Seers in Greensand
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UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones May 2016 Seers In Greensand Michael Lawrence Berger University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/thesesdissertations Part of the Creative Writing Commons, and the Religion Commons Repository Citation Berger, Michael Lawrence, "Seers In Greensand" (2016). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 2638. http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/9112030 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. SEERS IN GREENSAND By Michael Berger Bachelor of Arts – Literature University of California, Santa Cruz 2002 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts – Creative Writing Department of English College of Liberal Arts The Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas May 2016 Thesis Approval The Graduate College The University of Nevada, Las Vegas April 12, 2016 This thesis prepared by Michael Berger entitled Seers in Greensand is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts – Creative Writing Department of English Donald Revell, Ph.D. Kathryn Hausbeck Korgan, Ph.D. Examination Committee Chair Graduate College Interim Dean Claudia Keelan, M.F.A. Examination Committee Member Emily Setina, Ph.D. Examination Committee Member Sheila Bock, Ph.D. Graduate College Faculty Representative ii Abstract My MFA degree in Creative Writing, with an emphasis on poetry has culminated in a poetry manuscript of 60 pages in length, written under the mentorship of Professors Claudia Keelan and Donald Revell. As well, I’ve had two other committee members, Professor Emily Setina and Professor Sheila Bock provide necessary counsel towards the completion of my thesis. The manuscript is directly inspired by my experiences studying English poetry and poetics in the program, with an emphasis on devotional and spiritual poetry. Many of the poems also reflect my deep study of more modern and contemporary poets of the “sacred”: writers like Charles Olson and Hilda Doolittle. A third of my thesis manuscript came out of my experiences fulfilling the “study abroad” requirement for my MFA. To fulfill this component, I embarked on a couple “pilgrimage” walks through rural parts of the United Kingdom. These walks also resonated with some of the devotional poetry I have studied in this program. The longest, most engaging pilgrim walk I took was from Winchester to Canterbury in England, a distance of 125 miles that roughly followed in the footsteps of Chaucer’s pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales. Relatedly, my translation requirement was fulfilled through two semesters of studying Old English, which culminated in my translation of the poem Beowulf. Overall, my final poetry manuscript explores many of these themes of pilgrimage, spirituality, ecological mysticism and archaic English history as a way to revitalize a contemporary sense of the sacred, especially as it is connected to geography and landscapes. iii Table Of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………....iii Portals…………………………………………………………………...............................1 Flood Poppy……………..……………………………………………………...……......2 Lobos………………………..……………………………………….…………………..3 The Plaza……………………………………………………………………………........5 Portals…………………………………………………..…………………………….......7 Olives………………………..…………………………………………………………...9 Messengers………………………………….………………………………………........10 Storm Gossip………………………………………………………………………….....11 Boulder City: A Journey……………..………………………………………………........13 The Wire God………………………..……………………………………….………….14 Visionary Company……………………………………………………………………....15 The Gulch…………………………………………………..…………………………....16 Glider………………………………………………………………………………….....17 Saint Lucy’s Night………………………………….…………………………………….18 Hesitation Light……..…………………………………………………………………....19 The Wind……………..……………………………………………………...…...……....20 The Wake………………………..……………………………………….…………….....21 Aquatic Hour…………………………………………………………………………......23 The Wind Regained…………………………………………………..…………………..24 Hecate of Old Los Angeles I……………………………………………………………..25 Wave Organ………………………………….…………………………………………..27 Interesting Luck………………………………………………………………………….28 Descent……………..……………………………………………………...…...………...30 Di Chirico’s Plaza………………………..……………………………………….…….....31 False Kisses……………………………………………………………………………....32 Hecate of Old Los Angeles II.……………………………………………………...…......33 Peradam: The Mountain Cycle………………………..…………………………………..35 Heirlooms (After Daumal)………………………………………………………………..36 Sails…………………………………………………..…………………………………...38 The Melons……………………………………………………………………………….39 Hawthorne………………………………….…………………………………………….40 Rene, in the Grass………………………………………………………………………...41 Cruciform (Lesser Alps)……………..……………………………………………………42 Peradam………………………..……………………………………….………………....43 Other Wolf…………………………………………………..…………………………....44 Island Lore I……………………………………………………………………………....45 Rene, in the Alps………………………………….…………………………………….....47 Leonora…………………………………………………………………………………...48 Lionessa……………..……………………………………………………...…...………....49 Maurice, in the Country………………………..…………………………………………..50 Island Lore II……………………………………………………………………………...51 iv Autrui……………………………………………………………………………………....52 Relics of Cold………………………………….…………………………………………....53 Bryher……………………………………………………………………………………....54 Sentinels in the Dark: Pilgrimage Poems……………………………………………………56 One……………..……………………………………………………...…...………….........57 Two………………………..……………………………………….………………….........58 Three…………………………………………………………………………………..........59 Four………………………………………………………………………………………...60 Five……………..……………………………………………………...…...……………….61 Six………………………..……………………………………….………………………...62 Seven……………………………………………………………………………………….64 Eight………………………………………………………………………………………..65 Nine………………………………………………………………………………………...67 Ten……………..……………………………………………………...…...………………..68 Eleven………………………..……………………………………….……………………..70 Twelve……………………………………………………………………………………....71 Thirteen……………………………………………………………………………………..73 Fourteen……………..……………………………………………………...…...…………..74 Fifteen………………………..……………………………………….……………………..75 Curriculum Vitae…………………………………………………………………………….76 v Portals 1 Flood Poppy This road I reclaim in sleep, Built from hammered clay And the wrestling of hounds, Both wine red in memory. Out of a trough overrun by Jasmine and ivy. My road spirals over the city To see it anew, manmade sea, basin of Granite cut with steel. Her curves grow Lost in the derelict garden, Glazed in spring rain. Barbecues, tricycles, picture frames Forgotten, then reborn. Caved-in garages Embroidered in spider lace. Charcoal and security and Burned Christmas foliage. Here the City is a skeletal sway of fruit ships Gone aground, shore-edges danced in by Shepherds. A wind’s cargo of Cardamom and lemongrass Caresses the body for ticks. Then to blow it All at yard sales where nothing works. I guess the past is over another road But it doesn’t burn anymore. Only a touch From the summit brings sparks. As husks blown In from an altered season, this thicket of gravel Flowers in November. Robin’s eyes of sardine tins Launched over a gully’s blossoming rim. I step in an eyelet of bronze water about the stem of The oriole flower that bloomed sideways where the live Oak split. A road by any other name is how I dreamt it 2 Lobos Distant Green points But no city Spurs of light The tide eaten tower Clangs the shore Mid-winter furlough Downtown buried We abandon the door In a fabled East Pink-green abalone Trampled foam white Carmelite boulders Sapped in pine Raw windows breath Visitors besiege stone The wild goat lexicon Bleeds amethyst ink Pumice cleans Coral-cut thighs Pursued the copper waves A nobleman’s story Thru parlor flames Kelp-heads confound Sepia viewfinder Salt cod spine quills Achieve the dread Woods to honor In a mine shaft The heart’s folly 3 Rake sediment with bone Ice paths leafed over A clock ticks in the ink well Hands cracking at night These paths divulge Hieroglyphic mist Under the waves Slough of Brass and quartz Instruments: Farewells. 4 The Plaza Before I was ever Europe or fallen in love, I was a stowaway in a liquor cabinet of liquor no one poured: sherry and chartreuse and amaretto, leftovers from in-laws of the room no one used, not even for formal get-togethers. Older brothers I’ll never meet pulled sundries from highest shelves: White beans Molasses Rice flour Cornichons. Lit lamps in a parlor anticipating Spanish conversation where I detail my struggles for solvency, my embellishments to stationary when I know you are reading them on a violet mesa under more violet skies riven as these parlor curtains over your apprenticeship: our future is this homeless land (you wrote) seeded by moths and bats where trees are cactus and can’t be climbed without gloves on— But on crystalline days we foraged greens made an atlas of edibles for the end times cutting holes in fences 5 to reach the warmer parts. An island gets flatter when the trees are