Originally published at: https://dev.metapsychosis.com/the-ghosts-that-renovate-my-house-three-poems-by-nolo-segundo/
I Have Been To Places Of Great Death
I have been to places of great death:
Walking the battlefield of Gettysburg,
As a lusty young man of no firm belief
Who stepped between the great rocks
Of Devil’s Den and felt his soul shudder
as though he had been a soldier there,
and died in fear a long, long time ago….
I taught my tongue to the gentle Khmers
As civil war raged and the killing fields
Were being sown—I left before the
Heartless murdering began, the killing
Of over a million: teachers and students,
Doctors and farmers, the old, the young,
Each with a photo taken before dying,
Their pictures taped to classroom walls.
And when I visited Hiroshima, now myself
Chastened by death’s touch, and knowing
My soul real, knowing of meaning absolute
And of unseen forces that work good or ill–
As I stood at the first ground zero, I once
Again shuddered to feel the pull of madness
(though I knew not if it was my own or some
Remains of that evil which brought the fire
And brimstone of a world wide war….)
But by then I knew I could pray, and so
Opened my desperate heart and sought
His mercy—and then I saw a sort of angel,
Who took me from that place of insanity,
Healing me while we wandered by the
Beauty of the Inland Sea as my storm
Calmed and left me, never to return….
I have been to places of great death, and
I have felt death’s cold, careless hands.
But I know now what death itself fears:
The Light, the light eternal which carries
Souls beyond time itself, like the winds
Of a Love exceeding all understanding.
Ocean City
I saw it then as my own little Shangri-la,
for I was very small and knew nothing
of the big world, the grown-ups’ world.
And for the child-me it was nirvana,
that little town on a barrier island
between the gray, cold, untamed and
endless Atlantic Ocean and the quiet,
near somnolent bay where the boats
of the less brave could sail safely….
I could ride my bike from Nana and
Pop-pop’s little house on that bay,
feeling as free as the myriad seagulls
swirling forever above my head–
I ‘d ride ‘cross town to the boardwalk
and if I had a dollar, see a movie by
myself, feeling like a proud little lord–
I remember as though yesterday, and
not 60 some years, my favorite theater,
with its long darkish hall that looked
like the entrance to a pirate’s den,
lined with displays of model sailing
ships, mostly men-o-war chasing, yes,
pirates, but never catching them….
But most afternoons I was happy to
just sit quietly on the porch of my
grandparents’ house, smelling the
dinner Nana was making while I
read of countless dreams in books,
books that captured like a pirate
his prey, and took me round the
world in the finest and fastest
Gettysburg, Redux
Now the happy soldiers
Go to fight again the battle,
Marching bravely forty abreast
With heavy muskets shouldered,
Yelling their cries of pain and glory
As they face the cold cannon
Barking like a pack of mad dogs.
Down they go in ones and twos,
And sometimes in little bunches,
Collapsing together as though
Put to sleep by the fairy dust
Of long forgotten dreams.
Both sides feel the urge
To kill, to step the victor
O’er their brothers’ bones.
Grown men playing—yes
Even perhaps a bit silly—but
Maybe, just maybe,
Some of them are unaware
Of their own anguished deaths
There on that sweating day
Not really so very long ago.
At seventeen I went to that town
To talk of my education and
In the warm afternoon
I meandered mindlessly
Amidst the boulders named
Fearfully for Satan’s lair.
There suddenly, terribly,
While walking between two
Of the giant stones, my body
Shuddered, an awful shaking
That shook me to the core
Of my soul, but then I did not yet