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    My Body is a Forest-Elm/Left Arm
    My Body is a Forest-Elm/Left Arm
    My Body is a Forest-Elm/Left Arm
    Ebook193 pages1 hour

    My Body is a Forest-Elm/Left Arm

    By Scott Vanya

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    About this ebook

    In this part of the "My Body is a Forest", esp. "Elm/Left Arm", I have included poems of strength, courage, nature, manhood, and human kindness. It is with this "body part", we as humans lift ourselves above the daily troubles that strife us all, to something nobler: like human compassion, caring, empathy, and just plain working things out.

    This book, holds, so to speak, one half of the courageous poems, about divorce, hurt, and how to rise above those things. Some are hard poems, difficult, even sad, yet in them all you can feel that there is something driving the speaker to lift himself above those "issues" of daily life to a place where people really do "get along".

    Because in the end, there is nothing more crucial to happiness in life, than happiness as a member of the Human Family.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScott Vanya
    Release dateMay 11, 2014
    ISBN9781310740732
    My Body is a Forest-Elm/Left Arm
    Author

    Scott Vanya

    I've been writing for a very long time, what seems like my whole life, taking it seriously from the time I was about 11. Now, at 46, I think I may be starting to get the hang of it: Say what you feel, as passionately as you can, but always with an ear turned to those who are listening.Most of my more serious work is done at live performances, which i do totally extemporaneously, channeling the mood of the room as my fingers play on the guitar. You can see some of that if you go to "my" website. (Open Mics Austin is a platform I created to showcase the Spoken Word scene here in Austin, TX. Only a small role in which i play.)As far as I can tell what makes good writing is LOVE. Love ,plainly simply, and with no strings attached.I put these words/books before you, not so much because I want something back from it, because I think and feel like I feel my bones and my soul, if you were to see the world, experience it like it do, for even a brief moment, you would walk away from that happier, more alive, compassionate and in tune with all those around you.Peace, good will, and harmony. Let those be your guiding light.Agape forever,Scott VanyaPublication Credits:Stepping Stones Magazine, The Main Street Rag, www.carcinogenicpoetry.com, Texas Art Initiative, Phoenix New Life Poetry, Walt’s Corner, Manna, Perigee, Chicago Literary Review, Mobius, Cosmic Trend, Pitchfork, Romantics Quarterly, Artisan, Pegasus, The Neovictorian, Red Owl, The Story Teller, The Blind Man's Rainbow, Atlantic Pacific Press

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      Book preview

      My Body is a Forest-Elm/Left Arm - Scott Vanya

      Chaste is Love

       

       

       

      Chaste is love

      Being purer than

      life or death.

       

      Immortality, itself,

      when I dream,

      You come to rest.

       

      Our child in his bed,

      to himself;

      religions,

      lightly touching his shoulders.

       

      I've lain the stones

      on the path.

       

      Time like the wind

      waiting for voices

      to sing

      so they may be filled

      with light

      and fly away.

       

      Poem knows.

      Poems knows and he sleeps,

      he dreams, he

      wakens and he sleeps.

       

      To know

      one's own heart

      is to know God

      and never be alone.

       

       

       

       

       

      I am so blessed.

      Previous:Next

      To the Unheard Saviors

       

       

       

      I speak to you the unknown saviors

      of the unspeakable god

      To all those whom have shown us the way

      But whom we have not met

      and have not seen.

       

      To the enlightened beings,

      Before us on the path

      whom have left no shadow.

       

      I write to You

      who cannot hear me

      and stride so far beyond this listening

      You who have shed your self

      and died so quietly in your being.

       

      Thank You, for your silence

      which adds its drop of patience to the infinite sea

      I hope these words I speak

      may only smooth the path before you

      Disolute

      and

      Calm

      Previous:Next

      Before Going

       

       

      At the end of the world

      when the universe

      is crumbling

      to the ground,

      I will hold you up

      to God

      and Yell at him

      "This!!!

      "This is the answer!

      "This is what made

      it Good.

      What gave it meaning!

      He will accept

      my indignation

      with grace

      and no self-righteousness.

      Any power

      that I have

      stripped from me

      fallen to

      a bed of faces

      coming to rest

      with Her

      all that remains.

      Previous:Next

      my love of sunlight 12/23/01

       

       

      shining through every word

      held up like a stem of grass

      burst with a web of ice...

       

      I have seen these things:

       

      a maw open and deep enough

      to swallow all the world

       

      a set of fingers clasp'd

      around my own

      mingle

      and inseparable

       

      a smile and pair of eyes

      thinking "I will cast aside

      every anger I hold against him

      for he holds nothing more

      sacred than me"

       

      And they all are like glass

      a scale of a fish

      that is picked from a bench

      by a licked fingertip

      held up

       

      Hold everything up!

       

      Let the sunlight

      permeate the morning prayer:

      the paradox that a child

      seems forever sweet when

      He is being sweet.

       

      Only sunlight

      Capable of transcending

       

      I will be as thin as air.

      today, every gasp taken

      only satisfying enough to sustain.

       

      I will not be fulfilled.

      Hungry and lustful

      for the taste of my drop of sunlight

      that is mine and mine alone.

       

      And only in the end,

      reaching it

      and there

      thinking of nothing

      but

      More.

      Previous:Next

      There on the Beach

       

       

       

      I see it there

       

      upon the shore

       

      this transfusion

      of images

      that exists

      between us.

       

      He shimmers in

      the movement

      of this matter

      upon my eye

       

      Olden aged

      I do not know him

      but feel his stare

       

      He sits

      still

      I wonder if he sees my eyes

      between the

      waves

       

      I will not know him long

       

      As They close above my head

      Previous:Next

      Loam

       

       

       

      Deep rich Texas soil

      rectifying myths: truth is

      twitching in our fingers

      we distill from our conversations

      the inebriated moment: we: ripe, plucked, pressed

      from the vine

      an ungratifiable debt

      to the inspiration

      neither yours nor mine.

      If I were lost amongst trees, waves, dunes, or weeds

      the only direction I would recall

      the only muted compass I would have at hand

      the only common language, the inconstant clouds

      condensing, dissipating, drenching

      my bowl full

      would I then ladel out a portion of said elixir

      and sup it down, gulp,

      post-haste

      remembering moments when I tempted,

      teased out even, the creation

      of verbal, dictated experiences

      from the ground our common home

      this You and I.

      Being ourselves, six feet above resting,

      comingling as rapturous journeymen

      aprentices to the Word Wright's trade

      we have read one another

      deeply tilling our apreciation,

      respectfully harvesting

      be it weed or wine.

      I continue to flourish in our common bond.

       

      The heart beat, he awakens

      this child of the Word Wright

      and says -

      I do not wish to pound or bend my language

      around wheels or even into plowshares.

       

      If I were free to choose my own setting,

      I would slip gently

      away to the far distant worlds

      where my father has not touched or bombarded the planet

      with his indistinguishable from himself metaphysics.

      The truth, I

      bring no truth.

      The cause,

      I have no purpose.

       

      The meaning,

      I answer to

      noone's why's.

       

      Unassisted and unburdened by a creator or ethic,

      this voice,

      clothed in persona,

      adorned by character,

      doppleganger of reality.

       

      Call it sun.

      Call it star.

       

      Call it Consciousness!

       

      Figurative language would do well

      to avoid his reach

      for he will untaint

      and purify it

      to such a great degree

      that our swollen headed ears

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