The Poet, The Soldier and the Freemason

The Poet, The Soldier and the Freemason

C.B. Cooper

9781257544844

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction to First Edition

Addendum for the Second Edition

The Poet

To Life and Death and Excelling at Both

Pen Part III

The Epic of the Angel of Champions

I: Invocation of the Muse

II: Three Angels

III: The Angel of Champions

IV: The Commission

V: Every Man’s Gift

VI: The Beginning

VII: The Bard

VIII: The Game

IX: Aurora’s Plot

X: A Battle In Heaven

XI: Aurora’s Plan Part I: Justice

XII: Aurora’s Plan Part II: Descent into Hell

XIII: The Woman

XIV: Love Games

XV: A Match Made in Heaven

XVI: My World

XVII: Could You Find it in Your Heart

XVIII: Declared Love

XIX: In Holy Matrimony

XX: The Silence

XXI: Goodbye Song

XXII: Repentance

XXIII: A Heart of Gold

XXIV: The Light of Love

XXV: The Challenge Part II: A New Hope

XXVI: Redemption, The Journey Begins

XXVII: Experience

XXVIII: Forgive my Life

XXIX: The Wisdom of the Hangman

XXX: If God Had Dreamt Another Dream

XXXI: Introspection of a Loner

XXXII: Dedication

XXXIII: Out of the Corner of His Eye

XXXIV: The Crossroad of the Gallows

XXXV: The Crossroads

XXXVI: Existential Nonsense

XXXVII: You Weakling

XXXVIII: The Sin of an Angel

XXXIX: The Plight of an Angel

XL: The Ballad of the Dying Angel

XLI: The Garden Gate

XLII: The Garden

XLIII: The End (I Love You)

The Next Page

The Price of the Muse

The Idea

The Flight of the Rail

Teacher

The Wastelands

Inside the Lodge

Reading Emerson

She Loves me (Villanelle)

The Sale (Sestina)

Nothing is mine. My walls are bare. (Villanelle)

Aubade 1

Aubade 2

Aubade 3

Filler

My Bloodied Master

To Know

Isabelle’s Dirty Laundry

Jazz

Art

For Shame

Invocation

The Body Human

Traveling by Sea

The Parrying Poet v. the Slavers

A Religion of Sorts

A Creator’s Love

Tragedy and Sacrifice

Sunday Morning

Tamar

Saved

The Promised Land

If This Were Bliss

If this were Loss or Sacrifice

I Admire your Love

The Widow

Suffering

The Wastrel

On My Own Cross

Life

The Museum

Between Religion and Humanism

Slipping Through Life

The Twilight of the Gods

Moments

Between Humanism and Religion

To be a God

My Angel has gone

Fly Away Angel Song

Finding Peace

Failure

The Truth of One

To the End of Man

Your Eyes

Bear Your Tenderness Sweetly Now

Out in the Great Wide Open

Dreams

For our Soul

Defining Moments

Gentle and Innocent

Tapping Life’s Water

Gravity

What We…

Hope

I’ve Got Fire in my Pocket

A Portrait of No Where

A Missive on the Value of Things

To Live

Our Solace in the Sun

Deep Within My Heart

That Day

Melancholy Man

Empty

The Wedding March

Slipping Through Life

On The Radio Tonight

A Perilous Rhyme Scheme

The Wake of Jeanne

Lunch

What Love is This, Part I

What Love is This, Segue

What Love is This, Part II

As Society Goes

Modern Parenthood

Dependency

A Formulary Family for the New Millennium

Sublime Possession

Solitude

And Then They Turned Their Heads

A Straight line

There’s still no Sign of Hope at All

Nameless Faces

SD Rhymes

What I Love in Life

SD The Gift

Her Kiss

One Night

And Then it Slips My Mind

The Black Bleeding Heart Beats Alone

The Curtain Has Not Fallen

Sadness

Lowest Common Density

The Places We’ve Been

Without Love

Lighting Crashes

The Day After

Encounter

Young Lust

Eyes of Love

The Machine

To the Poet…

New Hope

The Wicked World Turns

Wishes

Rank and File

On the First Day

The Earliest Ritual

Communal Man

A Moment in Prose

Spoken Truths

The New Love

Growing Old

The Storm

On Childhood

Mistress Darkened Seeker

For the Love of Mind

A Belated Song of Myself

Regret

Simplify

A Stairway Not a Ladder

Tomorrow

In the Darkness of the Night

A Poem for the New Yorker

The Birds have Gone

Blessed

On a Partner in Success

The Trade

The Rock Star

A Missive for Roger

The Aftermath

All Manner of Dreams

The Short Lived Life of Humanity

The Inspirational Life of Man

Still the End is Bitter

The Elizabeth River

I: Invocation

II: Invitation

III: Bargaining

IV: Beckoning

V: Tolerating

VI: Migrating

VII: Accepting

VIII: Explaining

IX: Vilifying

X: Rationalizing

XI: Comprehending

XII: Surrendering

That Perfect October Breeze

Surrender

A Poet at Thirty

The Last Poem

A Lucid Portrait

Returning Home

An Advocate for this Socialist World

A Prefab Mind

In the Stream of Man

On the Death of the Poet

The Flailing Light

On D-Day

Tabbed Out

Battles to Fight

On the Coming of Total War

Between (The serpent’s lair)

A Tempered Blade

Revolution

Wondering in a Circle

The Dear John Letter Part I

The Dear John Letter Part II

Remembering a High School Sweetheart

The Cary Street Bookstore

Simple Thoughts

When We Met

Laser Range Finder

When We Were More

To Join the Forest

To be a Hero

Keep the Home Fires Burning

A Soldier’s Dream

The Ballad of the Evening News

The Hunter

The Forever Debt

Coming Home

Commune

Labor Day

On Memorial Day

Youth

Fly Eagle

The Darker Side of Self

I: Prologue:

II: Camouflage – Returning Home

III: Loneliness Falls

IV: Dreaming of It (Madness)

V: Blessed Madness

VI: Descent into Madness

VII: Into the Madness

VIII: The Price of Madness

IX: In The Clutches of Madness

X: The Madness Burns

XI: The Maddening Betrayal

XII: Madness Slipping

XIII: Medicine Man

Introduction to First Edition

This collection was originally called One Year of Dreams, Desire and Poetry. But after the first 365 days disappeared, the phrase one year started to seem a little out of place. One year became two and then three and so on. Finally, I decided to include the "Angel of Champions that contains some of my earliest works (parts of it are from poems written as much as 8 years before it was actually assembled). So I finally gave in and changed the title. The current title comes from a careful reflection on the years during which I was writing this work. Surely, they were desperate times for me. More than that, however, it comes from the feeling that these are, in fact, desperate times for our country, the world, and society in general.

This work should definitely be viewed as a journey. It began many years ago with happiness and faith and journeyed through bitterness and pain to individualism and idealism. Along the way, my readings have influenced much, and there are many small tributes to my own literary idols throughout this book. Perhaps you will come to understand as I did that while poetry is my life, all of life is poetry.

The Poet Speaks: In truth, there is nothing more promising then a blank sheet of paper but there is nothing more fulfilling then one covered in ink. From the dream of potential to the pen and the ink, this was a labor of love, and so now, it also becomes a gift. A gift to those who recognize truth, the truth that living is vital because death inevitable, the truth that for at least one day we have all been Gods.

"Transcendentalism is Idealism" R. W. Emerson

Addendum for the Second Edition

In modern life, there is nothing more successful than the sequel; however, because I view this work as an evolving story of the life of a writer, as long as I live and write, there will be another edition.

In this edition, some of the poems changed, some were rewritten, many were added. Five years is a long time in anyone’s life. These five years brought me very near to the end of my pursuit of poetry, too many distractions, kids, work and rather more lucrative ways to spend my time. I turned thirty, which is a mark no poet expects to live beyond, or perhaps living beyond that mark, never to be productive again.

I am, is, was many things during the past ten years. I was a soldier. I became a Mason, of which, I will say this, there is mystery and there are secrets veiled and not so veiling in every aspect of life. There are many in this book some veiled and some not so veiled, but I will never reveal which is which.

Inside this book, I address my connection with the Gulf Coast Writers Association and the Magnolia Quarterly, both of which were essential to my continued interest in writing and poetry. The people and places in my life are all here, from 9/11 to my children Brad and Madelyn.

For me this is a story of the evolution of a writer, the changes a person goes through in their life and how it changes their art. It is not just a collection of separate poems it is the story of the life of a mind. I hope you enjoy it.

The Poet

From the time Desperate Times was published in 2001 to the time this book will be printed in 2003, the Magnolia Quarterly has been a haven for my writing and thoughts. Not only myself but the quality writing of many in Mississippi, Florida, and Louisiana. As a careful note to the fairness of the Editors, I was not immediately banished for being a Virginia. The home of the Gulf Coast Writers Association on the world wide web is www.gcwriters.org. Pay a visit for some of the best Creative Writing there is to be found on the web in a simple southern style.

During this time I have experienced the miracle of the birth of my first child. 9/11 happened destroying the comfort of fifty years of American Security. America has gone to war again. The Space Shuttle Columbia exploded taking seven astronauts with it, and I find myself again on a journey in life watching this next chapter in awe of history amazed at how things seem larger every day. The larger things appear the smaller I feel. But for myself and for my wife and for my son and for the daughter that bears my surname, I refuse to live in fear and find my solace and my life again in Poetry.

To Life and Death and Excelling at Both

(A Prayer for A.E. Housman)

Here’s to life and living

And excelling in every way;

To life, to death, to giving,

And dreaming the days away.

Yes, here’s to life and living,

Lift the cup and drink it up.

The poem will take the pain away;

The words will wash it down.

The ale will make you numb to it,

Dear Terence not a sound.

Breath in all the poem now,

And drink of life and drown.

Now, here’s to death and dying,

And the blessing of the end,

And for the gift of dignity,

That justified God’s ways to men.

And after all excelling

At death in every way.

The final gift of living

Will take the pain away.

Oh! Terence this is stupid stuff,

This morbid poet’s wail.

To give the gift of wisdom,

To no one, to no avail.

I stumbled down a rocky path,

My memories kind of pale,

I think the one less traveled by;

The mist it wore, a veil,

The veil it wore disguised from me

The answer to the question,

What is it all this means?

Pen Part III

I travel forward to a place with no name

I am armed simply with my pen, my collection,

my thoughts,

The company of my sage, and the dreams I’ve

sought.

There my lifetime beckoned to me

Beckoned, whispered destiny.

Prepared to stain the ink with rage

My soul was still I cursed the night

Begging that I still the flight

Of the passion that consumes my life.

Cracked and calling still to me

A falling pen without its ink

Cries bereft and lonely.

I asked for little,

But for you

To guide my ink

Your thoughts to truth

Immortal cry

Has blurred the blot

The aftermath of loneliness, though barren was not.

You left me there,

Withdrew your hand

To quick stand forth,

To be a man.

Of these three, I then suppose,

Your muse is least in the poetic mold

Please capture me,

I sit here still.

Take your hand and make me feel.

Love me just as I’ve loved you:

My freedom is the word that might free you.

Betray me not my muse in flight

Take hold my hand and let us write

Prepared, you arm me I will fight

To stay the hand of that good night.

The Epic of the Angel of Champions

In Loving Memory of Jennifer Shelton…

I: Invocation of the Muse

Let lightning roll

And thunder strike.

I grasp my pen,

My guide, my life.

Then to the road

I was led and will go

The journey’s solemn aftermath

This ink will void at last

Cast off the wanton fears I loathe.

Embrace the golden calf.

The sphinx turned to the pyramid

And gazed up to the sun

To bring the news to my hand

Tonight the past is done.

And God will wander yet with him

That blurred the ink that past, that sin.

I surrender all not to give in

But to breathe in all I know will cleanse.

An Angel’s life,

Both love and lies

A gift, a curse, through jaded eyes.

A vision of the nearest star

Whose light would come

Not near to ours.

Now Truth, the light, its journey down,

And faith I sow into the ground.

To love I say at last goodbye

I walk in peace and do not cry.

Of a couple who shared the love of the ages,

Of an angel who had fallen from grace,

Of another who stands with the Father,

Of the man who dared show his face.

Sing heavenly muse,

The things that are written are yours,

Tell of the life and tell of the death,

Birth us the future and free us from the past,

Find us the lovers whose story we tell

Of their life and the garden and the gate voiding

Hell.

Give the words your clarity

So that all may understand

The gift that God would give to us

A tale of faith and man.

II: Three Angels

Love was told and dreams would roll

On such a momentous day.