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To Sculp a New David

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To Sculp a New David To sculp a new David with COVID-19 poems By Edwin Creely Melbourne, Australia Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 2 This diverse collection of original poems for this time, including verse written about COVID-19, presents explorations of being human and living in our complex world with each other. It also has many nature poems that reflect my concern about our connection with nature and the preservation of the natural world. Some of these poems are intensely personal, other are meditative reflections on life and issues to do with living justly and fully in this time. My centrepiece poem, To Sculpt a new David, considers what it means to be a man in a time of moving to full equality of men and women. These poems are designed to challenge and provoke thought, as well as create reflection about living in a time of profound change. To sculpt a new David has been written and produced by Edwin Creely © Edwin Creely, 2020 ISBN: 9798696236216 Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 3 LIST OF POEMS A poison Is this me? Stance To look Flood my soul Babylon No one can lift but you Hold them Fucking silence Rotting This dual thing (love) I am the one Wake, my souls! The pot of gold Cracks Lift Post-atheist Time to breath Connection Knew not themselves Before dawn Teach me Come join the danger! Shall be In silence Come love When love smiles Strange Alien My refuge (words) The darkness Circle of white Exist now See the horizon Wet Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 4 The lot Conquered Dark water Speak through whisky Mine alone! This Plato’s child Surface Can you feel my anger? Heat Present A bunch of atoms To sculpt a new David On the horizon The scene Be still How do I feel? I see you there Perennial Be a man Sleep Delicate Intimacy My darling ones Stand with me Old tree O god Gratitude’s release The graves This cloth I will not Salvation Time to be Irony Only you see Ask me not My stories Poetic spell Grand plan Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 5 Words Eden Grace This place Suffering To forget Kindness Relentless Retrospective Unpredictable An ethics No songs Say it Take me ‘Shared humanity’ Delusion Ash Wednesday I thirst Of the water made This day Gift? Curse? Of the earth Back to life Deprecation Reservoir Call it out Wait Looking up I am mad Breech Stop Deepness Mystery Dreaming The now Infinite Intangible Traces Change Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 6 Spark Strike out Silence fell Economy|biology A work for modern times Waves Our light Two ducks Bursting Consolation Swirl Photos New foundation Sadness Measuring Courage God is Desert Divided Give back That’s okay The universe Examination Thus is America Winter morning in Kinglake Centre|essence Skin On a screen Sharp arrow Regret Times Burying them Night passion The singer Go on living One year With words Masked people Synchrony Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 7 Progress Presence|Absence Expansive I write The invisible Limits of control The poet’s pen Refraction The only one This earth Dark days Flowing From home Touch Within Clue Resolution Sunrise Words The man on the path Being in love Flux Of now Mystery Category|Being Got to be better What happens? Late winter day Of love Not so old Thread Around and around I am here Not cheap Definition Steady rain Invitation Two faces Forgiveness Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 8 What the world needs now Overview Escape The space between Phenomenological The rain Singing Spring (part 1) Spring (part 2) The trees Tomorrows Goodbye No thought Ideology Pockets Which me? Filters Lockdown My grandmother Jagged Our kookaburra Point I am Absence The door We go on Tied Unicorn Human|category Pride Walk We write Signpost Ambiguity Holy ground Needle Fight In sleep Not a waste Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 9 Mandala Centeredness Wisdom The deep There Gratitude In the middle of the night Conversation Silence is around Lies The Queen The joy of self Zero Awareness|Being Between Reign See it as it is Look beyond Space to be New child Numbers Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 10 POEMS A poison We feed the baby not milk, we feed the baby not the openness of life—we feed the baby poison instead—not fast but slow, a poison that lingers stealthily and unrelenting with the child, a poison that keeps the body alive but not the soul. Is this me? What is this me, this self, that I construct that also lives with the flashing surprises of anger, fear, vulnerability, concern and darkness that shoot unexpected out of strange crevices. I keep going ‘cause I must, and I shift this fluid self to be the show for any occasion; but the body throws up the the gnawing creep of age that takes the self’s construction to the bitter thought of death, or worse, the signs of decline. Yes, what is this self that I craft for others but not myself? —the put-ons, neatness and pretence, the savvy line said at the right time Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 11 and place—what is this house of repute that I have built that I don’t like living in at all? And the construction is about what might be and about the approvals that drive the world and helps me survive, pay the bills, and be what I believe I must be as a social being of worth. What is this me, this self, when my conscience speaks against it and says that all is not right, and the world is not well, and our ways of being should change but there seems no way to move. Stance I want to be recognised, but I don’t want recognition; I want to be admired but I don’t want admiration. I want my life to count, but I don’t want it counted; I want to act with bravery, but I don’t want to be brave. Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 12 To look Let me look: look inside out look outside in, let me see these many ways and angles; see, though dimly, for I cannot see all in this dark and light, see because it is my honour to see, and to look in this tiny space that is my own true life. Flood my soul I see your beauty that shines through smiles, and tears and touch, and brings to me the energy of the universe to fill my soul with hope. Babylon The light of Babylon is rising across the thin threads of history, in mystery across time, from the cradle of civilisation to recent demise, but the cries go on from the captives and the gate of god is now the fate that comes to all from the rich Fertile Crescent to the Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 13 desert of despair, from the Babel of confusion to the truth that is no truth at all. No one can lift but you Suffering, doom, is there in the eyes that divide and look two ways, not knowing which is truth and which is lies; suffering rests like a cloud of toxicity that no one can lift but you, just you—the one above the feeble best. Hold them You, the heartless one, collect my tears and hold them in jars of stone—cold; hold them there till they are aged with the cure of life; hold them there till death sucks them up to the sky; hold them till the clouds burst and they are thrown on the waiting dry earth. Hold them, hold them, these precious drops that contain all of humanity, contain, the suffering, the love, the pain, the fear, Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 14 the joys and laughter that soon fades away. Hold them, heartless one— let the dam be full, let the storm be held. Fucking silence We live in fucking silence, so fucking silent I can hear its sound, here the fucking sound roaring out in nothing—hear the words of Simon and Garfunkel, falling, falling down, falling down in fucking absence, while we drink our coke and our beer and laugh so that no fucking one can hear. Rotting I am not embarrassed anymore to speak words that need to fall, even on ears that will not hear; I am no ashamed to call out loud some truth that pulls apart the rotting core of this decay. Are you hearing? Are you seeing what I see? Can you smell the rotting flesh of hypocrisy? Hear my words! Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 15 Know the truth that scares you to your bones. See that this world is not all it appears or seems to be. This dual thing (love) Love is this human thing, this animal thing, that binds and repulses, and draws us in and makes us strive beyond the places we thought we would go. Love is this dual thing of holding on and letting go—for to hold on too tight is not love anymore and to let go too easily is not to seek to know love at all. I am the one I am this one who can cry beyond the grave; I am this one who can shout through the pain. I am standing in a crowd Sculp a new David /Edwin Creely 16 and feeling alone; I am lying in darkness and seeing this sin.
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