Princes & Pumpkins

By David Hatfield Sparks

The poems of David Hatfield Sparks resonate with the rise of the postmodern, multicultural, LGBTQ and feminist political and spiritual movements.
Inspired by Walt Whitman, H.D., Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and his close friend Gloria Anzalda, and drawing upon ancient and indigenous mythologies and spiritualities, together with magical practices, a passion for Nature, and a delight in Camp, Sparks seeks to trace the multilayered, multidimensional, at times nostalgic, at times wild and defiant, spiritual journey of a Queer mystic.
The poems in this collection follow a dream-like chronology of responses to events in his life and in the lives of others he has known. Not ignoring the shadows, he acknowledges the suffering inflicted by those men and women who have condemned Queer identity and practices, such as his parenting of his daughter Mariah. By means of a revolutionary spirituality, he is determined to transform suffering into liberation and enlightenment.
The poems are organized into three sections. Those of the first section, "Prequel," are drawn from the pre-Stonewall, bohemian, struggling life of a married "hippie" that culminates in the birth of a magical child.
The second section, "Personas," delves into the complexities of what Sparks calls "gay being and becoming" that includes the construction, dismantling, and reconstruction of the many masks and identities gay/Queer men have worn and inhabit: sissy, artist, monk, trickster, rebel.
This theme continues in the third section, "Parables," but herein the poet excavates language and images from deeper psychic levels in a profound spiritual exploration, mirroring Rich's "Diving into the Wreck," that confronts and reinvents religious Queer-relevant symbols and myths in the forms of elegies, dirges, ritual dramas and chants, in an intoxicating brew that delights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483653464

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Copyright © 2013 by David Hatfield Sparks.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/05/2013

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Contents

Acknowledgments

I   PREQUEL

Speculations on what Narcissus told Freud

Mea Culpa

To Mariah from her Faggot Father

In Sibyl’s Cave: Four Corners, Arizona

Speculations on what Dionysus Told Jung:

II   PERSONAS

I have promised you love poems

Four Domestic Scenes

Texas Exile

Omphalos Sailing

A Postmodern Ars Poetica

A trope on Virginia Woolf and War

Under the Clock at Penn Station

Princes and Pumpkins

III   PARABLES

Cassandra’s Son

Dream of the Beloved — The Tower

Threes Pavanes for a Dead Prince

Flower Sermon

Coyote Songs

Four Seasonal Spells

Three Allegories on Leaving

The Birth of Xochiquetzal at 948 Noe St.

Resurrection at Chaeronea

Biography

Endnotes

Auguries, hermetic definition;

Yet, I would have left initiates, many times,

For a red rose and a beggar

H.D., from Hermetic Definition

We’re out in a country that has no language

No laws, we’re chasing the raven and the wren

Through gorges unexplored since dawn

Whatever we do together is pure invention

The maps they gave us were out-of-date . . .

Adrienne Rich, from Twenty-one Love Poems, No. 13

Acknowledgments

The poems included in this collection were written over several decades with the support of a few wonderful people including the poetry communities of San Francisco and Austin, Tx. I would especially like to acknowledge for their encouragement: Susan Green, Lisa Jones, Carol Murphy, Laura Perez, and the late Gloria Anzaldua.

But without my life partner of 34 years, R.P. Conner, and our daughter, Mariah, I would not have been able to redraw the maps or discover the language.

The Birth of Xochiquetzal at 948 Noe St. appeared in She is Everywhere, Vol. 3, 2012.

Cover and other original art by R.P. Conner and M.A. Sparks

I

PREQUEL

8621.jpg

Speculations on what Narcissus told Freud

Falling down rabbit’s tunnel, slithering down birth channels, by family pushed off Psyche’s cliff,

falling toward eros, drowned, dreaming cadences from corps of naked drummers marching

towards Elysium. Behind their echoes, women’s accusations. Goddesses stare with spiral eyes.

On troubled waters, stiff, disjointed Barbies float past. Bodices spilling from frayed, red ball

gowns, unlaced. Eyes blinking, piercing, one sky blue, one cloudy green. With wicked queens I

question magic mirrors, Is she truly most fair of all?

A willing victim, placing a shimmering veil over my head, I jump the broom, adding fuel to the

fire, the tinder of false oaths. Can I be delivered from this wedded death? Naked, I escape into

forest pond’s inviting depths. Attacked by a barrage of echoes, treated unjustly, riddled with

guilt, condemned to make love with bitter tears, with scorn.

Submerged and muddy, drowned by mermaids, bodies of men, disrobed and disjointed, their

painted faces read like illuminated manuscripts, encoded, muscular, all my emptiness is filled.

Crushing forward these gossamer figures, lip to tongue, sweating and bearded, sex performed in

secret caverns, embellished parts pressed to percussive parts.

Pleading to a blind goddess, her eyes a dizzy entrance to my soul, aroused gods shutter and soar

towards sphincter-like entrance to ecstasy. Winged eyes glaze over from shortest day to longest

Reviews for Princes & Pumpkins

[davran-761673 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The poems of David Hatfield Sparks resonate with the rise of the postmodern, multicultural, LGBTQ and feminist political and spiritual movements. Inspired by Walt Whitman, H.D., Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and his close friend Gloria Anzaldúa, and drawing upon ancient and indigenous mythologies and spiritualities, together with magical practices, a passion for Nature, and a delight in Camp, Sparks seeks to trace the multilayered, multidimensional, at times nostalgic, at times wild and defiant, spiritual journey of a Queer mystic. The poems in this collection follow a dream-like chronology of responses to events in his life and in the lives of others he has known. Not ignoring the shadows, he acknowledges the suffering inflicted by those men and women who have condemned Queer identity and practices, such as his parenting of his daughter Mariah. By means of a revolutionary spirituality, he is determined to transform suffering into liberation and enlightenment. The poems are organized into three sections. Those of the first section, "Prequel," are drawn from the pre-Stonewall, bohemian, struggling life of a married "hippie" that culminates in the birth of a magical child. The second section, "Personas," delves into the complexities of what Sparks calls "gay being and becoming" that includes the construction, dismantling, and reconstruction of the many masks and identities gay/Queer men have worn and inhabit: sissy, artist, monk, trickster, rebel. This theme continues in the third section, "Parables," but herein the poet excavates language and images from deeper psychic levels in a profound spiritual exploration, mirroring Rich's "Diving into the Wreck," that confronts and reinvents religious Queer-relevant symbols and myths in the forms of elegies, dirges, ritual dramas and chants, in an intoxicating brew that delights.