2011-02-22

Posted at 23:04 UT by Tamara

Featured Speaker for Poetry Reading at Santa Cruz Poetry Group

On February 20th, I was the featured Poet for Santa Cruz Poetry Group in downtown Santa Cruz, and recorded part of the reading of three selections: "Phoenix Arise!", which was selected as the New Millennium Poem for the San Francisco Bay Area monument to poetry and was given a bronze plate for the monument which rises up out on the Point in Palo Alto California. This poem is available to view on-line here, and at a variety of other hosting websites, and the broadcast video of the poem is available to view at the Internet Archives, where I will be shortly posting the video of this reading. This poem is part of a selection of poems from "Poems for the New Millennium".

Phoenix Arise!

Phoenix Arise!

Out of the Ruins of What has Come Before,
The Phoenix Will Arise!

At this Crossing of Time and Place,
Wind and Water,
Air and Stone,
We,
And All Life With Us,
Dedicate
To All We Are,
And All We've Yet To BE,
Ever in the CHOOSING,
The Know,
The Hold,
The Truth.
The BE.

Here the Circles Rising,
Of Time,
And Seed,
And Shore,
Washing Ever More,
Ever More We do Become.

Breakwaters Beckon,
Wind and Sky Implore,
Up and Down All Universe
Awaits Within Our Door.

Light of Create,
And Darkness of Being Born —
Starlit Dreams and Sunset Shores,
To Be What We Give Our Life Breath to Be,
To Do,
To Love,
To Dream,
In this Place of All Directions,
A Reason of Behold.
Believe.
Unfold.
You are the One.
We are the Dream Untold.
Here in All Telling,
Whispering All Direction,
All Know.
We Are the Ones We Are Waiting For.
On this Stretch of Time and Place,
Compassed We Stand,
All Forces Meet,
All of the Plan.

Elicit Forth a World of Our Own Create!
Fulcrum All Direction,
Reality Awaits.
All Shores of Possibility,
Here Where All Directions Meet,
All the Light that is Needed to Give Our World and Beings Change.
The Compass of Our Choosing,
Our Being,
The Mind Unbands,
Spanning All Directions,
We Arrive,
To Stand For Something, Somewhere in Our Life,
A Depth of Feeling,
A Know that Never Dies,
In these Fallings and Risings,
Renew,
Revive.
All Parts of the Whole,
All Consciousness,
All Know,
Celebrate this Meeting of Mind.
From Every Point of View,
Every Point of Place.
Move in Grace.
You are Perfectly Placed.
Be All You Wish to Know.
Meaning to this Moment,
In Balance With All Force of Dark and Light.
Everyone Arrives.
All Nature,
Alive!

Phoenix Arise!

(Bronze Plate erected on the San Francisco Bay Point in Palo Alto, California.)

"Poems of the War", another collection of poetry written after the September 11th bombings, was also featured for two poems, " New World Awaits!", and "On a Street named Hope." Poems Of The War:  New World Waits

How can we
As a world of humanity
Endure the Sufferings
Of our fellow humanity,
Without rising to
Overthrow the evil
Which has fostered itself upon us,
And what part out of ourselves?

The delusion of piety
In horrible grimace
Of torture and death,
Demonic,
Intent that takes the face of
Holy and good,
That deals to each of us
The wound,
Loss of life,
Soul,
Breath.

False prophets hide
Under cruel masks of holy,
Hells fury delivered upon all,
the scourge and plague,
Insanity of Hells most horrible flames,
Terror as cruel as anything this world has witnessed.
While the world stands watching.

And from the sins and errors in many places,
Great and small,
We all stand now in harms way,
As we have always stood,
United with each,

Bringing us each to realize,
Just what is looking into our face,
Of what,
And who we will be,
And are,
Of what has always been,
And will always be.

In the suffering of innocents
Comes forth
Arrows to us all.

We cannot continue upon this earth
So disparagingly.

For the task at hand is raising up
From the woes of suffering,
From the hunger of want,
And the greeds of unknown.
And the sins against us all.

On the brinks of War,
By children torn from all family,
No value,
No love,
All lost.
Raised in blindness,
Without honor or love,
In loyalty to twisted minds
Of clerics gone mad,
Without the succor
And bindings of love.

Humanity without humanity,
Slaughterous and Wild,
Can take hold in such ravage,
In a world that only watches
And waits.

All that is good within us,
Is all that remains
To rise to this battle
Requires more than just quenching angry flames.
All we cherish of humanity,
Mankind on the battle plains.

Weeping faces of children,
Ghosts of parents murdered in their face,
Bleeding tears without end.
When will they rise to reach
The part of us
That must learn to be
More caring
For our world and woes?

When will we learn
To love enough
To reach through
The agony,
Through the pain,
Into a New World,
Born again?

Ghosts
Screaming in agony
In terror of what we’ve become,
Not yet strong enough to learn
How to see the world
We make for ourselves.

Legions in agony,
As the world watches
And waits,
Until the agony spreads.

For the wounding always draws us
Bloody into the fray.

To war on all terrorism,
Without and within,
To free ourselves
From the savage ravaging
That has torn belief in love
From the heart,
Belief that life can be succored,
Hatreds can be tamed.

Bitter tears
That forever burn,
For why have we brought ourselves to this place?

Screaming,
And ravaged souls,
Clamoring from the eternal,
We can no longer wait.

Liberate!

Arrows slung
From a war that will not die,
Bring us to the fires,
Clarity of heart and eye.

Each soul must awake
To see the mirrors of create.
We must,
As a world,
Realize.
The whole of Humanity
Is always what it takes.

Awaken within ourselves,
Wisdom to see
What is true,
Strength to overthrow our failings,
Heart to draw us nigh,
All of us,
Children of free will.

Remove the blindness from our eyes.
Remove the indifference from our lives.
Forever joined,
We remain.

One in body,
One in name,
One in fortune,
One in flame.

New World Waits.

These readings will become part of a broadcast in the near future in my 4 times weekly Broadcast Cable Series: http://TamaraLynnScottBroadcasts.blogspot.com.

Labels: Featured Poetry Reading in Santa Cruz