of Rockefeller Plaza
Where he put several in the small, brown paper bag
he sold my Dad for some coins

On the street just past Atlas
Holding up the World !

Zen Life Poem

The Lord God Almighty
Has brought me to the end of my journey ---
It is nothing more than
The death of my desire
For anything but
the God-Head.

Fragment

What I have learned from Youth
The most important thing perhaps :
To have a sense of humor
Be able to laugh at yourself
and realize that life is sometimes
A continuous practical joke
Is my own sense of It.

My Confusion

I have let my imagination get carried away sometimes ;

The details are unimportant
And, actually, long ago and far away.

Thank God : now any difficulty has passed,
The sky has cleared, at last !
As any human would, I pray the Lord's indulgence
Of my confusion.

Center

In the center
Of the great dancing cosmos
the light of turning life
the squirrels arguing on the lawn
Over a seed
the Icanthus, Jersey pine
All around
the grasses grow every minute.

Night

Night has kissed my soul

So that

Cleansed at long last

I resolve to trust

the last friends

Welcome and serve the

lover and husband

I am slave too.

Death be not so proud

As to reject these bones

that ocean from which

We came

But perhaps I too

Shall bear a nation

By my death.

I Want

I want to

To be

Someone of real importance

A figure of artistic speech
A sign of freedom

With the strength to rejuvenate in the sunshine of Faith

Always in the grasp of modern life.

I want to be

an exception(al)

to the rule

the person who is

permitted to be

In the especial value
of my art and my life

& my love.

I am this person

By the grace of God

It is life who gives me

All

That is of value.

Getting the Business

Biz-ness is Bigger

than Poetry

Can ever hope to be

But in the hour of rest

Sometimes a book

that guided our young lives

Re-emerges

Guides me through the dark hours

Into the dawn.

Sitting alone at night
After you are asleep
I think a thousand secrets
That cannot seem to keep.

I remember in the silence
How you told me about yourself.
I think of what we said
And realize this burden is a part of my wealth.

When yesterday looms in my thoughts
I push away what is not now.
I keep your secrets
Getting my sleep somehow.

In the morning when I wake
I see the sun.
I am living with your words
Thinking of us as one.

Time:
Desert in flower;
You cannot hold her back.
She conquers that loss,
Reverses that curse,
And drowns the pain
Born in us.

I reach for you,
Sweet time,
Hold me close !

You can quell those devils
Dwelling yet
Within us.

I pause by the roadside ;
My travail seems endless.
Do we find a destination in the moment ?
Or retreat into our anxiety ?
Simply moving our bags
From one terminal to the next ?

I want to go back to the womb !
Yes, I admit it !
I am tired
I am weary of the need for self-verification.

Continually, I must reach inside
To soothe and touch the child screaming there
lost in a pool of her own tears,
Wanting something in this world
She cannot have ---

Not knowing what it is we need so desperately.

I am always fearful on this long march
Though a world where thieves and murderers may wait.

The final thief is death
Whose cold hands pluck the child from birthing,
Yank her from the body of life !
A child no more !

Is there a difference ?
Whether we walk gently
Through the long gray marble corridors of the mind
Or run down the great oaken halls
Like the ghost of Henry Eight's wife
Reliving a last walk in Time
Before the axe severs the life
Head from body or simply
Body from soul

I awoke alone
Like so many other days.
The tide rolled in
From beyond the bay.

I rose to walk the beach
Gazing at dying seaweed,
Washed by the waves,
From oceans' turmoil freed.

A storm beginning,
Clouds glower.
The wind pushes sand
Into the air with all her power.

The touch of a wave
Cold as the winds' reach.
A chill seizing everything,
The swell pushes beyond this beach.