Menu
Poems for Today by Chath pierSath
Poems for Today by Chath pierSath
These four poems by Chath pierSath, a past contributor to this blog, were written in response to recent headlines and the larger global conversation about means and ends. Chath is known for is writing about current affairs and historical matters. As an engaged artist, he joins the public conversation with pointed and heartfelt writing, emphasizing what is at stake in the decisions we make as individuals, as citizens in society, and in our capacity as members of humankind. When he is not traveling the world, Chath works at the Nicewicz Farm in Bolton, Mass. He is the author of several books including Echoes Lost to Wind (2023), On Earth Beneath Sky (2020), and This Body Mystery: Paintings and Poems (2012) — PM
Chath at the farm (photo courtesy of the author)
No Man Is an Island
Limbs in tiers & tears.
Waterspouts clinging, waiting for the sun.
Bottom up, layers of shade,
Wind roughs up trees to separate them,
Swaying and dancing in suedes.
The ballerinas pose,
Pruned apple crowns in the sun,
Buds ready to release,
First leaves to flower
Into silver and purple.
The various tints of green,
Evergreen boldest, loudest in sheen and shine.
Blank sky grays to rain
Then come a clearing,
A return to white and blue.
The sun is still distant
But heating man’s deadly competition.
Restless at boredom
He repeats war and destruction,
Itching for attention.
Never calm weather
Until all are broken,
limbs lose their snow
In the sun of a different spring,
Transforming hope
Toward true peace and human restoration.
Until then, love and cooperation awake,
Tree high as half the sky,
Tree low-rooted in earth,
Anchoring.
No man is an island.
The Clown from IT
Black eyeliner
Enlarged the lies
Sight can explain
The rush to frighten children
From their future.
The circus is too long
Of frights and horrors.
Screams and shouts bombasting the
Ears of innocence.
Take the clown out.
Delete the bedeviled joker, vile and wild
Crimson for the apparition of blood.
Feed our vital organs
With jubilation of international cooperation
Aimed to be free of self-annihilation.
Crush hate for love and inventive living.
Chameleon-like, imagination camouflages
And tricks the environment to be in harmony with itself,
A natural species
Which can flow without having to spill so much blood
To be happy and alive.
Live for nourishing water and food
We need to reproduce goodness in our genes,
Violence free, well endowed by the pleasure
Of ties and closeness.
We sex ourselves like the bonobos
Toward peace and fair money deals, win-win for all,
Clown wiped clean, knowledge in an apple, a bite. Scrumptious.
O …
Ra … Prak Atit … Huizilopochtli, sun and war,
Helios, Apollo Sun & Light,
I invoke thee.
Come here. I am cold.
Burn me red. I need your fire to grow a fruit tree.
Then generously rain after the heat outburst,
The flares of misrepresentation,
The weaning of climatic withdrawal.
Roar hard, rage fast, speedy light,
Highway north or south,
Massachusetts onward.
May the great condors of the Andean sky,
Mountain high,
Unite the Americas into an economic federation.
No one now can cross anyone’s border
Free of hate,
But love warms us, takes chilled cold hearts,
Lying dormant.
The blood of trees awaits to leave
A flower.
Geography
Geo-earth, — graphy,
The art and science of writing, drawing,
Representing, recording and describing.
With biography I write myself into existence.
Choreography, I dance myself to an awakening,
Singing Freddie Mercury, You are the champion.
Geography to earth, study the mountains
Of the north and south poles covered in snow.
Ice there is melting. Human breaths are expiring.
I breathe humanity at heart.
Please, breathe with me. Save our goodness. Save
Our intelligence of good will toward all sentient beings.
Please, essential photography, what fleeting moments you record.
A breath downwind. A fly-by of birds. Ravens and crows
Can know the way to fresher air and water.
A new orthography for humans, spelling love.
A federation of globalism, borderless.
Live where you want, governed by intelligence
That reasons against violations of our human rights.
No country should be ruled by any one man for himself,
But by republics, on the one earth where we stand,
Using parallel lines to project our shape
Onto a plane of common humanity, each to each,
Alighted free of harm.