The Poet, The Soldier and the Freemason
By C.B. Cooper
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The Poet, The Soldier and the Freemason - C.B. Cooper
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.