Free Associative Gifts
According to the ancient Greek philosopher and poet Empedocles, words are actually living things with consciousness and will. Empedocles compared his poetry to the organic growth of plants. Words are esoteric seeds that must be planted into the earth of the body and tended with good will, purity, and attention.
Consideration for the potency and mystery of words is pertinent to our psychotherapy practices today. I am pleased to introduce you to some contemporary verse. Firstly, a poem by Mabelle Peñalver. Mabelle is a psychodynamic counsellor working in the East Kent area of England and has a private practice in Ramsgate. Her poems are sometimes inspired by her client work. We then have some poems from regular contributors, Angelika Goltz and Tom Ormay. Tom’s poems are presented in both Hungarian and English.
By Mabelle Peñalver
The Room of Small Miracles
The young man turns up
out of time
out of place and
Smiling suicide
I welcome him
Let us talk of sabotage
I say …. let us talk and laugh
Pinning rage on display
a collectors’ gathering
Let us talk of
daring devils to fall
In hopeless hope smiles
we hatch a plan
in ruined nests
with half fed fledglings
In spite of forms and expectation
unfinished wings
and bloody signatures
Counting days, we declare
ourselves in defiance
nailing chronicles to the door
Here! Here!
We are still here
Not dead yet…..
This is our declaration of Rage!
We will exhaust you
with our transformation
our screaming tunes
and exhalations
mushroom visions,
daytime nightmares,
waking dreams
and horror films
The prayer is set,
the projector’s running
the armoury ready, reel to reel
the song playing,
the appointment kept
as reflector shades fall
back into place
the door shuts, the room empties
We challenged the devil
to deliver the miracle
of unlikely sedition
By Angelika Goltz
Beloved conquering Bride
Beloved conquering bride, Africa
Your horizons reach far beyond what I could see before,
Never-ending spaces, mountains
folding over the land like the softness of oversized paws.
And still your roots weren’t able to protect your children.
They were scattered and placed.
Their homes look like little coloured boxes with doors,
Dotted all over the hills. With view!
Is there happiness?
Dry in the winter,
Hot and raining in the summer.
No bait for the thief.
Is there peace?
We other people, those who have what we think of needing,
Some of us dream of living in Roundhouses,
homemade Tepees, communities of simplicity.
The longing for the absence of threat and worry.
Is there content?
Implicated in their poverty, their torture and distress
I want to close my eyes and senses to the despair around me.
Seeing the pale faced mother with child:
Body filled with deprivation
and face swollen with stupidity. Never helped
to think and feel the joy of existence.
Here, like everywhere, I can only make that small difference.
Difference of one moment, one happiness,
one moment of love, one moment of trust.
Spoken for in autumn
It was not too late
Single buds were still sprouting off the roses.
But it was tears,
autumn tears of hot summer nights gone
and the lightness of waking without memory.
The starkness of season bent over
Like a broken back,
everything going with a vague memory of spring.
But wait.
Listen to the calling of your hearts longing.
Peace which passes all understanding,
filled with music and inspiration of minds.
The murmurs of conversation
mixed with the crackling noises of wood and fire.
By Tom Ormay
ARS POETICA
Az élő emberek szavától élek,
de nem halok meg, ha ők nem beszélnek.
Kihasználom a pillanatnyi csendet,
és valami másról beszélni kezdek
ARS POETICA
I live by the words of living folk,
but I don’t die if they don’t talk.
I take advantage of the silence,
and begin to say something else.
A MAGYAR DEMOKRÁCIA BÖLCSŐJÉNÉL
Mi volt itt máig, Ég Ura!
A magyar kardnak iskola:
Sok naiv egy irigységre épített
Álomért bátran kiált.
Aztán csak hatalom maradt, mert
A hatalom-mohó mind mohót zabált,
Bár boldogságra éhezett,
De erőszakkal jobb világot nem lehet.
Mindennek minden ellentéte volt és ostoba,
Szüntelenül csak ellent szült a kerge dialektika.
És most mi lesz?
Mózes herceg nézz vissza,
A vadon 40 éve volt ez!
A szolgaság szolgát szül.
Szülő, ki ezt kaphattad örökségedül,
Ne tanítsd történelemre gyermeked:
– A természet szabad – kik most születnek,
Majd jobban tudják nélküled.
A múltról csend, senki sem elemez.
Bizony, a szégyen kínos csendje ez.
De mindenki szavazni mehet,
Hol még választani is lehet.
Nem mennyországba érkezünk,
De, a jövőben, tán emberebbek lehetünk
AT THE CRADLE OF HUNGARIAN DEMOCRACY
What it has been, Good Lord!
School for the Hungarian sword:
Naive dreamers bravely stood up
For a dream based on envy.
Then only power was left, for
The power-greedy swallowed up all the greedy,
They craved for happiness though,
But better world from terror would not grow.
Everything was opposite of everything, and
hectic.
Enemy was endlessly created by a crazy dialectic.
And what now?
Look back prince Moses,
It was the 40 years of wilderness!
Slavery begets more slavery.
Parent, who have inherited such mastery,
Do not teach thy children history:
Those who are born now – since nature is free –
Will know better without thee.
The past is silent, no one explain.
It is an awkward silence of shame.
But everyone freely votes,
And they can even have a choice.
We are not arriving in heaven,
But, in the future, we might be more human.
If you would like your poems considered for publication in Free Associative gifts, please send them to Marcus Price at lbwplumb@gmail.com