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Poetry || SubmissionsPoems by Ward KelleySlippery Soul It loves us, yet it always seeks to avoid our grasp, and is much more skilled at escape than any other lover. For it will not allow our touch to claim its skin, indeed its flesh exists only for those hands that no longer need a lover. Shadow here, peripheral over there, glimpsed in a dream, or remembered as a distant childhood feeling, a devious lover. Yet it does not laugh or think us silly; instead it insists it loves us like no other, and will join with us when we most need a lover . . . there, at the very end, the end where we fear we are most alone; until then, it will always be ready at our side, a claim made by no other lover. Artist's note: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) was a geologist, paleontologist, philosopher-theologian and priest. Leaving his teaching career at the Catholic Institute in Paris where his superiors charged him with unorthodox views, he spent twenty years in China, participating in the discovery of Peking man. Writing in "The Phenomenon of Man," he said "The apparent restriction of the phenomenon of consciousness to the higher forms of life has long served science as an excuse for eliminating it from its models of the universe. A queer exception, an aberrant function, an epiphenomenon -- thought was classed under one or other of these heads in order to get rid of it. But what would have happened to modern physics if radium had been classified as an 'abnormal substance' without further ado?" I'm Tired of Hell I'm tired of hell. As a child it was thrust upon me so often in school or church, I tried to be precise in my avoidance of any act or thought that might damn me to burn in agony for all eternity . . . a little tyke incinerated forever. At last I saw how those who have an interest in scaring me were in fact human, not devils or gods. I'm tired of hell. As an adult I refuse to tell my daughters about it. Let them think there's only heaven . . . let them believe there's something redeemable about even the worse of us, let them know we will all make it up there someday and reunite in a bliss of our own doing. So I see how those who have an interest in scaring them are in fact human, not devils or gods. I'm tired of hell; let's all just let it drop. Why a Death Was Necessary Before I die, I want to think our fate into a sense we can take to the grave . . . for it is bad to die without some embraceable knowledge of why a death was necessary, and is this not what man does so much better than animal, this thinking into reasons? Should I think the gods have balanced the great joy of our lives as we lived before the pale ones appeared? Should I know the great sin we committed to offend the gods who now must have of our lives? Or should I see how the jaguar will always eat the goat, and we are simply no longer in strength? I fear I grow weary of thought, and sick of my eyes, for there are no longer any ideas who can take away my longing for my wife and my children who sleep, unthinking, in the brown earth. 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. You once termed my efforts 'bio poems.' In "Slippery Soul" I take interest in the behavior of the soul. "I'm Tired of Hell" deals with the weapon of hell. And, "Why a Death Was Necessary," examines embraceable knowledge. As for me, I'm a 49 year old business executive with 3,600 people in the < division reporting to me. I only mention this because in a sense the daimon that propels my occupation also propels my poetry. For instance, Gertrude Stein once said, "If Mr. Robert Frost is at all good as a poet, it is because he is a farmer -- really in his mind a farmer, I mean." Am I a businessman who writes poetry, or a very minor poet successful at business? Who knows? But my daimon propelled me into such a good financial position that I could now quit my business dealings and comfortably write poetry the rest of my life . . . yet I am afraid to quit for fear my daimon will leave me, or my greed will taunt me for decades. Formerly I managed distribution centers in Pennsylvania, Ohio, California, Arizona and Illinois. My wife and I now live outside of Indianapolis and are currently toiling with much determination on our second crop of children, having adopted four wonderful girls and fostered several 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 429 pieces since late '96. Please see the attached list of credits. Current successes are: being nominated for the 1999 Pushcart; completing an interview with Israeli poet Elisha Porat (1996 winner of the Prime Minister Prize for Literature); being accepted by Rattle for the second time; Sunstone, Porcupine Literary Magazine; the Ezines Morella, Pif, 2River View, Oblique and Offcourse; and by print magazines Potpourri and Skylark -- each for the third time. Lastly, I was selected as the Featured Poet by the Ezine Seeker, and the Canadian Ezine, Pyrowords. Ward Kelley 1767 E. US 40 Greencastle, IN 46135 Ward708@aol.com http://www.publishers-editor.com/kelley/ More poems by Ward Kelley at Ariga Ariga: Visions: A 'Zine: Poetry: Three Poems by Ward Kelley about Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, and F. Scott Fitzgerald Ariga: Visions: A 'Zine: Poetry: Bio Poems by Ward Kelley Today's Situation
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