My Body is a Forest-Ash/Right Leg

By Scott Vanya

The "My Body is a Forest" Legs books include those poems which "do the heavy" lifting. Unlike the Arms books, which move things from place to place by hand, i.e. courage, faith, prayerful moments, strength of "arm", the Legs books do the heavy lifting. Forcing me/us up from places of deep despair, sorrow, loss, grief. They are the Motivators, the Forward-Movers, the Get-Up-and-Get-Something-Done poems.

It is easy to sit idle by and watch as the world operates according to its own causes, be overwhelmed by that, write to release, and speak to be heard, but it is The Legs that say "Get out there and go to open mics", "Share", "Move", "Dance", "Be heard".

Because in the end, no matter who we are, are where we come from, we Deserve, DESERVED, to be heard. You are The Beginning, so begin.

Not just by our friends, family and other loved ones, but by everybody. Because we are good at what we do? No. Because we are talented and gifted in matters to which others can not know, nor even understand? No!

Simply put, Because no one knows us like we know our self. And if Life means anything, from it's essence springs up the simple word - Teach. Teach us who you are, what you know and how the world looks from where you are. Because no one else is there. Only you stand in the spot you do.

And all the world is waiting for you to tell us, what the world looks like from up there.

AKA-These are the LEG poems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scott Vanya
• Release date: May 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310163685

Scott Vanya

I've been writing for a very long time, what seems like my whole life, taking it seriously from the time I was about 11. Now, at 46, I think I may be starting to get the hang of it: Say what you feel, as passionately as you can, but always with an ear turned to those who are listening.Most of my more serious work is done at live performances, which i do totally extemporaneously, channeling the mood of the room as my fingers play on the guitar. You can see some of that if you go to "my" website. (Open Mics Austin is a platform I created to showcase the Spoken Word scene here in Austin, TX. Only a small role in which i play.)As far as I can tell what makes good writing is LOVE. Love ,plainly simply, and with no strings attached.I put these words/books before you, not so much because I want something back from it, because I think and feel like I feel my bones and my soul, if you were to see the world, experience it like it do, for even a brief moment, you would walk away from that happier, more alive, compassionate and in tune with all those around you.Peace, good will, and harmony. Let those be your guiding light.Agape forever,Scott VanyaPublication Credits:Stepping Stones Magazine, The Main Street Rag, www.carcinogenicpoetry.com, Texas Art Initiative, Phoenix New Life Poetry, Walt’s Corner, Manna, Perigee, Chicago Literary Review, Mobius, Cosmic Trend, Pitchfork, Romantics Quarterly, Artisan, Pegasus, The Neovictorian, Red Owl, The Story Teller, The Blind Man's Rainbow, Atlantic Pacific Press

Book preview

Drippings from a thorn

 

 

 

The crimson bead tapers to nothing

and falls

I can not see where it lands

The sun turning the dust to brown.

The skin on my forehead parting

to reveal the cloudless blue beyond,

Still toes feeling

the breakage

a gape

 

how can this be good?

the well runs dry

with too many thirsts to quench.

The eyes of the hawk

see the nest that is made.

And the winds dry

the water of the words

from my lips.

Dove feathers,

The eyes of the child

Who has come to see

The maw sprawled between my ribs,

catches sight of the rainclouds through them

on the horizon.

Perhaps I will be drenched

before I die.

Dove feathers,

Liquid pleasures,

A scorpion stings an ant

that has been caught

in the fringe of the puddle

of my blood.

twigs, blood, bone,

feathers,

wood

rope

liquid pleasures

tickle wings

shaken in the storm

tortured in blood

a youth

without

nerves

 

devoured

all

that can be seen

from this final resting place.

---

Previous:Next

(In the way of an intro)

 

 

 

Let us stand alone,

no others' less are mine.

 

I have crushed open the skulls

of a bull

and scraped out the brains

and handed them to you

with my left.

 

I adore you

I have gathered the chips

of marble on my gut

and coughed them up

as a song you might

hum to yourself.

 

I scraped the muck off

a pool of water so you might drink

and yesterday

I held the baby

so you might pee

never regretting an instant of it

 

In a day all I really

consider worth my whole

are those things

where on my knees

I am offering up to you

my hope

like the rhythm of a

folksong.

 

And tomorrow when the

dream stuff

like dust has come

to rest on everything

in our room

I'll bend over your shoulder

and hold close

all that I've known as truth

 

I adore you.

 

For Jessica my sweet on my bday

 

9/15/2001

---

Previous:Next

Beneath the Paint

 

 

 

Do you truly believe

that the further you dig

beneath the earth

 

You will touch closer to the source

and aging of

our existence...

 

 

Thus is so far the truer you are to your heart

the closer you are to the

source of the unmoving

truth.

 

For the earth is no closer than your last breath

and the depth to which you dig

is the dirt through which

you place your hands upon your self.

 

Raising them in the air

beneath the sun. It breathes!

 

 

I bite upon the birthing stick

and with this babe

submit my trust.

---

Previous:Next

the part of the egg that holds the head

 

 

 

My head too is molded by boards;

leather bound.

each neck is weak when it comes forth.

barely able to shake off the shell,

and eyes still closed.

confined by bindings holding more than words

each petaled syllable, this time,

opening to a space for suckling.

sweet nectar a long time drying

when tilted toward the sun.

 

seeing the sun through the shell

some would be sacrificed

their marrow as the innards of eyes

tired from the day

and bitter taste of admittance to cowardice.

empty and left for ants

in the middle of friendship there is

blood un-truthful and of

separate trees.

How might we hope for more

when the wind

picks up the moral I have put forth

and carries it around the rights

of you?

this is

the part of the egg

that holds the head.

---

Previous:Next

I am happy in this moment

 

 

All others, who knows, they have as much hope as soul as this one.

 

The white from the blue

 

I want to greet the morning

with the enthusiasm

of a child leaping from the steps

and running to greet his daddy

after spending the day

at home

asking for him

leaving a message for him

I love you, Daddy.

then leaping into my arms

with a hug he is reunited with Life.

 

And now four years later

after having for four years every two weeks

listening to the message on my voicemail

and sending it back to archive

again and again

knowing that day

has passed.

 

Yet another day

as a blue and white night

half awoken from the evening's espresso

and half asleep from the evening's sacrament

the two-day celebration of our tenth anniversary

under our belts

and my coke boiling away its effervecense

in the dark

as I stare at my house

and the smoke like pen-cigarrette

in my fingers

the lighter a-palm-to-palm

wind chime burble

and cricket mystical indescribable

no-word-for-it-

but-a-sound

this poem

of how

I do not want any longer to say goodbye to

the night

like I will never have another,

The Other Hope

at her mother's breast in our bed

suckling and then to sleep

she goes

long goodbye of today

with the sun dropped off

to wherever it drops off to

her leap from the stairs

her wave goodbye from the porch

signing I love you

pitts along the driveway into my

arms

I love you, Daddy.

I love you, Isabella.

A perhaps

I hold on to

like my breath

lips-to-lips

with tomorrow

kissing goodbye

to something that has yet to come

for I too know

that "I'll still be here

tomorrow

but

my dreams may not".

 

I want to be

content in this moment

my wife

fully aware

that the roses

she loves to linger on,

my wife the loves

she lays her hopes upon,

my Love,

my Life,

my Wife,

she is here upon me

the earth

in all its glory

a legibility

to take time to

enjoy upon being

between dream and sleep

and belovedness.

Enraptured with

the poem I have been

embodying

no god able to

enunciate his truth

to me

to you

to we have become

a word called

Love.

In to it

In to it

In to it

Intuit

it grows

like the magic instilled

in a dandelion.

the how-can-it-be-being

doing what it does best

in the blood of a tomato

spilled in a palm

and through my fingers

as It