[Thespiritexpress] Forging Iron

[Ed Balldinger]

Dear Fellow Beings born of love, living in love and dying to love -

Thank you for engaging in the experience of sharing my poem with you
today.  As I said in my preliminary remarks, it's a poem written over time,
which is what Robert Bly says he often did with his poems - write a poem,
put it in a drawer, pull it out after some time, carve a little more, then
back in the drawer it goes for a while, etc...!  This poem told me it was
the right time to finish it and lay it to rest, or wake it up for new
beginnings to come.

It's a poem woven between the possibilities of our strength and fragility;
between ourselves and others.  It's a small glimpse into the intimate as we
*"wrassle"* with the inanimate.

Blessings to all in this time of year, the shortest day, turning into a new
season, a new phase, a new year.

~ Ed Balldinger (Scoctavius of Nublin; Scott)


*Forging Iron *





We are the hot steaming iron forging various

moratoriums in our own worlds of strength.



Whatever we straighten will certainly return

as it curls in a rising mist of mystery tonight.

Will you tell me all your ancient truths?



I’ll tell you mine and we’ll see how the vapors mingle.

Is it too late to see where this line of conversation

crosses as another string of words are strung up

higher than the sun in our eyes?



An amalgamation of American cold war offspring,

we are fused in our infatuation with love life;

cross-stitched together forever in some poetic tongue;

vow-bound and boundlessly wowed by crowds

overflowing edges as we dwindle back to the dust

from which we came.



I am the wilting madness here in my inflexibility

kindled by a strange fire I work to keep lit,

as if burnt sacrifice were a mere offering of truce

searing our souls in one syncopating blaze.

*“Keeper of the Flame,”* or so I’ve been called.



The bent steel clanks coldly against

a creative version of my own lost control.

I crave social interface like a warm scarf,

a long-flowing tail of a crackling whip behind me.



*(With a tip of the cap to Robert Bly)*



Edgar Z. Balldinger

   June 9, 2017 – December 21, 2021

*     © Nublin’s Pub, 20**17-2021*
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