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Poetry || SubmissionsBio poems by Ward KellyTongued With Fire Again Call the simple forth, call us to the front of all the minds, call us to the top of all the thoughts that must come forth to go round and round . . . how the simple might still do, how the laws are sound and sound and never will be found to be very complicated . . . only unseen, unseen. So it is a town, a community, you see, round and round the simple town . . . we are with you, all around, with you, with you like a firm thought just beyond your peripheral vision, round and round and round . . . like your soul goes. T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) was arguably the most influential poet of the 20th century. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Eliot was educated at Harvard, but then moved to England where he became a British citizen in 1927. Best known for his poems "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and "The Waste Land," Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. According to Eliot's instructions, his tomb was engraved with the phrase, 'in the beginning is my end, in the end is my beginning.' In "Little Gidding," the last of the "Four Quartets," Eliot wrote, "And what the dead had no speech for when living, they can tell you, being dead: the communication of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living." A False and Miserable World The world has never given me a thing that I did not have to take by force. Indeed the bloody grasp of a thing leads directly to a better possession. Prayers have never snagged a single florin, nor, I believe, were they designed so, and prayers have never stopped a single body from descending to a grave. The axe, the axe, it always prevails against the skin which hardly even slows the blade. And when one recognizes this simple fate, then the path seems clear, seems clear . . . The best one will ever do is to simply try to aim the deadly force. Fra Monreale (c1350) was the leader of one of the many mercenary bands that afflicted Europe in the 14th century. A former prior of the Knights of St. John, Monreale turned his back on respectability, tempted by easy profits. Besides selling the services of his small army to various city states, he extorted protection money from various other cities. In 1353 alone he commanded nearly 100,000 florins from Rimini, Florence, Pisa and Siena. Tricked into coming to Rome, Monreale pompously entered without his troops and was instantly seized, tried as a public robber, and sentenced to the block. Audacious to the end, Monreale brought his own surgeon to the decapitation so the doctor could direct the executioner's axe. Before his beheading, Monreale avowed to the crowd that no one should blame him for "carving his way with a sword through a false and miserable world." Mourning Like a Garment It is almost dawn . . . enough light to see the sleeping faces of my wife and two babes . . . faces quietly rocking in our small boat. How can I protect them from the evils of this world? How can I be a father, how to be a man? I watch their faces, and I breathe such a fear this morning . . . I panic for their well-being . . . I feel so weak compared to the evils of life . . . I do not know what to say to my children when they look into my face for answers . . . I do not even know what to tell myself . . . except 'be a man, be a man,' and go on, go on. Jean de Venette (c.1308-c.1369), was a Carmelite prior who wrote a chronicle about his own era in France. The 14th century was an age of rending social upheaval, with France plagued by mercenary companies of English knights and their French allies who preyed upon unprotected villages. After their defeat at Poitiers, French nobles were loathe to allow their knights to leave the castles to defend the peasantry who were appallingly left exposed to the brigands. Some peasant families, to escape the companies, spent nights in their small boats which they anchored mid-river. De Venette wrote, "From that time on all went ill with the kingdom, and the state was undone . . . The country and whole land of France began to put on confusion and mourning like a garment because it had no defender or guardian. About Ward kelley I must admit I'm enamored with the montage created between a poem based on an historical personage and the bio at the bottom of the poem. In "Tongued With Fire Again" I take interest in the speculation of what Eliot could, being dead, tell you. "A False and Miserable World" deals with the metaphor of the axe. And, "Mourning Like A Garment," examines the desires of a father to protect his children. As for me, I'm the Asst. Vice President of Logistics for TruServ, the parent company of True Value Hardware, Servistar, and Coast to Coast, a co-op of 10,500 hardware stores. Formerly I managed distribution centers in Pennsylvania, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Arizona and Chicago. My wife and I now live outside of Indianapolis; we've adopted two daughters, and currently foster three others. Fairly new to publishing my efforts -- this most challenging of all endeavors -- I have still been fortunate to enjoy some initial successes, and have published 150 pieces. Please see the attached list of credits. Current successes are: being accepted by Midwest Poetry Review, Rattle, Limestone, and Pittsburgh Quarterly online, by Potpourri and Skylark -- each for the second time -- and giving a reading at Purdue University at Calumet. Also, after seeing a poem of mine on Emily Dickinson (published in Melting Trees Review), Annaliese Bischof, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, selected me to serve as a contemporary poet to her junior year writing classes. Lastly I was recently selected as a featured Poet of the Week on an Internet poetry site, Poetry Super Highway, and chosen as the Featured Poet by the Canadian site, Pyrowords. You can write to Ward c/o Ward Kelley Previous poems by Ward Kelley at Ariga Today's Situation
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