On the wall

The shamanic head in vase

screams a thousand years

a mohawk warrior

lost in time

with a monkey faced mask his own

and eyes of pain

a spirit connection

feeds another fire

the slip time of night

spoken

silently

and History was known

some heinous crime made ornament

or rebel with a cause

the details never shown

punishment - reward

the shamanic tantric blues

screams a million tears

the vision behind the flowers

grabs and pulls my spine

spanning generations

seeing only pride

iron hearted leader

sacrificing life

for freedom of the soul

death before dishonour

broken never beaten

defiant stare through leaves

a mocking gesture gone astray

headless undefeated

stronger now because

kill the thinker

not the thought

it's there for all to read

the shamanic head in vase

proud and brave and free

the Anarchist of history

fire in his veins

a prophet's fate

to decorate

petals rearranged

flowers 

growing strange

Reviews

[Eilis]

Seamus Heaney's bog people poems come to mind when I read this. The way the past confronts us in the present and leads us to move back through time imagining life in a time we have no actual access to. But there's the spiritual connections we have or feel to things or people or ideas of the past that lend us the stories and guide us, in a sense.

The last three lines of this gave me that little thrill that poetry does sometimes. Like this shiver/recognition thing. It creates a sense of something beyond my understanding that feels like it is, nevertheless, part of all of us. As a literal idea of a head in a vase, I can feel the sense of the image, but it is more than the solidity of itself. As the rest of the poem alludes--the head is, history itself and the ways that history survives through artifacts and relics--which are in a way the soul of history or the will of the historic preserving itself. At least this is my own conception of it.

So much is lost to history, but then there are things that are not. The warrior spirit remains contained within the head and transmits the past to the future. But, the poem seems to be exploring the indignities suffered by the past, in a sense. The 'prophet's fate / to decorate' makes me think of all the history being reduced to something static and subject to the minds of humans who are not exactly able to give it its proper due.

Feel I'm probably digging too deep, as is my failing often times, but this has really pressed some button in my brain and made too many thoughts fall out. I can't articulate them all. There is a lot of subconscious stuff filtering through that I probably won't understand for awhile. The image of the mystic and warrior in the past is vivid. In his time/power-filled/wisdom-filled.

But then there's the reality that the future takes over and all we have at our disposal is imagination. Will we use it with grace or to indulge or own curiosity. Will be thinking about it. This is really great. Even though I've probably just rambled about something totally unrelated. The poem opens that door and lets me in.

[gram linski]

Thanks, Eilis, funny you should mention Heaney, it was written in Cork, and was a generic painting of flowers , but I was transfixed, literally stood there for about ten minutes, like it was the MonaLliza which looks a bit weird in a chip shop, lol, really appreciate your reviews, they make me think about my own poems and wtf I am on about, thanks again,

[Chris Shaw]

This poem screams history and violence and turns my thoughts to times which were savage. I wonder about the head separated from the body. A warrior who died fighting for his cause. Something really noble about that. I picture him brave and unbowed. An interesting little poem gram. I imagine you looking at this image and trying to get inside the mind of the man.

Chris.