The Humbling and Other Poems
Table of Contents
Dedication
The Poems
I.
The Humbling
Amid the Jersey Turnpike Whales
Another Word for Love
Vicarium
Elsewhere in the Coffeehouse...
Florescence
Now I've Become a Butterfly
Stargazers on a Winter's Night
We Are Water
Trevi Fountain
Still Here
Butterfly Mindset
Obsidian with Sheens of Gold
II.
Attending the Poet
Conversations with Gaia
Phoenix: Salvation
In Perpetuity
Interior Kingdom
Unbound
Between these Leaves
A Raindrop on Its Journey
To a Praying Sculpture
On the Revolutions of Copernicus
Unfinished Portrait
Postcards from Utopia
Observatory
Vanishing Points of View
Remembrance of a Future's Past
Upgrade
The Unpaved Road
Lotus Dreamer
So It Goes
What Dreams May Leave
April, Autumnal
Phoenix: Eternal
III.
Hidden in Plain Sight
Spacewalk of Life
Time, Who Rules Them All
Wide Angle Lens
Vermeer's Astronomer
Deer Haven
All Hands on Deck
Underwater
To Tolkien, the Mythmaker
Amazed
Destinations
Uncommon Choreography
Valedictory
To a Chess Computer
Metatheater
Choral
In an Upstate of Mind
Metropolis
IV.
Art of Diversity
Credo
One Sculpture, Seven Spectators
Through the Lens of Love
Epitaph
Behold
The Halcyon Days
Abscission
Prayer for the Voices of Resistance
Revivify
The Phoenix Way
Gamut
V.
All at Once (Through a Time Traveler's Eyes)
Resurfacing
The Gravity Beyond Our Blame
Significant Other, Signifying
Out of the Labyrinth, into the Light
To a Ventriloquist
Cubist Dancers
Quantum Poetical
Renovation of a Soul
Limited or No Connectivity
To the Spirit of My Lion Father
The Tigress to Her Loving Cub
The War Within
Architects of the Impossible
VI.
Escaping Escapism
Tell Them the Whole Truth
The Hidden Optimists
Valuation
Rights of Passage
Personal Copernican Revolution
Necessary Separation
The Song of Walt Is Our Song
Pas de Deux
Transcending Dialectics
Inside Collapsing Mines of Hope
VII.
Withstanding
Unfinished Symphony
Sacred Flight
Tao
Love's Special Relativity
Valediction
Building the Ark of Love
Lodestars
The Art of Rock Balancing
Dreaming Beyond Stairways
All in Their Times
Deepmost
Emblazon
Soul Windows
Semester’s End at Raphael’s School of Athens
AfterPoem: Toward Wisdom from Humility
Addenda
About Me
My “Eleven M’s of Poetry”
Three Brief Essays:
Essay I: Humility & Socrates
Essay II: The Vicarium
Essay III: Accessible Me
Poetry Words: A Very Brief Glossary
Some Poetry Reading Suggestions
Some Books About Poetry
Some Poets You Might Like
Additional Poets You Might Consider
Some Poetry Publications
Websites
Acknowledgements
_____________________________
= Welcome =
Greetings, friend, to my debut poetry collection. I’m honored and grateful you can join me here.
Unified by the theme of humility, these poems represent various stages of a larger journey toward freedom, compassion, selflessness, understanding, wisdom, bliss, and peace.
While this collection has been arranged in seven parts, its poems can be read in any order, from cover to cover, randomly, or any other way you wish.
Wherever you begin, I hope something in these leaves gives you joy.
After my poems, I provide some optional reading material about me, some of my ideas, and poetry itself.
Thank you for reading my book.
With much appreciation and love,
Robert
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== The Poems ==
I.
Past vanity,
I climb to see…
_____________________________
The Humbling
I love the world that humbled me
along my march toward 33,
a time so prime, profuse with pride,
when confidence intensified
and knowledge lead me to exalt
my educations to a fault.
In truth, I had to learn much more
than anything I read before,
experiences still to gain,
mistakes to make, the novel pain
of giving up some foolish dream
then tread the edge of self-esteem
and reckon with the emptiness,
where suppositions evanesce.
I took such pleasure in a fact,
the trivia I could extract,
my theories of the cosmic ways
among those bold, conceited days.
I'm just a student, one who sees
the paradox of Socrates,
to understand I do not know,
and yet enlighten as I go
to question things (myself as well),
mull modestly, and rarely dwell
at any point of prominence.
No humbled heart wants dominance.
_____________________________
Amid the Jersey Turnpike Whales
Two tractor trailers blow by fast
and drench my windows with their mist.
My hatchback's one slick dolphin here,
though small and gray among those whales.
The highway has become our sea
inhabited by sharks and eels
which weave between great waves of rain
and schools of luminescent cars
whose red and yellow spotlights glow
before the coral blur of trees.
Another trailer splashes through,
accompanied by pilot cars.
I eye my exit, nearly fishtail
flailing homeward one more time
in search of smoother waters yet,
no loggerheads, no snaring net,
just shallow couch, some songs that flow,
the lure of light and life I know,
and bubbles in my bath or glass,
as dreams, like ships I captain, pass.
_____________________________
Another Word for Love
We breathe the word so frequently
I hope it ever resonates
like bells in my cathedral heart
whenever our feelings wed.
I've mentioned treasure, cherish, doting,
fond, admire, and desire,
prize, adore, amour, and more,
but what can mean as much as love?
The thesaurus lends no advice.
Inventive terms might well suffice,
until we use all those up, too.
Perhaps I won't state I love you.
Instead, I'd show it every day.
My actions speak. Hear what they say.
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Robert J. Tiess © Copyright 2022