Ex-Voto - But It Does Not Go Unnoticed - Devotion Poem by Warren Falcon

for Nightingale, an invocation - you know night sky's steady
tho Milky slow - She goes paying nevery one no mind any but
a penny for yer thots. I'll take the hint. And take some time.
What's left. Ol' Li Po he know, the hoot, coot, gives the State
th' boot if he wore 'em back in ol' Chinee AD day - OLE!
Lil brown jug. Just for sound, you know. Not the real show.

But Biblical (or close) . My kingdom for a smooch. Lantern.

*

'shall the shadow go forward ten degrees, or go back ten degrees?

It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees...

and he brought the shadow ten degrees backward,
by which it had gone down in the sundial of Ahaz'
- Kings 2 20: 9-11 (King James Bible)


not Catholic
but love of the
Feminine Divine

but a 'Catho-ho-lic's' sense -

a child's love of robes and rituals,
of beauty - sublime to simple - of architecture, art,
music, incense, stained glass, mystery given form,
tacky sometimes, bulbs for candles, neon over altars,
such somehow, patiently mused at, does infuse/evoke
what has so very much been lost -

DEVOTION

What knees are for


— interpolation —


'My sadness has no pedigree...
but my longing for joy - its roots
go back to thousands of generations' Adelia Prado


Truth be told, my presenting grief,

I have been poem-less for months

I blame the Intruder, insisting


the death of poetry

and so much more, like, say -

Everything I kneel to


out of brokenness


out of elevation


devotion perhaps in
between

little flames
beyond their wicks,

mystic at last


If I wore a hat
I would remove it

such pure slow gestures

butoh or ballet convey


that there is not even wind, that

there is only spirit

beyond flame — words

what comes after — as before,


what staring is for


when in doldrums

I read much,

find moments of reprise -

slips a phrase from a
sleeve,

an image dreamed,
poetry visual


so

I try


and fail


but it does not go unnoticed