Make the Mandala Great Again

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Having learnt His rules, I feel obliged
to wield for Him this lance, this sacred skewer,
less pious principles be compromised,

and though each day His followers grow fewer,
and though I like this lass and wish to woo her,
I bend my knee before the God of grammar.

The moment she says "less", that’s when I damn her.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Of wars, which help to her as weddings.
Narrow incest hatched from eggs,
entangled in measures of storm.
Such a superposition of young age.

A rise in instability of power, collapse
of the wave. Three dragons rise
in decoherence, the symbol of her birth.
Far north of machinations, government

by probabilities, unpredictability
understood as order. A warlord
desires the measuring apparatus,
his sister-wives betrayed as backstory.

[drumpf]

Holy Orders appears to be a riff on the poetic virtue of condensed content. The attractive woman, has a professorial vibe going with the single-word critique of "less" meaning "none of this cumulative stuff, give me compact poetry". The god is probably Strunk or White. The lance is the pen, something sacred if nibs and ink were scarce, but this was meant to be baroque and light, so the pen will suspend my judgement, and be considerably holy moly.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Thanks drumpf,

The idea was that he bows to the god of grammar, and so, tho he fancies this woman, he damns her for using "less" rather than "fewer". Clearly didn't do enough to set it up though. Oh well.

Here's the last one. Will be back tomorrow to fluff what I've yet to.

Matt

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

No dearly departed, no word of love,
to hint at how he was thought of –
just: To the memory of Charles Crane
10^thApril, 1927.

A hollow rectangle of grey stone
splotched yellow with churchyard moss,
marks out his place beneath God’s heaven,
its space half-filled with a fallen cross.

The graveyard grass is neatly mown,
but here grow daffodil and fern,
saplings of sycamore, infant oak,
blue campulana, leopards’ bane –

a kind of love, perhaps, to cloak
the plain memory of Charles Crane.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

So, John, Andrea, Sorella and Donna are here -- it's old school. I'm in.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

1. Print these instructions on a sheet of card or stiff paper.

2. Tear into two dozen parts of roughly equal size.

3. Attach a long length of thread to the top of each piece.

4. Attach the threads to the ceiling such that the page is correctly reassembled.

5. Place a fan some distance away at the lowest setting.

6. Very slowly turn up the fan.

7. Very slowly turn down the lights.

[Sorella]

That is totally fascinating in its matter-of-fact absurdity and subdued poignancy.

[Salli Shepherd]

6. and 7. really deliver a punch, and perfect counterbalance to the whimsy of the rest of the list. Clever stuff, wonderfully interactive.

[JFN]

Matt, Instructions... is a clever list poem. You do well to shape a concrete image on the theme, more so one that anyone could relate to.

Cheers

John

[Donner]

Who you calling old?

"Instructions" packs a punch, starting out light-hearted, then turning darker at the end. There's no more insidious disease, I don't think, and you demonstrate that well through simple actions of turning on a fan and turning down the lights.

Donna

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Sorella, Sally, John, Donna,

Thanks all. Spent a few days with my parents last week. My dad is getting pretty bad.

I had Leonard Cohen's "Take this waltz" stuck in my head today and ended up writing this.

-Matt

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Come and walk with me down by the river
where it’s winding its way from the town,
where it whispers of woodland and fields,
and it wants us to follow it down

to the bridge where the brambles are growing,
to the path where the rail tracks once ran
to the hedgerow that edges the meadows
to the tree where the rope-swing still hangs.

Let us drift our way down to the weir,
where the algae lets down its green hair,
to the pool where my childhood is waiting.
Come and rest for a while with me there.

[Sorella]

Love Cohen's song and yours is much better! I hear the tune, it fits river memories so well.

[kristalynn]

I love both of these, especially the fan and the darkening in the Alzheimer's poem.