11 [11.] ‘Dragon Host’ Oil on Paper 40″ x 30″ 1975
Originally titled “Eucharist”, or “Dragon Eucharist.” This work continues the themes of the paintings above. But, when this painting was made, I had moved from a completely secular environment and lifestyle to the monastery. Catholic influences were beginning to enter my previously Surrealistic or Abstract Expressionist work.
CHAPTER 3
In which:
-The main character is taken aback by the esoteric, eclectic color of his own benignly “Southern Gothic” experience.
-Abstract poetry is provided but sage warning is given about its consumption.
-Brief mention is made of unrequited love, an important theme for later alchemies.
As I am piecing together these events, I realize the possibly horrific fact that here are already mentioned two graveyards, two crazies, one large massacre and the terrifying brave new world of international technological commercialism. All of this is still introductory. There is also one optimistic old lady and a priesthood that suggests chastity, celibacy, ancient religious institutions, other rare things such as truth and integrity; as well as shamanism, deities, paranormal powers, magic, esoteric martial arts and the current desperation of our times. This banquet of images sets the table1 on which such elements will form and reform, deform then finally come to a health of sacred vision, (I hope). This vision will be one of survival, evolution and salvation. So, don’t think that I am only eclectic or even pessimistic about the state of things in “our times,” for we have only begun in this to deal with “love.” Curious. but, what love means or how it works is hardest to describe. Yet, it is the most common and basic of all the elements in this story. I hope that my “charitable”2 intention will be made clear before the end, for the sake of my priestly “career” if nothing else. It’s hard to say even now where this will lead.
I traveled with my brother the following Fall 1970 to the highlands of Guatemala for two months. I collected bromeliads, rare air-feeding plants, for friends in California from the trees in the misty mountain forests. He collected folk art. This was my first exposure to a largely Animist/Shamanistic culture.
I wrote my first poem there. It was a long poem and successful with the little poetry community in which I moved back home. The time spent with my brother was an exhausting, tense confrontation of brotherly wills. We both contracted hepatitis by the end of the two months there. A fitting end to that trip. But our relationship survives somehow, becomes very good as we grow old. But there was worse to come then.
When I finished college in June of 1973, my roommate and I went to Tijuana on the Mexican border and caught a bus south. We were headed for Tierra del Fuego on the southern tip of South America. We got as far as Bolivia. On that trip, I conceived two long poems from which come these excerpts: (If you’re not into poetry, skip the next few pages.) I include them here because they contain the “abstract” of what is going on but from an intuitive or dream level. They, like the paintings, indicate deep ontological changes happening within me that I see now as preparation for priesthood, shamanic action- even Tantra and the rest of the “work” described in this story. Also, poetry has transformative power, if you read these poems carefully, they might change you in a way you don’t suspect!
______________________________________________
BEGIN
a spider floats down
across a window
Up
d
o
w
n- across
It comes into sight then disappears.
With a chorus of scraping chairs, we rise…
Cotyledon
Got to stay fit though,
work helps, running too.
The dog runs behind me,
dog is older now and limps
but there is a tail arched joy
for him in these runs
sniffing, smelling, leaving smells to be sniffed…
Crows fly low, circling occasionally
down the river bed dry this time of year,
in the morning doesn’t feel dry.
Cottonwoods root in the sand and gravel
that cover a flow of water.
It’s getting lighter,
crazy loud crows,
don’t know enough to be quiet just before the dawn.
The mockingbirds must sing all night.
Maybe they’re nightingales.
The sun is coming up.
Wonder what I look like running along here…
I can see my shadow behind me along the road.
Part 1
Slide the yellow grass hill
down to the city
wrap mist around the soul
shroud the consideration of ought and should
until morning
push the thigh shoving sigh up…
what of who or when?
Dark road
chestnut horse stud
big in the standing stall
cold dream
Oleander buds pop red for spring…
Enter
It’s such a strange blue light
the wall of the room seems to be a barrier of space
gray blue
solid yet not so
so old
What place is this?
What strange mountain light?
What whistling visage of passing flight?
A mild avenue of ghostly light,
holding each form as an animal in a womb,
sparkling as from last night’s rain.
What image could not pass the tourist by in this mysterious light.
Because I climb a cage of stairs
Because I climb
Because I climb
and strive to strive…
The aqueous movement of clouds
The piling high of clouds
as wave
as whipping large of seaweed.
So large in the push of the wind,
held between spheres of mysterious intent.
A man fingered his nose
his eye
his other eye
examined his finger after each
pinched his pants to his scrotum
watched the rainfall
from the high floor
of the unfinished high-rise
The lake
reeds and water
forming an order in my thought
shimmering
light
surface
quiet
forever the reed
forever the light
Hills vibrate incessantly
with the excitement of light
Quiet distant mountain
The Fall
Alice
the other Fall is from Love
(re-build the church
hold the chalice
plant one frozen block on top of the last
watch it fall in the wind)
In my stuttering affluence of emotion
I acknowledge all I lack
and happily, admit that having just left you
miss you
and want you back.
That I loved and was not loved is enough
The tower of Babel was breached
For an instant, there was a shouting of joy that filled our
lonely cells
Down the narrow marble hall
and into the church
with that quiet sigh, nearly inaudible, that tells so much.
Hills vibrate
In the migraine of my thought
I can leave you walking on young green fields
leave all that is less than sparkling
and find again the hard rail up…
dreams stranger than…. terrifying
…lies in the field, once plowed
but such…
In that passing moment I
see our mother weeping in bed
the years of her loneliness,
the hoped for joy gone sour
the close-hearted pressures of those close
the shy green grass joy turned gray
All this came tearing back to me
so that I could only sob uncontrollably.
After the diffusion of night
the hills vibrate incessantly
with the excitement of light
Winter winds beat down last spring’s grass
matt it to turf
light and air surround the new sprouts.
(In the wood, upon a bracken-covered slope,
a boy tripping
clutching that which rips….
The water is dark
another friend is lost
must search again the broken ark.)
The sun for a sightful instant
pierces from behind an ancient bell tower
mind, sanctity
Church
closed within a skull
Behold the glistening within the forest
and a boy climbing the hill
lost among the rocks
Behold the rocks and the chase.
The forest stinks of rotten wood
supporting all manner of vegetation
within is the glistening
that narrow beam
that eyeful beam
seen by few
I am naked and singing
I am alone but not
I am clean in the light
I am–
I desire
but so quickly sold?
ready to barter
with God or philosophy
for a fresh clean loin
We have seen the fair flesh
We have been the fair flesh
young, succulent
(all bastards are washed clean in
this torrential downpour
as the streets of the dirty city)
Still is the glistening light.
___________
Part
A man steps to the urinal
thrusts forward his hips
follows an ancient ritual of excretion
empty rooms
I have climbed the temple stairs…
a summer, a spring
I have laid on cool white sheets
listened, watched, felt, the processes
of my brown body
could almost feel the fat stretch the skin.
winter, spring
My gaze dragged over his loin
Stephanie is in my thoughts
Desire is nothing…
fits his pants well
a cycle ages
I shall live above
the rotting wood
having seen the glistening within
and knowing the forest…
Oh! those blistered hills
that sever every connection
beyond the desert,
each mound a festering sore
each runs into each
Distance holds the quiet mountain
in the empty mission cells
the shouts of children
echo against the walls
Oleander buds pop red for spring.
Gulls squabble in spiral order
above the garbage dump
far from the sea.
In that moment of confession
beneath the arbor
with my friend my tutor
the terror of my past was released
held before me
Point of contact
excitement of friction
Jet
airstrip
Oh! How that Indian woman talked
about the market and the exchange rate perhaps
How they laughed
she patted his hand and his knee
Constant thrap thrap
of the river pump, watering the fields
The afternoon is quiet along the river
but for distant children playing
and birds calling to one another
_____________
Fog desert
sand water
alike in the wind
The desert
Barren solitude
clean
I left the rest
walked on the Peruvian desert
beyond the power poles and further
I turned for an instant
the road was gone
The high fog hid the sun
I was alone without direction
(Don’t go. I’m almost old.
you like me…
the others know me, know all I’ve done
Stay.)
The dry river, gravel
Torn in gullies to the ocean
The desert falls to the ocean
The cliff crumbles to rocks and sand
The sea beats against the cliff.
Dream:
There is an edifice
a church
with stone stairs and pillars
St. Francis’ day
A statue of the saint in the image of Pius XII
Sitting with Egyptian rigidity in an ancient hall
celebration of the saint’s day
the celebrants stand on the stairs
and inside the church,
delirious with adoration
A crowd surging backward
from the church portal
Christ in the image of a statue appears from the door
stiff wooden huge
with a painted face
old varnished paint
the image falters
the face amazed
passes close to mine
rebuking the manic adoration.
PART LAST
A moth beats its wings against the window pane.
A hummingbird sits on a branch looking from behind a leaf.
Gnats swarm in mobile circles beneath a tree.
There bursts the cotyledon
a red bud bursts
ready with pistil and stamen
a barn owl
slow,
steady,
dark shadow after sunset,
a mouse scurries through the wild oat fields
All is ready
once
twice
again we rise
with a chorus of scraping chairs
we rise.
Steve Frost
San Francisquito Canyon, California 1973
Et Cum Spiritu Tuo
Sea cliffs no longer reach above the pounding, crashing day
but are nearly covered by the tidal lay.
Earthy substance is saturated and crumbling.
One green-leafed branch is wrapped to a mainstem in the wind,
branched from a tree otherwise bare or sporting bright dead leaves.
Ants pull cold pebbles over their holes.
I stand in a dry field,
a morning breeze slightly rustles dormant weeds,
from every side comes the click of mysterious insects
reviving on dead plants.
Tumbled
weed fields contain muted salmon, pale green and yellow weeds.
Color is held in mild suspension.
The cherries have fallen.
We wait.
Canterbury is crowded this year.
In a dark room, old women wait. I wave to a friend. She and all the rest wave back– with crooked hands, bulging knuckles.
Young boys run down the street shouting:
“I have come, I have cum,”
like some noisy prophets
calling us to God.
The roots have pushed the river mud aside leaving a trench
for desperate souls who seek a path.
Indolent tarantula is drugged
dragged forth and back by orange and black wasps. They fight life battles over the corpse.
Bloody green blades push their way through rocky hymens
even while winter winds still blow.
“It’s cold in this place, cold!
I know the spring is coming but I hate the cold”
We are left bleeding in the womb
in this passage to light, again,
we are left bleeding.
A solitary hawk stationed in the air against the wind
maintains a position
A wall stands
topping even treetops
holds a hill
contains a courtyard
palace grounds
olive trees surround the wall
a circus is filmed in the court
color and sound
red and yellow
clowns to entertain
sane director, ringmasters
crew
The exit is blocked
I cannot drive my car away from the grounds.
The clowns are chasing me
I run along the wall
teetering
run the wall
afraid to …
so far, to the soft grass
Fall–
Quiet
hills covered with yellow grass
waves of warm summer air
lift from grass
among the trees
lift.
The circus wall that holds
is not so high
as think the prisoners
afraid to fall.
Dominus Vobiscum–
It’s when the demands of dull daily patterns leave me
“an old man in a dry month”
that I rebuke this bright passage between two dark holes and
can only envision the final fall.
But other times, I remember the cover-tossing joy
holding you or talking to you
then, I laugh in the morning light
hardly able to wait for our next bright dance to come
hardly able to wait for my next chance to fold myself in your arms
Et cum spiritu tuo
Steve Frost
San Francisquito, California 1973
Not long after, I went to the monastery. My departure for the monastery was preceded by this musing, transitional reflection that follows. I have done a violence to this work in presenting it here in prose layout, … It was originally written with contemplative care– in the choice of word, space and punctuation, in poetic form as above. I’ve done this deed to indicate my attempt to switch from non- rational, more poetic mental states to prose- most difficult:
A day settles down. Cage birds fluff their feathers under cover. One star in sight, just outside the fading light. I have studied my Italian, eaten my diet dinner, called the people I should, written that letter of inquiry, drawn all I would, read the same. I am waiting and writing to disguise the fact that I am waiting and writing possibly to terminate the waiting and waiting to see if this writing turns into anything.
There is a girl I know, who, while I was in South America, I would think about at night on those long bus rides. Harry was across the aisle with Lucia, Luciano had gone off to Brazil with that beautiful red-headed French girl’s gym teacher. I would conjure up images of an unconnected line, lose my conscious self in the bus like a forgotten sweater and wander in the cold night landscape outside where it was almost light, pick up meandering phantoms and hold them between components of gray matter. She was the elusive butterfly. I was tripping over rocks with net in hand. She was the only sparkling prod in my lost lobal lumps that was able to initiate a welling up from deep electricated passages; tripping running fumbling, from the tongue, unexpectedly falling on the dinner table, the word, marriage, connubial joy and responsibility. She was the one who excited me to the point of not being boring or bored with the state of males and females chasing, checking, tasting one another. She works on a help line with people who need it. She is conversant in French and English. She mimes and acts well, is generally sympathetic. I have fallen off curbs looking at her. She was the only one who fits into the
I have fallen off curbs looking at her. She was the only one who fits into the above-mentioned categories and is in love with another man, considering me such a very good friend. Well, Lord, we all need friends and what do I care? I am waiting to have my resumes received and filed and while waiting for the master’s program information from those possibly green-leafed colleges to arrive, I’m waiting to make enough money to rent a studio and for Ester Robles and her gallery to get over her flu so that I may ask her to look at my drawings.
It is a serious possibility that I should, while I am waiting, forget all this, my family, my friends and become a brother at St. Andrews. Apparently one doesn’t need to know Latin anymore. I’m a devoted follower of God if unstructured and I hear that those Benedictines respect the Arts.
In the meantime, I’ve started another drawing, have plans for a large painting, and am in air-sucking delight with this year’s yellow-grey-black cottonwoods and the almost white- yellow of last years wild oats engulfing the southside hill sage and yucca plants. I am waiting for Spring, not that winter isn’t nice, I like the cold wind, rain, smogless, freezing days.
Steve Frost
San Francisquito, California 1974
___________________________________________
At the time that I was infatuated with Stephanie, I was going with a girl named Jenny, a very pretty, intelligent, talented, woman. Stephanie as already mentioned was in love with a bi-sexual John. This was all too confusing. I withdrew altogether. Not long after that, I went to the monastery.
Was this move only the result of unrequited love or was there a larger design. (See bibliography, Mantak Chia for esoteric sexual practices, or Yang Jwing-Ming or “Secret of the Golden Flower.”)