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writing workshop

Well, here goes…

  • writing workshop
By aly hawkins ⋅ June 14, 2005 ⋅ Post a comment

Guess I’ll dive in, with the disclaimer that poetry is definitely Michael’s niche, not mine, but the prose writers I love most have lyrics and images bubbling just under the surface of their stories, and this is a weak area for me. Be gentle…

God is a dancer.
Father, Son, and Spirit
are swirling – with hands clasped –
in an endless, joyous game of Ring Around the Rosie
that defies gravity so no one ever
falls down.
Father, Son, and Spirit
are twirling – with hands folded –
in an eternal baroque minuet
that orders stars to their orbits like
Bach ordered notes to their places on the page.
Father, Son, and Spirit
are spinning – with hands raised –
in an everlasting mosh pit of anthemic, punk joy that
pounds the pulse of the universe and
puts flesh and blood back on
dry bones.

This is the music of the cosmos, the song of the spheres.
This is the dance that’s holding the whole shebang together.

God turns and asks, “May I have this dance?”

When we worship we bring our own song,
cupped in open, humble hands – offering it to
the composer, choreographer, conductor.
If we hold our offering lightly enough
Spirit takes it and replaces it with
the music
we were born to sing.
The music makes sense out of words like
the last will be first
the greatest is the least
I did not come to be served, but to serve.
The music teaches us that sometimes
washing feet is not a metaphor.
Sometimes, dirty feet are just
dirty feet – feet that can’t join the dance ’til
someone like you or me hears the music and gets down
to the dirty work – work that is the deep, gritty
groove of the dance.

This is the groove that beckons us,
the God-music that animates our dry bones
with flesh and blood and love.
May we humble ourselves and sing.

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Discussion

12 comments for “Well, here goes…”

  1. First thought - you know I’m an imagery girl, and there’s enough here to keep my head in the clouds for days. I don’t know much about poetry, but this one…feels…really good. Well done.

    More woo-woo thoughts from:

    Cerise

  2. I echo Cerise! I LOVE the imagery, especially the variety: ring-around-the-rosie…baroque minuet..MOSH PIT!!! This was a very strong section…I saw it perfectly :)

    thanks for your art,
    -jeremy

  3. Jeremy…

    Don’t tell me you’ve moshed before, naughty young man…

    Cerise

  4. Cerise…

    The sins of my youth, what can I say?

    :)
    jeremy

    ps-cerise…that’s an interestingly wonderful name, btw…what is its origin?

  5. Why, Jeremy, I’m so glad you asked! Cerise is the French word for cherry. My full name is Cerissa (sir-EE-sa), but I shortened it a couple of years ago.

    Moshing was just getting going when I was in college. I rather liked it myself. I meant getting to body-check my then-good-friend (whom I had a huge crush on and later married) Ramon on a fairly frequent basis.

    We’re so bad!

    AND we’re off the subject - sorry, Aly - another thing about your poem - the first section is definitely my favorite. Wildness and order and joy - indeed, what else is there in this universe? It’s interesting to contemplate putting this to music, actually. A poem/song. I think Iona should do it.

    Cerise

  6. I like it, Aly

    I’m not sure I understand the switch in response in the last line - from the music animating the dance to singing.

  7. Yeah, I should rethink that. I originally wrote this as a call to worship for the 11th Hour, so that’s where the “let us sing” came from.

  8. Wait, you wrote this as a call to worship? Because as a call to worship it works really, really well. As a stand-alone poem it’s still beautiful and pretty dang touching, but the first section is much stronger to me than the rest of it. This from someone whose poetry sounds like really bad WHAM! lyrics, but, you know…

    Cerise

  9. I don’t want to turn this into a whole big thing, but there are no bad WHAM! lyrics …

    “I don’t want your freedom
    I don’t want to play around
    I don’t want nobody’s baby
    Part-time love just brings me down
    I don’t need your freedom
    Girl all I want right now is you”

    Pure genius

  10. Fine. I have no problem with WHAM. Should’ve figured I’d flail blindly and hit a fan. Here’s a revision, Michael:

    Think of the cheesiest lyricist from the 80’s - no, make it the early 90’s - someone really trying to be clever and poetic but just sounding pedantic and school-child-ish. That’s what my poetry sounds like.

    OK?

    Just kiddin’, honey.

    Cerise

  11. This is the problem with blogging…Cerise, Michael is yanking your chain. He is not, and never will be, a fan of WHAM. (I, on the other hand, wish daily that George Michael could be turned…his voice is what God sounds like in my dreams.)

  12. Well, Aly, if you’ll remember, most jokes get by me because I have no sense of humor. DAMN YOU MICHAEL!! Hook, line and sinker. Thank you, Aly, for acting as his interpreter. In all fairness, I didn’t really think he was offended, per se. Now, will you in turn tell him I’m just joking around? Sometimes the ALL CAPS thing makes me sound angry…[sigh]

    Now look, you remember me telling you (after I listened your old group’s excellent CD) that Ash’s voice closely resembled George Michael’s? Especially in the bridge of “Someone Like You.” That IS him, isn’t it? A husband that sounds like God when he sings…

    Cerise

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