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The Courage to Be by

Stephen Davis

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Table of Contents:

Introductory Essay: 3 A Question of Swords: 6 To Hillary: 8 Open Book: 10 Frozen Morning: 11 Warm Bath: 12 Alone and Happy: 13 Meditation: 15 Universal Questions: 16 A Poet’s Work is Worthless if He’s Not a Good Person: 17 Dirty: 18 I Listened To Sufjan Steven’s New Record: 19 Myself as a Moth: 20 The Apocalypse: 21 Hope: 22 A Parable of Christ: 23 I’d Like To Be a Fairy King: 27

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Introduction:

I have attempted to arrange these 16 very different poems into a sort of narrative:

something to reflect my mental and spiritual state. Much deliberation went into my

construction of the narrative arc, and I hope this communicates itself to my readers. I

hope it’s clear that the chapbook begins with certainty, then moves through a series of

unanswerable questions, doubt, and guilt, before regaining a sense of hope and faith. I

don’t claim that I have answered all the questions I ask in here. I hope I have shown the

kind of answers that seemed satisfactory to me as I was writing these verses.

My narrative is fairly straightforward, but I’d like to outline it so that things are

less cryptic for my readers. The first poem is an expression of simple, unquestioned

religious faith. It has a simple rhyme scheme and a positive message. My second poem is

about the death of a relative, and the fraught questions that accompanied his event. This

poem represents one event that poses unanswerable questions for my character. The next

two poems cover the growing consciousness of mortality and physical suffering that

begin to affect my character. Depression and agnosticism set in at this point. The poems

“Alone and Happy,” “Meditation,” and “Universal Questions,” describe the rigorous

process of self-evaluation that my character goes through. This process of self-evaluation

yields up a sense of guilt that is dealt with progressively through the poems “A Poet’s

Work…” “Dirty,” and “I Listened…” After that comes the brief poem, “Myself as a

Moth,” in which the character contemplates one solution to his sense of guilt (note that he

longs for self-immolation, or the “furnace” mentioned in an earlier poem).

At this point in the narrative, things begin to take a turn for the hopeful. The final

poems are about a rediscovery of the reasons for hope, a resurgence of faith, and a joyful

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lapse into fantasy.

I hope the reader will forgive the overtly religious tone of some of these poems. In

the narrative, much of the character’s depression and doubt is caused by his loss of the

ability to see beauty and goodness in the world. For me, beauty and goodness are so

deeply tied to religion that it was impossible to write on the topic without incorporating

religious themes. Unable to discern beauty, there is a strong sense that anything beautiful

or good is a fantasy, the object of a fairytale world. This explains, at least in part, the final

poem in my chapbook, an undisguised and childish fantasy. This fantasy represents the

return of beauty, goodness, and wonder to the character’s life.

This chapbook reflects some diverse aspects of my writing. A few poems in here

rhyme, and these are my favorites, because I put the most thought and effort into them.

Even the silly rhyming poems in here took great effort to compose. I also explore more

untethered styles of poetry, including free verse. Using free verse allowed me a great deal

of freedom (duh). I needed free verse because there were a lot of things I didn’t believe I

could accomplish with straightforward rhyming poetry. I was dealing with a lot of

abstract emotions in this collection, and I needed something that could evoke these

moods. Strictly governed, metrically-sound poetry would not do the trick.

The thing I like most about this collection is that I was able to be very honest as a

poet. Poems like “To Hillary” and “Warm Bath” were my attempts to be brutally honest

about things I’ve felt and experienced. Likewise, poems like “A Question…” and “I’d

Like to be…” reveal a less critical, childlike side to my poetry, and I was happy that I

could put this on display as well.

Dear reader, I hope you’re able to find some poetry, beauty, and goodness in what

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I’ve written here.

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A Question of Swords Where lines of men crash golden Where kings are tried and taught Where swords sing out with silver tongues Of battles being fought When soldiers fight fatigue as much as any enemy When doubt dams up the streams of hope When battle cries give out like croaks When strength with every heavy stroke Recedes like some great sea The question then arises: to whom belongs the glory? Is victory the domain of men To tread on as they please? Or should it be a humbling That draws men to their knees? For man alone is useless As a scabbard without sword And all kings are contingent On the mercy of the Lord For brazen kings may terrorize And shake the silent glade But what great king could still stand strong Who stood without a blade? A king may take his sword in hand And say “Twas wrought for me.” Yet never give a thought to him Who wrought it lovingly For cold steel burns with fire that was kindled long ago Twas the heat of ancient smithies That made molten metal flow The strength of kingly hands Was handed down from anvils hot The handy smith casts his king’s sword And also his king’s lot “This blade was made for me!” A foolish king might say, “Tis fine! The glory that I win with it Is no one’s if not mine.” But long before this king was born The smith’s great fires roared And so it may be said instead That kings are born for swords Now the point to be made is quite simple

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As simple as any good thing The smith is not merely the maker of swords But the maker of every good king Now the truth of the matter speaks clearly As clear as the dawn of the day That a king, though beholden to no one Still has his homage to pay Now a sword is like a soldier Its lineage may be known But what can be said of the virtues Of the ruler who governs the throne? Where is the courage of kings forged? On what anvil are great spirits wrought? Who made the mirth of the soldiers Before the first battle was fought? Who molds the mettle of warriors? Who fires the faith of the priest? Who wills the will of the rider As strong as the bones of his beast? The disputes of kings reach to the heavens The battle-blows ring to the sky What may be said then of quieter men Men such as you and I? As with the swords of the smithy Flame-birthed and battered like bone The virtues we wield most proudly Cannot really be called our own And as for that faith that moves mountains The most pious traits of the heart All we call ours we cannot claim to own All was forged for us from the start So let the flags of the flippant cease waving Let the horns of humility sing For we stand on the shoulders of giants To kneel at the feet of the King.

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To Hillary Hillary, Hillary, Hillary Your name evokes hilarity But not to me You were my Aunt, my father's sister You had a son You visited us when he was seven and he was rude and rowdy But now he's twenty-three and he's shy and lonely You were his only friend, and now you're gone I'm talking to you now, Because we almost never talked while you were alive. Several years before you died You and I had a long conversation The only one of its kind I told you about books I love to read You seemed impressed with how smart I was I was just a kid How old were you? Past forty, and fading like a leaf The red drained from your hair You were no longer the woman some man had taken into his bed and then abandoned You were no longer desired Would our conversation have been different if I had known?

I told you to read a book called 100 Years of Solitude When we heard that you had died, dad drove me 600 miles to your house We sorted your belongings and sold them We brought your poor lonely son back with us I looked around for it, but I never saw a copy of 100 Years of Solitude You never read it. This makes me wonder about the books I won't get a chance to read before I die I feel regret; not fear. I didn't even know you; is that why I can't feel this, deep inside? I don't even know you; how come I can't feel sympathy for your son? You died, and that was that. I should have known you but we never visited you Did your brother (my dad) abandon you, the way your boyfriend did? Why do I feel guilty for not feeling guilty? In your house, you kept a souvenir A sweater from an old boyfriend (Not the one who fathered your son) He killed himself long ago

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When you were both young We don't know whether you killed yourself on purpose Or whether you didn't know what those pills would do We don't want to know. We can't bear to know.

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Open Book The broken body of a book is lying in my hands The cover's worn and faded, the pages soft like feathers It's heavy, but bends easily, with little force applied The spine is shattered, seams are bursting, Pencil marks adorn the inside, each yellow leaf is like a desert thirsting How long ago were these pages inked? When did they last drink up the dark liquor of language, letters? My pencil chiseled up the pages, lead scrapes like blackened bones Divide the lines in sediments, mark out the books in ages Three definite pencils marked the lines three different times I read it But I always used the same bookmark

Think about this book. With enough time, every page will crumble, Every letter will fade, and the cover will blow away like a husk The lead etched under every heavy line will rub away Tiny particles trickling from the book All the meaning here will fade away. And like that, all the meaning in my mind The words, the memories, the poetry Will fade and decay. There is nothing to save, No, though I could copy it, trace and retrace it a hundred-thousand times, the years would erase every memory. I could write reminders for myself, but soon, they too would fade Reminders of reminders of reminders gone away Soon there would be too much to copy In a single lifetime, in a hundred lifetimes. I can't arrest my own decay I can't preserve my corpus. When will my cells stop replicating? When will my health decline? Soon.

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Frozen Morning My teeth turn to ice in my head when I breathe The cold is an entity. It infiltrates like a virus.

Prying fingers peel back my cheeks, nestle for warmth in the hollow places of my face.

Beneath my cheekbones, ever expanding, an alien pulse

Tears start from my eyes and freeze as I squint. The wind is a paring knife, seeking warm flesh to peel away.

It even cuts in under my jacket

In my heart I hate this. My teeth are ice-blocks in my head

I grit them in hatred against the weather. Why did God make mornings like this? I curse him and begin my lengthy walk. Red brick buildings, illuminated by a sun without warmth.

This damn campus is a wind tunnel. My cheeks will be dry as bone when I arrive at class.

Parched lips and fingers shrivel.

Cold hurts.

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Warm Bath Depression is a warm bath you slip into And never want to leave The water's very comfortable, it saps your energy The world outside seems cold and everything seems difficult Except lying here in the warm bath, never moving

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Alone and Happy Part 1: Alone Three big bottles, lying on the table They look like glass, but close inspection shows them to be plastic. Smirnoff, Jack Daniels, Skol Hard liquor that my friends imbibed I don't drink, I am not old enough. Next year I will be. I do not drink, but I love my friends even when they're drunk Park is a good Christian boy. But he loves his friends too So he's gotten drunk and high He's having a great time I wonder what weed does to you? Does it feel like floating? Park and the others are laughing I am sitting quietly, trying to enjoy this But deep inside, I hurt. Is this really the way that people live? Not that there's anything wrong with it, dear God, I'm not a prude But... is this it? Is this the best way to have fun? Is there something better than this? Is this what adults expect from me at this age? You're such a fucking downer You're lucky they spend time with you at all Everyone here will grow up, but you'll be the only one who didn't have fun on the way Part 2: Happy The church is quiet at night. Oh God, don't get me wrong, I don't believe I wish I could I hate fun, but at least I'm not a Christian It's a Catholic church; I'm not even Catholic, I never was, but they have the best churches. Best music too. The chapel though, is quiet, and this is good There's a gigantic Christ dangling from the ceiling The pews are all arranged and ordered Rows of enormous pillars make for a divine sense of symmetry Nothing stirs, and the giant space smells faintly of incense I'm peaceful here, and at last I remember why people pray

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Turmoil slips away I'm home, but not at home at all I hate the church in theory and in practice Couldn't God design a better plan than that? But at last, I don't feel lonely, and I don't have that nagging pain I wish that I could live in here for ever This is the one place where I don't just want to kill myself The longing fades away, and I feel pleasure There's no one here, no people and no God But this is where I come to meet myself It's the only place that reminds me of who I am

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Meditation -I blew out candles, shut off lights, and pulled the shades -Let night's soft footfalls bring forth silence, like a chambermaid -Allowed the breeze to go its way, aimless, shifting substance -And waited in the quiet, to see myself brought forth -More wily prey no hunter ever sought -Seldom seen, seldom felt, and seldom caught -My life a serfdom, all income comes to naught -I'd give my goods away to gain what can't be bought -The myriad corridors of a house I thought I knew -Stretch and diversify and open onto rooms -And closets: secrets echo down bygone ways -Reflections, thin and pale in the moonlight -Flicker in the corridors of my mind -While shadows, cold and somber opposites -Creep out from mirrors and obstruct my way -A light to pierce the darkness, and strength to turn the key -A seeing eye, to know me when I find me -Myself eludes me, a riddle beyond inspection

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Universal Questions A scattering of glimmers, broken fragments strewn along the concrete sidewalk reflect the spreading galaxy above. Leaving me wondering, in all the feebleness of inadequate expression, What I am Lowly creature that inhabits the sprawling universe Seeming autonomous, strangely unbound by any moral law, but bound by laws of nature. What am I? And what is this that enfolds me, envelopes me, interpenetrates me? And where do I draw the line between myself and it? Thus, sparked by a pretense born of insignificance, My spirits buoy for a moment and I walk on Through the gently falling night

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A Poet's Work is Worthless if He's not a Good Person Sing, O soul, a song And feel the windy muse arising Loose the latch of loneliness Lose the pleasure you’ve been prizing Feel the world stirring Like a living thing around you The breath of wind, the words of friends Pierce the cocoon that confounds you What is worthless, worthy only To be scavenged in Gehenna Clings to you like the Nemean cloak Clung to the old Greek sinner

Swift-falling as opulent stars take up their course The last droplets of dayflower dew distill My heart unfaithful, cloaked in sick remorse The saint of fatter days now taken ill Pain is the poet’s only muse, and passing Rising and falling as the moon draws tide Relieved only by the pen’s earnest scratchings Scratching a grave for every poem that dies

Yet those dead poems long outlive their poet They own him, for his legacy they furnish The poet is lain thoughtlessly below it While acolytes his specious legend burnish “His work is of the heavens,” hear them crow it Yet the man, whose work they praise, deserves the furnace

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Dirty lime juice and skol weeding out the slow and sick cells in my brain while blood runs thick out my stomach hole not the usual hole, either but birthed of fire rising in tummy against my own desire my stomach's personal fever buckets of pepto sitting on the old red stool thinking about Bernie Sanders my dimming political jewel letting his campaign plateau

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I listened to Sufjan Stevens's New Record Heart. Hurt. Hurt. Held. Hold. Drop. Truth. Sought. There it is A sigh of discontent I see what I must be But I am sad Despair of being what I am and ought The sickness onto death The cure unsought. Repent. Depend. Contend. Extend. Rend and mend. All to no good end. There it was The beauty that I seek I held it for a moment in my hand But in my sleep my feeble grip relinquished Like Gilgamesh deprived of his sweet flower No longer am I capable of clutching to it, holding to it Nothing seems beautiful and nothing good I'm unable to believe and unable to commit I'm unable to pray Soon I'll be incapable of love Descend. Descend. Bend. Distend. I lost the will to say: "Father forgive me, I have sinned."

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Myself as a Moth I think I would like to be a moth Steering by the light of the stars, or streetlights, or candles I would like to flutter about, thoughtless, weightless I would like to sip pollen from the nighttime flowers And dodge bats with aerial acrobatics I would like to fold my powdered wings And settle on a blade of grass Brown and camouflaged On the fourth of July, I would fly about among the running legs of children Weaving among them and backlit by cascading sparklers Perhaps one of them, thoughtless and cruel Would try to burn me with the red hot sparks Very well: I would go up in smoke, and never care.

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The Apocalypse Do you remember the apocalypse like I do? It wasn't nearly as spectacular as expected. Nothing like what's in the bible No seven-headed monsters, no emerald oceans, no blood moons. The sky did not roll up like a scroll to reveal the glyphs in which the laws of nature are written (An alphabet beyond reason) It wasn't beautiful or terrible But when it was over, nothing could ever be beautiful or terrible again. It happened in our minds At least if it had happened in real life We could have died with love and outage blazing in our hearts But it happened in our minds, And are hearts are scattered like leaves Nothing that passes through our eyes can be beautiful again No music in our ears can move us We are the deadened The only way to be born again is to be born without our minds Wild, instinctive, intuitive Anything to escape this malaise Shed the mind like snakeskin and see the animal glory of the world See the world the way the wolves and sparrows see it Devolve to grow.

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Hope When all Earth's hearts Would rather go to sleep When eyes and minds would close When life would cease to beat When beauty is trodden on as some cheap trinket Or worse unseen by eyes too self-absorbed When the chandelier of wants and cares Upends and crashes on the marble ballroom floor And none see that their scorn and praise is misdirected Against the coming dark, what can one do? Against malaise that veils us from ourselves And tucks true feeling beyond the hold of the heart Will we then slip from our hold and lose our gain and purchase? Will we content ourselves Having not yet caught the prize? No. Against time's crushing tide great minds will rise and find the strength to seek To shoulder burdens and to carve solutions and salvations From the dusty rock of passing days Not driven by some empty, clockwork destiny Inevitable, expendable, fulfilling mere necessity But fuelled by a hunger That burns against the measured lifetime of the stars A voice that will not make settlement with silence A life unsatisfied with dormancy Nourished by half-truths consumed, Subsisting in the bitter void Where questions cry and answers yet elude

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A Parable of Christ Part I: It came upon a midnight clear The star that speared the night To tell men of great suffering that birthed greater delight The star told of a pure maid, virgin, chosen to give birth And of something brighter than the stars That feel down to the earth Well might the stars have hidden Upon that dread descent Well might the earth have shivered At word of God's intent Well might the coals of quiet rage Have smoldered in his eyes For he saw his good creation At Man's hand made to die The night of sin was on the earth Like a pox upon the fields And men would transgress further And pierce the hands that healed But those hands that held the world Those hands that would be pierced Held yet the hands of children, They grew calloused but not fierce And though his words were measured out like lines of poetry He lived life with that fine delight With which one sails the sea And though he spoke like fire His words rang out like grace And laughter beamed like sunshine From the Man of Sorrows' face And those who looked into his eyes Were baffled by his joy As the wizened Pharisees Had once been baffled by a boy And the greatest of the world Could not have held the gaze Of the Sun of Righteousness that rose With healing in his rays

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He made all that was meek and poor Flash with a primal shine His donkey was a war-horse His water gleamed like wine In his eyes the haughty, holy men Were beggars washed with paint His hands made lepers healthy His breath made sinners saints. He showed grace to the world Like a precious buried gem And he wept for those that rent his robe And those that touched its hem. He walked into a marketplace Absurd and sandal-shod And a blind man heard the passing footsteps Of the sandaled God The merchants at their tables Offered up their wares And the priests, fresh from the temple, Reckoned up their fares "Sell all your goods," the Christ said "Sell them off to buy The gem hid in the hill Where they will hang me up to die. They say I am a drunkard And bend to Satan's will Yet all my life is one great fast That men might drink their fill. Now saints may fast like Job And offer up their health But naught compares To that dread fast Where God denies Himself. Creation is a twisted mirror The earth hangs upside down. Men scorn their Creator And give creatures His crown Tremble for that moment when The mirror before you mends For then all men will fully know The measure of their sins. Look on the one true standard That any man can see. Let every man cast down his goods And turn and follow me.

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Let none forego this fountain, then Abstain not from this wine And that ye may not doubt these words I give to you this sign." And in the crumbled dust and dung That paved the haughty town At the feet of priests and merchants The Son of God stooped down Christ knelt with the blind man For he knew all human hurt But the merchants took no notice Of two beggars in the dirt. The gesture was devoid of pride And full of foolish grace And the blind man reached out, Curious to touch this odd man's face. He felt there lines of sorrow And lines of laughter too As on a man older than Adam Who has found Eden anew. And the groping of a blind man Our Lord did not despise He stretched his fingers 'cross the void and touched the blind man's eyes. The blind man, at the touch of God, Felt faith and holy fear And the seeing man, seeing at last, Was blinded by his tears. And Christ did not rebuke those tears For he knew joy as well But the words he spoke rang in the square Like the peal of a bell: "With weeping will you thank me, having just been healed? No! Weeping is too weak a thing, To speak the thing you feel! But thank me now with laughter And your joy will grow no worse Than the joy of that great Joker, God, Who seeks a world reversed; Where rich men covet poverty And all call wealth unwell Because the Christ came on the clouds To feel the flames of hell. Now man's best game is hide-and-seek His best joke peekaboo:

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When, for a laughing babe, the mother's face appears anew. What once was gone bursts forth at last And twin smiles flash with light At that reversal, greater than A blind man given sight. Or, as a father hides himself And bids the child seek. At last they find each other, With mirth no man can speak. In the comedy of eternity, Which is great like children's games, Man will find his maker Like a long forgotten name. A man's last morn is shocking As the world's first sunrise But only one brought back to life has known all surprise. So watch the world grow like a play Where laughter may expand. For God, in His own pageant, Now plays the part of man."

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I’d Like To Be a Fairy King I'd like to be a fairy king, a'living underground A world of roots bent neatly to my rule I'd shape a throne out of discarded finery I've found Make a table of some lady's fallen jewel

A colony of ants would draw my leafmeal chariots My carpenters would craft a special carriage Of twine and leaves and ivy for my daughter Harriot To ride in when the time comes for her marriage Come morning all my servants would gather drops of dew And I'd bathe until I smelled faintly of flowers Then I'd dress myself in petals and be joined by my milieu They'd advise me on how best to use my powers In the afternoon I'd dispatch squads of soldiers to the garden There with the cunning spiders to make war Girded in glass and foil, they'd accomplish with much toil To drive the many-legged heathens far Oh if I were a fairy king, I wouldn't want a thing And I'd never ever have to mince my words I'd build a golden palace in the garden in the spring And I'd soar upon the backs of ladybirds.

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