AFTERWORD


Gentle Reader,

What you’ll find below is an upside-down anthology of sorts: a journal of my frequent nightly musings from January 2008 till now, in reverse order.


Much of what I write here is verse in traditional rhymed iambic pentameters, old fashioned in form but contemporary in topics and idiom. It asks to be read aloud so that the effects of rhyme and meter may be felt.


Sometimes I write brief prose essays, but even my verses are essays, or attempts, pursuing a line of thought to some conclusion, though more sonorously than those in prose: discursive verses, I call them.


In either case, you’re the reader over my shoulder as I write, which makes my writing different than when I have no audience in mind but only a vague urge to express. So I thank you for whatever attention you give my words and thoughts and feelings because you might so easily attend to something else, and you soon will.


To beguile you to linger longer, though, I’ve coupled most of my compositions with a photo or image I’ve taken or borrowed, which often corresponds with my words of that day.

Thank you for visiting here.  I hope you enjoy your stay and are moved to come back soon.

—Alan Nordstrom

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“I BELIEVE that in our good days a well-ordered mind has a new thought awaiting it every morning.  And hence, eminently thoughtful men, from the time of Pythagoras down, have insisted on an hour of solitude every day, to meet their own mind and learn what oracle it has to impart.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, from “Inspiration”

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  THE SEEKER SPEAKS

      Of all the ways to apprehend what is,
      Which way is most insightful and profound,
      Devised to lead to transcendental bliss
      Accessing ultimately Being’s ground?

      For all the knowledge science has procured
      On the observable material plane,
      Beyond the physical there lies immured
      A spirit realm some venturers attain.

      Or so they say, but second-hand report
      Will not suffice or gratify my need
      To know directly in my private court
      Of judgment, where experience must lead.

           Therefore, I shall proceed to find the means
           To verify such supernatural scenes.

*

GNOSIS

 for Christopher Bache
 

I willingly suspend my disbelief
In what I know that’s just intuitive;
Though scientistic minds will give me grief,
The gnostic’s is the holy way to live,
Which is to say, there’s knowing that transcends
Materiality in space and time,
A cosmic consciousness that recommends
A kind of reasoning that’s more like rhyme
Than logic or the rationality
Pertaining merely to what’s manifest;
A deeper realm that’s implicate I’ll see
When I acknowledge what I’ve long suppressed.
     The greatest barrier is always fear:
     That gone—who knows what Visions may appear?

*

REINCARNATION: STEP ONE

      Let’s say it’s so, and I’ve been born before,
      Returning many times to life on Earth,
      Though always with amnesia at the door
      Making my entry seem my only birth.

      My Higher Self, my Soul, contrives this ruse,
      A kind of hide-and-seek, so I might grow
      In karmic clarity and disabuse
      My Earthly self of what is merely show,

      Coming at last to recognize the Light
      Pervading all materiality,
      My consciousness attaining to new height
      And realizing why I came to be.

           That this may be, I now just speculate,
           The first step toward a truth I might create.

*

TWO VIEWS: A MORALITY TALE

        “The Devil made me do it, you might say,        
        Or, “It just happened to befall poor me,”        
        Or “Fate determines how I go my way”—        
       Thus you avoid responsibility.   
   
       A better way sees opportunity        
       Awaiting every one of us each day,       
       For there are many happy ways to be— 
       Unless from love and righteousness we stray.

*

RAH-RAH FOR CHUTZPAH

              Though I’m doing the best that I can,
                   I still need to be doing lots better;
              So I’ve got to come up with a plan
                   To win me a varsity letter,
              'Cuz less than I can be won’t cut it:
              I won’t walk it or run it—but strut it!

*

A POESSAY

   A poessay is more than just a lyric;
   It aims to sing yet also be empiric,
   A tuneful way to find what I’ve to say
   Setting it in a form devised to stay.

   There’s magic in the web of such a song,
   A beat that carries subtle thought along
   As from the depths of the Mysterium
   New matter rises and ideas come.

   To write in plain expository prose
   Will often make a sleepy reader doze;
   But add a beat, anticipate a rhyme,
   Then hear what was prosaic turn sublime.

        The message you have sent may be the same,
        But one in poetry wins more acclaim.

* * *

POESSAY II

  
      While a lyric poet sings and minds his notes
      Attending to the feelings he emotes, 
      And one whose line is narrative will tell 
      A tale to enchant you with its cunning spell, 
      My kind of verse straight-forwardly explains,
      Less aimed at feet or hearts than curious brains.
  
      My poessays are expositional, 
      My attitude that of a knowing pal 
      Who’s onto something that might interest you, 
      A line of thought I’d coax you to pursue, 
      And yet as much as you, or more, I find 
      That as I write I grow the more aligned 
      With what it was I thought I had to say—
      Though without verse, I’d never find my way.

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