The American Greeting Card Company (an excerpt)
13.12.13
for Fred Moten
“The Day that Love Began” begins like any other
fiction. Something big has happened. Someone
small goes off to see. The story of the shepherd
make me feel. He walks alone beneath a flock of
seagulls. They are moving navigation lights be-
coming what they are; North Stars in unlimited
number. The night is full with free sounds calling
everything to total gift & to take each other off each
other’s hands like a very old Communist Sound-
cloud. The shepherd goes along with all of this
which goes along with him as well for true relation.
Space is joy’d remorse wherein the dead & living
are preserved to ever change amid a universe
composed, as matter is, of recollected tears. The
sacrificial lamb the shepherd’s off to see hasn’t yet
open it’s eyes. The lamb will have to, later, die, then
some days after that, come back. In this story
everything understands why. It’s the meaning of
life. But I just think that singing is the truth. That’s
another story, quite like this one, true as well as a
production & occasion of particulars & excess with
their special flaws that give. The world is florid in
this manner. Auto-poetic. If you’re ever in the mood
to check it out. The shepherd got where he was
going with accomplished fugitivity. A sentimental
yield of theoretical complexity, & blue, he showed
himself into the manger door politely. On wildcat
strike. He came through. In the contingency seduction’s
licit coo the moving ear’s third eye of holophonic
shale born new, again, for all the winsome raw
telepathy the making world, of stuff from stuff,
contrives for sensitivity of drum & hair alive in
a surpassing night performed in guiding guidance.
But why does the lamb have to die? I feel like he
could have been the world’s whole love of no
amounts & spread the poverty of that around like
any other baby, dove or diva does. So I should tell
you that I’m singing from beneath the young talibs’
soft feet, a pup dependent on the mercies of the
lowest little novice. All I do is mouth the songs
& stories of the worlds forever shouldered in
beyondness here by vanguard teachers in these
schools of being free, my thoughts are poor about
the lamb, a little older than eternity, & moving like
the shepherd, called by night’s amour to hear the
sounds of Stevie Wonder. Maybe one day I might
learn to read. It’s Christmas morning every time he sings
for love, as one way love feels real, when it feels
real to me, is being given means to see by anyone
who studies in the ordinary rigors of our visionary
hearts the poor materials of song’s authentic wealth.
for David Brazil
Today & tomorrow
you know there’s a love
that is true in every answer
of you & all your prayers
O today is the gladness
of promised tomorrows
where sorrow has been vanquished
and you are home again
O today!
Heart’s break,
fragile alone
Love mends,
honest of soul
Meek lamb,
‘You are my guard
& my valor!’
Dear & poor
warm while the night
grows cold
Newborn world
favored by mercy’s
humble splendor,
beggar’s rose!
that flower of stone
is the blossom of heaven
Hour by hour
year by year
meager in measure
of time, O midnight
radiant day
new & old life
infant & aged rejoice
in youth
ever the children of god
to-
day & tomorrow
you know there’s a love
that is true in every answer
of you & all your prayers
O today is the gladness
of promised tomorrow
where sorrow has been vanquished
& you are home again
O today!
Heart’s break,
fragile alone
Love mends,
honest of soul
Meek lamb,
‘You are my guard
& my valor!’
Dear & poor
warm while the night
grows cold
Newborn world
favored by mercy’s
humble splendor,
beggar’s rose!
this desert of bones
is the meadow of heaven
Note from the poet: I wrote the hymn “Today & Tomorrow” as a Christmas gift for the poet David Brazil. So, the poem ‘Christmas’ is actually supposed to be the sheet music to the hymn, but I don’t know how to write sheet music, so, uh…? Here instead are the lyrics, & a recording of me singing & playing the song. If anyone knows how to write sheet music & would like to help me out by transcribing the tune I’d be super grateful. Hit me up here– cypresspoetry@gmail.com. Thanks y’all. L,D
——————–
The American Greeting Card Company is a sequence of 15 holiday poems; these two poems, an excerpt, are an extended thinking through of the Stevie Wonder song, “The Day That Love Began”.
Dana Ward is the author of Some Other Deaths of Bas Jan Ader (Flowers & Cream), The Crisis of Infinite Worlds (Futurepoem), and This Can’t Be Life (Edge Books). He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Fanzine’s series editor for Fall 2013 is Ella Longpre.
