Abstract green photo - Poems by George Payne

POEMS BY GEORGE PAYNE: The Name of God Is Not a Word, Tuesday Evening Tango and more

Last updated: April 8th, 2019

The Name of God Is Not a Word

The name of God
is not a word.

The Incas knew
that God is a shape.

In the beginning,
was Logos.
The origin of all form.

There is a universe
that comes from
all things. A lord of
the dance. An evolution
of movement.

How will you come into the dance?

As one?
Unconcealed?
Swirled into structures
hiding and seeking?

Forgetting what the game is all about?

Tuesday Evening Tango

Like a spring-fed brook,
I do not want to live forever.

Deeply cleft, grey-green, with
lichens bent by the wind,

I want to die
washed in burgundy.

Like the melody of a mourning
warbler pumping in the placenta.

I want to exist. That’s it. As the plants
exist.
Solitary and fluid.

The feeling of frost on a leaf-littered
boulder and the smell of gooseberries
decomposing.

No, I do not want to live forever.

Better to be mere arousal—
that need to Tango on a Tuesday evening.

We Grew This Way

We grew this way,
we are this kind of species.
Unmarked. Lost from the hive.
Barely living off the sun.
Sometimes stealing from the sun.
We grew this way,
we are this kind of species.
With unlaced shoes, uncombed
hair, handmade signs and machine-
like superegos once as big as Texas.

Emerald City

Seattle is a cute blonde
wearing flannel pajamas;

as she reads Popular Science
and drinks a Guinness by
the harbor. Fog-soaked and

slower than San Francisco,
she was dragged across
the gravel of time, like a long
pause in an old sermon.

Seattle is a submerged feeling
called grunge: a misinterpretation

of borders and everything else.

Socrates Saying Yes

Kierkegaard said it’s either or.
Free soloing rock climbers know that much.

Either you step into the fracture and live or
you miss the grip and die. There is no grey zone,
at least not when it comes to climbing El Capitan
without ropes or landing on the surface of the Moon.

To get back is not a theory. You either do or you
don’t. Life is not simple, but choosing is.

You either do or you don’t. To choose is always
a sign that there is a choice, and that choice is always
between a yes and a no. Do I stay or do I go? 
Like Socrates saying yes to the hemlock.

Our Own

The status quo is killing our soul.
Life is not about paying the mortgage.

It is not OK that your cousin works at
the bomb factory. It doesn’t matter that they
call it an integrated manufacturing centre.

We are slowly being cooked by the schemes
of normal. Normal is not electing a president
who became rich for building failed casinos and
a celebrity for firing people on a “reality” tv show.

The status quo is killing our soul. It is not all about retiring.
What in life retires? If an elephant seal retires, it will be eaten by an orca.

Nothing about the status quo is working. You know we do not
need to have enemies. If we choose, we can love everyone.
That’s not insane. That’s just an option.

You know, I can even love ISIS if I want to. Or even Hitler. I can love
anything and anyone, at any time. I can love. Fascism is the denial of love.

You know that you are in a fascist state when the “leaders” tell
you who can be loved and under what circumstances.

Let me be clear: I do not love ISIS or Hitler. I choose to hate them.
But no one can tell me that I cannot love them if I want to.

The status quo is suffocating us. There is nothing OK with the way we shop.
Plastic inside of the plastic. Consuming as much plastic as possible just because
it is on sale. That’s insane. Cyclones taking down entire countries. Floods drowning
Nebraska. Weather out of control. The future made irrelevant by a pack of pundits.

Just a bunch of people casting votes that ensure we will mess the place up a little sooner than expected.
Is that normal? Is that what we were born to inherit? Is that worth it?

If we are alive, someone else isn’t. Do we have a duty
to tell them that we care about having a life we know is our own?

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image: George Payne

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