161: I’ve seen you naked/on stage, in front of a microphone...

I’ve seen you naked

on stage, in front of a microphone

reading just for me

giving up anything to do with ego

letting everything go until

the words become emotion

the body becomes invisible

until there is only contagion

until there is only

until there is

until there

until

until everything disappears

I came here last week

to read and to listen to poems

instead I fell in love at least 9 times

some of their names I never learned

some of their names I can’t remember

some of their names I know

           but will not say them

because what happens here is not about

names and identity

This is about giving voice

to what lies beyond hopes, fears, and joy

I know (my friend) Nathan calls it:

          “W O W”

but it could just as easily be called

god or soul or tao or essence or sublime or Anny or Doug or Eli or Nathan

(or any other names that are represented here)

sometimes I call it “ekstasis”

(a greek word that means:

standing elsewhere, or a displacement

from a condition of stasis;

the root of our ecstacy.)

I come back here time after time

and again and again we take off

the clothes we’ve been wearing all week

the clothes that keep us revealing or

          should I say, revelation?

The challenge is to not put on your clothes

back on after exposing yourself

to live the “W O W”

not only at the microphone

with this support group

but to let loose your protections

and dance in the middle of desire

          all week, every day,

                     every moment, all of the time

we should say

          should express

                     every firefly of light that posses our hearts

                     as well as every wasp of darkness and

                     every unnameable in between

Find the person who you most want to hold

and hold them because it may be that they need/want

to be held within that poetry, your poetry,

           poetry!

Look in their eyes and tell them:

           thank you

           I love you

           You’re so beautiful

           or whatever needs to be said

We create

this celebration

this is not Cinderella’s ball

it does not have to end at midnight

we create this

each one of us

whether we read or attend

each one of us is this

let us agree that this time, tonight,

it does not end.



©2010 by Jonathan Neske

All rights reserved.

www.neske.biz