John G Evans - Mystical Explorer, Award - winning Writer, Poet, & Essayist
 
 
 

I sense the truth that a world of diversity includes understanding that patriarchal culture does nothing to contribute to the safety or sacredness of the womb of motherhood. The patriarchal circle often visualizes an egotistical vision for the womb on its own terms, not all, but I see no solitary male working to inhibit a peaceful solution for the sanctity the womb holds apart from the religious.

 

There is great power and love in the womb of motherhood. An unknown power to most males. However, the womb of maternal love is sacred and holy to a spiritually attuned woman, a sacred secret understood by most of the maternal force for unknown limits of  what a holy love entails.  

 

As a male writer I cannot fruitfully comprehend validity with an understanding of the inherent and God-given right blessing that women are the keepers of the secrets of saintly motherhood. Women simply know. I seek only answers through my query to recognize, appreciate, and value an identity I can comprehend even on the most diminutive scale. For this truth I would be ever so grateful. I feel great salvation through this maternal keeper of an unfathomable love as a flower springs up from the soil, so too is it with the sacredness and valued growth within the capacity to know more than I do of the womb of life.

 

I shared an epiphanically holy moment with my first love and first wife. This moment realistically held me in a moment of dazed love, and a holy moment upon sharing sacred time with her through espousal love. This was pure gift from God. I recognized through a dream state the moment to be holy. A purely, divine, spiritual ecstasy I knew did not even exist. I surrendered to her love and God's love. Plain and simple. I knew through a tender, beautiful kiss of reconciliation receiving this gift was from God. A place of spiritual dimensions. I give thanks to God often for this shared surrender. Beautiful.

This is as close to understanding I may come through approaching this empty vessel from her womb to bearing wonderful fruit in the form of our daughter. I have been converted to feminism as well as femininity. I desire only to protect them both but realize this to be impossible for God protects his own.

 

In summation, I conclude by celebrating life from a holistic view of sacred and holy love originating from the Creator of us all.

My experiences and intense feelings for the holiness of God was revealed in an intense sanctity in 1978 during the summer months with my former spouse. We shared the gift of love and of each other, this was the last time we were on good terms and a chance of reconciliation was plausible. This never occurred for us, however, due to my worldly aspirations where the intensity of sanctified feelings as they were numinous and remained with me for many, many years and not just blindly, but with a hungry heart for God and a soulful purpose. But throughout time (a great length of time numbered in decades), the feelings began to diminish and I thought God had abandoned me. Terror and joy struck at my heart throughout my personal relationship with Jesus, and the Holy Trinity. I recall during my period of witness, I wandered, approximately 40 years, an incredibly difficult era of life for me. I felt I was being punished by God but this could not be any further from the truth. God does not abandon us for good. Even as the feelings began to diminish I feel as Christ will never leave me for good. His Holy Office of Divine Mercy and Love remain with me as through St. Faustina. This was in the 1990's as I felt my love for God had been renewed and I was a new person. Yet, through my humanity and tenacious demeanor God appeared also to keep a distance away from me. I learned that this was because of my self-indulgent worldly lifestyle. Daniel spoke of God's Holiness  partaking a Divine Union with human-beings. And this is truth I have discovered throughout my search and journey for clarification with God and my first espousal love as well as my present wife, Judy.

 

The experience was holy, inviolably Pure and Sacred. There is no other way to describe the experience as I witnessed Sacrosanctity in its fullness. God was Present in and throughout this Divine Union and we were in a Perfect Union of Holy Cooperation with God's Divine Will.

 

This was in direct relational experience with the new Pontificate of St. John Paul II upon the Vatican's decision I heard the church bells from St. Matthews Catholic Church on Wurzbach Rd.  in San Antonio, Texas. I followed this new Pope throughout the entirety of his Pontificate. 

 

It was the ensuing years I truly was blessed. 

Tonight, my widows are open, and the moon may only whisper secrets from the stars.

A mystical surrender, I call upon you O God from the depths of being, a layman only, and at times not even that. But, we are One, we have witnessed, together, a unification of your Divine Mystery, my Beloved. Stand with me. No, within me, and be the Lover you are to my soul. She is waiting, O Lord.

 

I have traveled upon many desert roads, only

To yield a sweeter fruit, but a single breath away.

 

11/7/2022 5:30 AM

 

It remains difficult in retrospect placing earthly events within a proper chronological order, and yet the memories, senses, feelings, and even a spiritually induced recollection appear quite real for me. And though God's divine will is not about me or for me, I remain quite transparent through these recollections of mine in truth and discernment to even write of these episodes. In some way it appears an imperative to write and other ways there appears to be an earthly arrogance about the whole scenario. And still I continue to remember and write. I feel a special kind of need to place my earthly events in a journal specialized primarily as a love story between the Good Shepherd Christ of the Psalm 23 and myself, and I sense this is what it is all about. Nothing more, nothing less. A reminder to myself that the God of Heaven and earth is so richly and rewardingly good that he allows me these very special memories and to immortalize these memories within a sacred context of a soul's journey to holiness. So, my purpose would appear to be recording memories before they become lost forever. I shall not wish for this to happen, thus, I write.

 

I feel no apparent imperative to see this journal published as then it would take on the form and disguise of arrogance and adversity within my own heart and soul. I sense, yet know somehow, my heart is where heaven quite truthfully resides. This in and of itself is a holy revelation between the Lord God and me, only, but I also include at times of review with my spiritual confidant and director, my lovely wife, Judy.

 

There does remain one other soul and heart I trust; this is my dear cousin Dirk's wife, Tricia Elliott. Tricia, is an official witness to God's greatness, as well as a Spiritual Director in an official sense. So this is my spiritual odyssey and private journal to one day engage in these moments of holiness and revelation as it occurs within my own sensitive heart and soul, recollecting as I feel the Lord pulling me into my earthly life of adversity and into this special sanctuary beginning in 1958, at a very sensitive era of my very early, and yet intimate, life.

 

This is the only place to begin with one exception: my loving mother Mary Constance (Davis) Evans who was responsible for teaching me how to pray at approximately what I have come to embrace through my life at about age two. This was in fact a first account in coming to realize, somehow, this beautiful sacrament of prayer to the loving Creator of all things. God's blessings be upon both my loving parents, now both deceased at my current age of sixty-eight. May the peace of the Lord be with them, both.

 

Praise God's Holy Name!

 

11/7/2022 7:23 AM

 

This early morning I can feel truth-fullness in my heart. It has become my hope one day lives may be transformed by this written account through equanimity and compassion. It can only be of such in response to current global activities (2022),  for sociological and cultural and compassionate desires for change; to be of transformation within the context of our sacred earthly lives. My heart's constant prayer will be to remain in a state of truth-fullness bearing a divine witness to the supernatural and omnipresence of the holy spirit of Christ's loving participation and presence in my life. He is my Reality.

 

My heart endowed by the spirit of God is a sacred and holy garden. For me, this divine gift of heart is God himself as my most intimate companion. Always with me, never failing, fulfilling the promise of Jesus Christ of any given day of Reckoning bearing witness to all things of truth. I believe.

 

This heart's interior Light of our Beloved's Presence guides my hand and pen, into his Presence, where I may feel content  by perpetually returning through a moment by moment experience into his Presence, pleased with me and well-pleasing of this holy experience.

 

In this paragraph's summation, it may also be noted by me, the source of reflection bears not only witness to the Psalms, but to the apparent similarity of the Surah al-Maida, 5: 119, written in the Quran.

 

End for the moment @ 11/7/2022 7:49 AM

 

Beginning my next reflective moment @ 11/7/2022 11:05 PM

 

Now, in remembrance of the Pond, a place I never visited until one very early morning in Ohio I awoke and felt led by an unseen hand to not only awaken, but to travel beyond the watch of my very mother, outdoors through the screen door opened for me into the safety and comfort of my heavenly Father's embrace.  It was as if a dream, but there was no dream. This was real, and my hand was cared for by One I now believe as a very special Spirit who loved and cared for me as Our Lord God. I was cared for and even asked questions of this Spirit as a little 4 year old, " will I be alright?" It was as though the Spirit raised his hand and guided me in the way. I did nothing more but followed the sense of feeling to a destination beyond the yard into the Ohio wooded area.

 

Within an attuned heart for my very special Heavenly Father I walked through the woods to a hillside on both sides, as if I were in a valley, green with grass and pasture surrounded by trees not of the area but as if in a valley pasture safe from all earthly beings. This I could tell and was even told was a very special place. I now equate this place as the valley written in Psalm 23, whereas, my Holy Shepherd awaited me.

 

Continuing on my path I felt extreme peace, confident I was safe through the Lord's prompting for my heart to trust in His guiding hand. I truly and quite reverently stepped out in faith in a very special way I may only describe as a holy heart. Extreme beauty surrounded me in shades of colors within this beautiful pasture. I was led through this valley forest to a meadow off to the left (closest to my heart), of me where I walked past the tall wheat grasses and through this meadow guided now by my heart of choice to love the Being guiding my way. I have not ever felt a peace and trust as such during this childhood sanctuary of awakening except through my childhood. I never realized Mercy to be so Kind.

 

At the end of this meadow that bore no end, I came upon a small pond teaming with so much sacred life. Tadpoles circling at the water's edge, frogs and turtles both small and large, small fishes and dragonflies darting back and forth within their stellar paths along the icy transparent sheets of an early morning frost upon the water's edge. Cattails within this marshy land, and tall grasses growing beyond my reach as I left this beautiful sacred earth to be of its own accord.

 

Lifting my eyes heavenward (what most people believe is in the sky), my heart projected as a mirror reflects the sun, as I began to witness the mist surrounding me lower to the ground and a ring of clouds shapeshifting as such from the upper heavens to the lower heavens, so I may witness the bounty that is about to be revealed to this young, tender-hearted soul. And then, the Sun shone through.

 

A Voice sounded, proclaiming the Good News of Mercy of the Godhead.

 

"I have created this very special little pond for your heart so pure because I have loved you."

 

David also speaks to my heart as a friend and as an earthly king who once lived upon this earth. He said,

 

"In these times of isolation within such an open expanse, the soul (heart) in reflection can soar. Realm upon realm may open."

 

David also said,

 

"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Truly, the Lord shall give that which is good; and our earth shall yield her fruit."

 

--- Psalms of David 85: 11-13 NKJV

 

A Voice speaks to me, now, … "keep your connection and remain conscious of God, that you might attain felicity."

 

--- Surah al-'Imran 3: 200, the Holy Quran

 

Today, I draw near to this holy sanctuary within my heart, so much beauty, and so much pain over the open expanse as this realm upon realm begins to open. A place where the world's poets shall gather and write of its glory.

 

Peace and goodwill toward all men of our humanity.

 

End of reflection @ 11/8/2022 12:53 AM

 

The Face of Love

 

(by John Gregory Evans)

 

© 5/10/2020 2:42:35 AM

 

God of all Creation: Forgive me – for my Mother is my first face of love. So tender – hearted as a young mother; me being her first-born, created by you as you fashioned every hair, you oh God gave life to the tapestry of the DNA from within my mother's womb, through her labor you gave me life. I praise you God of Creation for breathing breath into my diminutive nostrils, though a mother's love (as Yours), bursts open to look upon the tiny pre-mature infant You once were in the humanity factor of disarray, confusion, and the equivalent to earth's fallen angel. Though, love so kind, be it worthy or not, invest your hearts within this diversity's lot. For time says only that too many lovers may not be right in a single drop of rain, but the power of water as the Power of Absolutes, gather her momentum, whether pleasure, or pain. Voices from eras back speak as a thunderous shout that projects Itself inward out. Angels perhaps, or a Saint of the day, perhaps, in all my despair Magdalena burst into my treasures within a heart full of dismay. During this period, no lover to know since there remained an experienced inequity left to die bone upon bone.

 

From out of an erotic love, and for just a moment, protracted, a long-drawn-out affair, long black hair, with a painted face of red, and brown so fair, an indulgent for her time-honored pleasure, an acknowledgement, together, we shared an unknown ecstasy silent to the core, quaking to the fore. The moment endured perpetuity, a long slide ride, mirrored parallel - more than the 38th, emulated, mouthed-over echoes, a murmur not by way of chance, but by this colorful appeal, calling it red and parted maws, a slight drool for a long-awaited thrill eagerly waits, its moment to cool, pleasure, comfort, too, an anticipation ne'er knew, the secrets of love till she slowly, ever so slowly heated the flame, and drew herself down, down further-more, as if a transparent game, flushing eager to meet the flame. Though no game it was but to part slightly more, lovingly, caringly, evermore as flesh to flesh about to meet, no burden upon this butterfly's back waiting lusciously to begin her lack of motion, graceful as a ball-room dancer about to render a fullness of muse, accomplished, concluded, before the love was fulfilled. A most perfect sunrise filled the gathering of cumulous veils, the overall mists from her breath now revealed, set sights on tomorrow, a love affair wholeheartedly concealed, whereas happiness through delight  shall ever remain, perfectly sealed through this morning of enchantment.

 

Why, this evolution of love hesitates, then erupts as a gust of a surging rush, prominent within a moment of holiness that never dies. In this sacrament and union with woman, and Christ, love dazed, man appeals to the gift of herself as she draws life from man. This transitory life embraced in a sacred journey of consecration, sanctity, and purity, achieve more than illusory love. Illusory love burns of fire with no heart and shall burn to the core, lest, you have smitten the beast and savage through the experience of iniquity. Listen, to those who have ears, the saints speak more than a morsel of wisdom; truth prevails in this Mystery of drawing near.

 

Why the heart of Spring gathers no moss, yet roses brought forth in an early morning frost, a drop or two of love and of life. To know love be love. Existentialism depends upon the moment of now within the heart and not the self of shadows bringing forth the rains of doubt, rather to forget your conflicts within, and of depth, and an influenced control, for it is well with your heart to give from the nature of your core.

 

Love, soft-spoken whispers, wraps around me in a gentle embrace calls out to the heavens and a perpetual grace. Wisdom simply asks from a feminine stance, see me as gift before this eternal dance. Your smile sweet as your scent lay present in the Now, within your eyes I do think possessively of love? Rather, love burns even higher at the suggestion of suitors other than I. Free her as she dwells among the realms of a heavenly disguise, perpetual motion of body and verb, where nature dwells within the skies and the earth, withdrawing being, and offering new life. This remembrance of age-old lovers discovers me with the new, holding all close and reminiscent, too.

 

Walking alone there remains no need. Love gathers everyone living amongst the weeds, forests, and trails; bear no fault for love just is the earth's benevolent sacrament. I've heard them sing about the silver cup, the moral of this compass is to never give up. There is love even amongst the pots and pans, wood and hill, rivers', and streams, if it were not so I shall not write of such things.

 

She graced me fully of tenderness and lip, charming me softly hind and hip. I grew in time to face the feel, fathoming love I'll ne'er cast aside, femininity strays from the voice of pride. As love Itself goes hand in hand, and poetics aspire to simile the land, focus not your bitter hand, go forth my son, engage but don't possess her hand, for it remains through the gift of giving we receive her golden band of  virginity, and in this I know the aura of womb, truths revealed past the veil, fortified by her angels throughout eternity.

 

For in the wake of love surpassed, I loved you more within this age-old past. Recalling the night temptation roared like a lion while another Delilah poured her poison within my cup, I've fallen for worse though can't recall how far back; temptation's wild, the fires ignite, control was a thing I had always lacked.

 

Our night of love shared together as worthy souls like birds of a feather; and we loved as another life within the womb conceived, decades later you both appeared as dreams often will, I've thought of both and always will.

 

I shall not permit you another good-bye, for in my heart's past I wish not to lie. Pain is all around me though healing has taken its place, your presence has lifted me to greater heights, for this I'm grateful, receiving your womanly rights.

 

On to this face of love, where many have shared in the gift of self, baby, did you know, life sustained became sustenance of soul, my help!

And the face of God revealed once more, speaking of Christ's commands of love I accept upon Pentecostal days, from here on out the message clear, being with His spirit as the wind does blow through the Holy of Holies, I freely accept an impending martyrdom, whereas, my communal conviction does not compromise my faith, but I share freely of all I greet, as well as my lover great!

 

Based upon unresolved traumas and the disturbances of assault, unworthy of love is a dance upon a tight-rope act, I terribly, terribly, desire my life come back. Where now as I live in a Rocky Mountain state, I witness the snow fountain flowers, white petals that reach to higher skies, I find an incontinent love. My sense of safety arises to a backyard symphony, where the buzz of hummingbird's wings can remind me of a misguided trust, Spring's midnight rain where Red Maples reach, I become overwhelmed with so much fear.

 

I am not the great orator so feel my words within your hearts, dear friends from long ago, for now has come a time for love to grow. The beauty of a consummated love in today's world view, asks whether this valued nuptial virtue begins life anew. I love, and am loved, by another kindred heart and soul, breathes hope into my singular days, one sunrise at a time, renders perfect friendship through this new lens of mine in whole.

For now, the truth of love reveals herself through and in a sacred place, be it from the gullet's way, or aura, too, my heart of stone transformed to flesh, as Joan of Arc, secret and with a great exultation from on High, burned still alive, where smoldered ashes flesh and bone, incensed with her spirit I came alive!

 

Instances written upon these pages, true to note individual flavors. Each as her own unique in meters of love, brings forth smiles that carry me home, to love. My true self alive creative in the arts, beautiful memories in whole or in part, where I've come to Being and in the Now recovering from the strokes of each erotic-filled love, came love and rapport through an affinity and bond above, or was it within as the still small voice commands, love your God, and love your (wo) man.

 

Remembering the day, you lent your key, I stepped in through your doors, quite happily. Your smile and your soul a beautiful sight, he reminds me to the days, and even the nights. The splendor of a twin heart alliance, bears witness to truth not in a false hope's defiance. But you were good to me I shall not forget, things we spoke of as each other's pet. A short-lived address from each other's hearts, confusion sets in, though arrows still flung from the angel's bow, for there bore many seeds yet  spiritually sown.

 

This epistlistic elegy of a crying man's soul, savage by a love torn in whole, as a child but gave birth to a freedom as iniquity sown. I have chosen to abandon life's childhood dreams, live I shall as a man of godliness, torn at the seams. As your fresh poet I give you my words, ne'er styling from another's poetic verse, I create a symphonic page of noun and of verb, all from the voice from within at times perturbed, at times in gratitude, or fortitude, created here within this longitude of words. Did poetry save me with the grace from a woman? Of course, for Magdalena saw Christ first, in my visions I've seen her upon that special day, the stone rolled away, turning to the angel who states, "Do not be afraid for I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay." MT 28:5-6 NIV.

As I look, sense and feel, beyond the rags of a tattered soul, tired and weary, wandering within this hidden desert, oh parched soul, though fed the Word, you have been nourished by the secret dew of Angels – and of God.

 

You and I are artists and poets when allowed, deeply feeling the sacredness of the written word, you who have accepted, received, and renewed me, a broken man of contemplative dust. We share the holiness of sacred curves from each petal, each bloom, each vine, and are a branch of the Vine.

 

In forsaking all others as wedding vows claim, I'm yours, I'm yours, no dare to disdain.

 

Yes, your unassumed song in a friendship is so deep, as I ask, "every-time you search out your backpack I wish you to know, you are finally free" and as I say, "in my heart you must also know, dear, you are finally here, you are finally home." 

 

 

Good morning Authors Guild Community!

 

What a great day as today I look beyond the CPTSD to a future filled with promise and hope. 

 

I am beginning new today. You will see more poetry, experiences, and essays I write. I have discerned after a much needed leave to write of all my life experiences to give you good people transparency of my experience in life. 

 

I certainly hope you will all join me. 

 

Enjoy your day and may it be beautiful.

Our Blessed Mother's Round: The 20 Mystery's Depths in Poetic Sounds, by John Gregory Evans,

 

The Joyful Mysteries 2022. 

 

The Annunciation: 

As a poet I often feel the absence of Presence, of He / She during a turbulent hour 

of great Adversity. I lay in contempt, often cynical for Our Mother's Incarnate Word, Our Mother's inherent and gracious pure "Yes!"

And then, I recall her Voice as an early age teen, lifting me up through all of my worries, all my ambitions, and all things unclean. 

Gabriel conceded his power on High, of Angels and rhythm, asking of God's Will not to pass him by; but in this instant humility rules 'never to cry,' divine blessings from heaven not asking Him why? 

This heart-felt query of mine as a prayer I shall pray "lead me not in temptation, deliver me from [every] evil," as my heart prepares Him, a new divinity, His holiest of Way! 

Amen. 

My Sacred thought for the Day: 

May I proceed in holiness when life gets in the way?!

 

 

Casting Stones: Upon Reading Rilke

5/16/2022 11:46:59 PM

 

Upon this doorstep's mystery deep,

it is my weary need to speak, or to sing,

a word so fragile, a word of peace.

 

This silence now heard as I
cast stones and shadows into the sea,

where this beauty [my soul] walks upon a shoreline pristine,

 

with footprint upon print plants her holiest of seeds,

thus, bearing new bounty upon these visible vines,

I can clearly see all I've left behind …

 

Simply put, just to bear new fruit---: *

 

A childhood memory, or can it be more?

Of those of us who lay within this oppressive state,

sieged by the "poor in Spirit," away from the hate,

 

thus, suffer a consequence to lay a verdict, in late, as

word upon word comparative I create,

cast[ing] stones and shadows into the sea,

 

Simply put, just to bear new fruit---:

 

*---: denotes Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), was read; Voices --- Title Page. Picture of God: Rilke's Religious Poetry. Annemarie S. Kidder. 2005. First Page Publications, Livonia. P. 138. Print. This poem I, John Gregory Evans, 2022, have written down in a reflective state representing my view of trauma and subsequent trials turned to grace based upon Rilke's experience by reading his work. In summation: experiences do not change throughout humanity's time, but experience does change us, even in rhyme. 12:10:17 AM.

5/13/2022 10:34:56 AM #John Gregory Evans @ 2022

 

To write as Whitman has a song of myself one must delve deeply into a world for the womb of shadows, sacred, into my own world of mystery, complex; deep and dark, shrouded in a regimental order through the era of the 'Nam, as if a swift boat Captain speaks a volume of truth in one sentence: "how do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" Further, why must a young teen raped in soul and mind, ravaged by a war of carpet bombing and friendly fire (1972), be the influence speaking a truth of damage control, wiped clean of sand and dirt, the blood of many yesterdays, and of so many lost souls, be silenced by a wound of the humanity factor?

 

Because: therein may exist a barbed cage of wire and eruptions for fire and rain of rounds large as a stranger's priapic that released the steady stream of tracers, every third round, to destroy the truth of justice forced upon a boy of seventeen; thus survived, to tell the truth to an unsuspecting world for the ravages of his coming home from the war. Where, may I ask, lay the glory prior he hoped for?

 

Oddly enough, his war, through his becoming a man, sheds alleged men of steel their right to bear a silence, deadly through appropriated acts of criminal offenses, and minds of corruption taking with their air of arrogance, young men's lives and ideations so intense: well, so close to occurring in a reality where the hammer strikes not its intended target, but cognizance, and many decades of suffering, and ever the tresses of death by tongue and core, remnants of an honor ne'er recognized by this Corps' age of truth, for: how should the Corps react to a truth ne'er heard from the witness himself?

 

The truth, life's eternal secrets, often are buried in tombs of word and mouth, as with brother's farewells: a life he should have lived elsewhere, where his truth remains his real honor, and a glory of hope ne'er realized has come to pass, life for him, exceeds all truth and honor even within his theological embrace, a rehumanized love and a consistent life ethic for a humanity that creates its own misery; a mercy rises from his heart, and one day, shall express his very own epic of truth!

Express your truth.

Allow others do the same.

French roast, morning cup.

5/13/2022 9:18:50 AM by John Gregory Evans: A Haibunic Warrior's Journal Entries of Love & War

 

An unannounced future.

My birthhood dysfluency.

Resonance and night sweats.

The scarlet butterfly enters

The human conflict, and yet, a holy kiss transform, everything!

 

Proliferation!

Sinai moves a world of pain.

Sunshine in my Chai, [tea].

Muse: A Rumination of the Gods, John Gregory Evans © 2022

 

Of poetry, theology, experientiality, the way of life … consider this – Rilke spoke, and wrote, from a place of soul; a place known only by God and his poets. A realm of deepening truth. sacred, secure in the sight of the inner realms; a strange language known by sages and the mentors, of ancient time, dimensional. Poetry, you summon me, or is it I, you? Regardless, a form is created, of depth, meaning, experientiality, and the way of life … consider this – a mystery scribed into the annals of time. A note, or a chord, or song creeps into my semi-congested thought arena, dissolving, therefore, in God of which I know nothing!

 

This cavern of thought,

lost to its own reality.

Inside, packed in troves!

 

Thought Congestion: 

A crowded thought entertains its guests by way of verb and doubt, cramming, jamming, slamming the door behind itself. With eyes closed I see the way: receive in a non-resistant way clears paths of cognitive debris and settles into a good night sleep.

 

Shifting not the globe,

but the eyes that look indoors.

Look! The skies open.

Rainer Maria Rilke Speaks To Me Silently

 

I know you of an island wood, of depth and deep, and O so good. Yes, this embryonic soul of fiery coals, budding, blooming, upon shell-shard shoals, tear the skin right off my soles, but within this coveted twilight cove, we anchored fast, and into the deep she goes. Your verb and noun, your meter and sound, accompanied me this day into the round, as often time I've known or said I've not, your depth so deep, mine meaning lost whereabouts I've sought.

 

Too many fires,

Pillaging one soul's esteem.

Lost! In favored depths.

 

I am a USMC Veteran 1971-72. I struggled with MST many, many years that destroyed my youth and early adulthood. Catastrophic events occurred upon my person after the assault directed to silence me from the assault. I have taken the White Ribbon pledge. I sincerely believe in the White Ribbon campaign. I pledge to uphold my experience as a reminder of my pain and suffering so all others may not experience what I have! Violence of any kind can never have a positive outcome. Thank you for the privilege of serving this campaign.

My Luminous Sanctuary – 1959, A Recollection: The Reminiscent Soul of Mystical Pond

John Gregory Evans © 2022

 

Awaken!

O immersed soul.

Heaven, and earth within me.

The four winds blow,

into this garden pond, were

such fragrance I've known

flow back into the earth,  

water, and sky, and I become One

among

the Rose of Sharon, as

dragonflies dart their stellar paths

upon still,

transparent sheets of mist

and chill,

this gift from the Realms

beloved Mary's love shall sift

and quell,

my soul has rendered

this lovesick spell.

A sense of feel

begets me still, this

favor from God

intensely felt.

Love begins and perfects

within

the midst

of an inimical scene

where my Sun cast no shadow

upon a late season so serene.

An aching heart,

oppressed being,

a divine milieu, an

interior seeing.

Divinity …

and truth's new birth

springs forth

a resurrected

earth, kindled by the fire

this luminous sanctuary's

enflamed pyre.

A Brief Encounter with a Haibun: A Journal Entry of John Gregory Evans © Thursday, May 5, 2022

 

High tower whisper calls me by name, an exaltation, a confessional high bear this memoir of formidable shame; where this ground of wood that leave no tracks, nor an obliging voice of one whom cares, the ears of the caring lay quiet as stone, the eyes of the knowing lay still as bone. Time travels at a still pace and decades of a weathered face breathe on, deadening, this humanity factor of skin and bone, terrorizes my delusional thought from a loving home. I was younger than youth but traveled with a smile throughout this opened bottle of bad vermouth; this casual imprudence and my spirit of trust, my omega point where the gods have tested me through the hollows of an ash-lit joint: later to learn this erotica burn cares little for my tenderness of heart, rendering a psyche turned inside out. This fleshly means that echoes throughout this savage-bent  darkness and burnt orange sky, an early morning cradle of vexing flesh, this sacred moment touches the sun and mystical yearn, a burning soul know no boundaries within misguided love, or freshly ground moments and this erotic burn. And yet, this savage tenderness I say of my curious sin, wins over gently from this embedded new heart away from the parlor of memorious skin.

I remain thus new

From new horizons of hush.

Unstructured gratis, [lift quietly my veil and paint as Matisse].

 

[Brackets mine].

 

A Brief Encounter with a Haibun: A Journal Entry of John Gregory Evans © Thursday, May 5, 2022

John Gregory Evans © 2022, A Brief Encounter with a Haibun: Journal Entry, 03 May 2022. 

 

Poetry dwells within its dangerous past of shattered metaphors, non-comformative, say, I'm home at last. Within this state of trudging helplessly upon miraging asphalt streets, I sense this trope and defining experience as well as my lingering, metered speech … that lures me along this deadening beat. My liturgical words so often rhymed as "long-haired couplets," (Broido), thus coined as well with cockney Keats, for me they simply become a poet's retreat. Now poets of honor strike my heart, to strut this poetry that reflects the same … at least in part. Time has its way with reviled censure of voice and pen, the humanity caused from arrogance and some wicked men. A woman's voice or notes of chord prompt me onward to deeper lords. I find at best this sacred quest begets my trial of past regrets. I fault myself in time of need, this deeper love awaits my heed and the stallion Muse or my refuse of claims hits below the belt as certain I've known such revealing shame. Lust is key to knowing wrong, a beauty within surely belongs. Although a woman cannot bear her own, her purpose attends the seeds she's sown and man without his ego worn engages tearfully with each word she's scorned. I cannot mend what has been torn, but deeper loves have not forlorned, simply just as Love descends upon espousal ground the works of Love creates no bounds or (theoretical) nouns. I enjoy this veil to look beyond as life concedes with Love waited so long. This mystery doused in great renoun, I've opened doors where angels sound their trumpets and adoring lyres for hearts of contrition espousing nearer. Our home at last we've always known but our paths from the past have never grown to the divine and holiest joined within this author of coming across, I've known for centuries dreams come dashed as my inherently damaged vagary loss. To know this love consists of merciful hearts and not just this but fiery darts … ecstatic holies through a meditative trance takes away the anger and agitated stance. This poet aspires to go beyond but henceforth truth creates such beauty as in our song. So, rest assured the love shines through where love at once savage ground was, I've turned inside out,  my sins no doubt; and truly I state this term shall readily shout: 

Savagely lived lives, [without a doubt]

where hearts become mended sighs.

Empty tombs … ascend [to celestial skies].

[Brackets, mine].

 

A Brief Biography; A Spiritually Realized & Creative Prose Poet and his Human Experience 

 

I never identified with Traumatic Brain Injury until the recollection of catastrophic incidents demanded from me in 1972, by a Marine Corps S/Sgt. based at MCB Camp Geiger, Infantry Combat Training Regiment. Nonetheless, a thing I must put behind me. It did, however, assist me in defining myself as a poet, and no dangers I faced during the era may prove otherwise. I poeticize these inkwells of memoir based upon what I describe as "The Illusive Firing Squad" and subsequent prose poetry written in 2016-17, of recollection of my active-duty service during the Vietnam War. I aspire to rewrite the title and the manuscript to a small-based press legendary by its own merits. The initial book was self-published before its time of complete recollection was fully realized and must be re-written according to new recollected data. It is my every intention and sincere imperative to create a new version of this manuscript with a more sensitive and polished feel, abridged by three manuscript collections: Volume I, Volume II, and Volume III.

John Gregory Evans 

Poetry Artist Statement
 

 

johngevans08@gmail.com | 208-810-9999

 

"Artists – painters, sculptors, musicians – have long known being attuned to the light, the ability to see

deeply, connects us with the holy in a fresh and new way." 

 

~ J. Brent Bill, Mind the Light, learning to see with spiritual eyes. Pp. 10-11 ~

 

Regarding my artistic positioning began with a college essay about Gian Lorenzo Bernini lending his sojourning to a sacred and divine path during the Baroque Period with his sculpture Ecstasy of Teresa c. 1652. I wrote this essay in 2016. My personal related experience of Teresa's mystical, orgiastic, and spiritual ecstasy began with the writings of John Paul II. I have always sensed all creatives share the mystical in some Universal and Omnipresent manner, thus weaving the mystical into a Fine Art medium. Poetry is a wonderful medium to set your soul on fire, thus setting your sights into the world of creativity, expressing a mystical kind of love for the expressive state of seeing inward, and projecting onto the palette of the paper what your inward eye may envision. There remains technique, vision, craft, and a flow that occurs upon our vision insisting the flavor of our craft and draws us deeply into a mystical state of awe. This is my focal point expressing a feel for my poetry. One unites their soul to the soul of that which is native to the vision, craft, technique, and pen, together, as well with a great Creator. There are no exceptions to this rule. Most of my present-day work has been accomplished through my journal | laptop. And this has been a most difficult journey for me, struggling horrifically with a tragic divorce, Military Sexual Trauma, a blast-wave concussion, and a Spinal Cord Injury in a direct relationship with active duty in the USMC. But I have gathered fifty-years' worth of wriying/photographic resources and experience that I feel qualifies me as a professional artist. I have served my former community well as artist displaying

 

 

 

Ø  pen & ink renderings, photography, and poetry in Texas-wide art galleries.

Ø  the Homecoming Project produced by award winning photo-journalist Erin Trieb (erintriebphotography.com),

Ø  Southern New Hampshire University's Literary Journal, the Manatee 2016, for photography and poetry,

Ø  Rehumanize International, (rehumanizeintl.org), essay,

Ø  (PhoebeMD.com), essays and poetry.

Ø  Vehemence: In Silence, We Weep, and

Ø  I AM: The Tiny Mustard Seed published in 2016, 2017 respectively.

Ø  Life Matters Journal, Create | Encounter; Honorable Mention, Visual 2-D Award, MST, PTSD, Suicidal Ideation, RehumanizeIntl.org 2022.

 

 I have learned humility and suffering go hand in hand upon discovering myself homeless, yet very fortunately for a brief encounter. This episode taught me one day I must pay it forward as the homeless and hungry gentlemen I had the pleasant and most fruitful friendship with and whom I shall not ever forget. The moral for the story of my life-time achievements has become to love one another in great times of need and even the smaller times of need. We must help one another as none of us get out alive. We are all in life together. Be kind to one another, and always remember to keep a smile of love upon your hearts; we need each other on our journey to the sacred.

 

Be Courageous with Your Creativity

She approached, and sat beside me.

I did not know who she was at first.
She told me "Poetry was her love."
I was a founder of courage, so I conceded.
I listened as the vision began to speak her truth.
We spoke of Vietnam, though I was never deployed.
I held my secret.
I felt ashamed, but knew not why.
Yet as she began to leave the bus, she looked back
And stated,
"That was a hell of a job you guys did over there!"
Again, I felt ashamed.
I was never there, I knew, though as
memories surfaced of those who were …
Marines who appeared 'partially alive,'
I was there …
But not in 'the Nam.'
My reality has always been shame.
Life, often gets in the way
of a rare success story,
i.e. a catastrophic account of let's say
perhaps, the rupture of the hymen of a man's soul
"never to be 'taken,'"
but, always written, you know, in metaphor, and
in rhyme, at times, in a bare truth of witness.
Before she left, though, I told her,
"Poetry was also my love."
Sharing a sign of peace to her from my heart
she left, this phantom would leave
the bus never to be seen, again,
I wondered …
the dawning hit me between the eyes
as phantoms often will,
into the Real
of what poetry is all about …
a dispensation of truth,

jotted down

in verbs and nouns.

The blue norther had just blown in. I sat comfortably outdoors, almost chilled to the bone and

still I wrote, not poems, but the smells, sights, and sounds of a south Texas mourn. I write the
word 'mourn' because I mourned the death of a giant mule deer buck hit by an oncoming truck
on Boerne Stage Road. Its hind quarters were crushed. He tried making it across the road and
when he had a passerby who witnessed the injury walked back to where he lay, still snorting the
breath of a chilled, foggy air (his last I foresaw), as the pistol sounded off twice. I thought to
myself, well, that's it for this magnificent beast. Two creatures of God come face to face as one
life ended, tragically I might add, and the other walks casually back to his truck, as if a job
needed to be carried out. It was.

So I suppose, for now, anyway … the poetic well was full, at a coffee house in Leon Springs,
Texas, in 2001.

I feel not, at least

not at the moment
to write poetry.
I aspire to Whitman's spirit -
Help! Help me, Whitman!
But there is no answer.
He rides over me
On the stallion called Muse.
Past my room in a slow-fevered pitch
But off he goes, as poets often will,
I say we're not getting hitched, the
Walt of yesteryears.
We're not getting any work completed, either, so
Come to aid my meter, with
The scent of a good Chai Latte'
With a taste of cream, and a
Dab of caramel, and sea salt -
Mixed in, shaken, not stirred
As Bond may say, or was it Connery?
You know that Indiana Jones guy,
The father
Of explorer's rites to
An archaeological dig
Out in the middle of the
Fiery desert named Algiers.
Dig me some bones, Walt
With the flavor of a rhyme
And make the entire entity
Mine, all mine.
Forever in time.
And as Walt says in Crossing the Brooklawn Ferry,
"I am with you, and I know how it is."

Born 1954, John Gregory Evans has been writing since his high school and college English classes flourished. His prominent passion is poetry, but John also writes essays and some creative non-fiction. He is currently writing his third volume of prose poetry and he is writing his memoir, short stories, and creative non-fiction. 

 

Evans' primary subject matter demonstrates Childhood Sexual Trauma, Military Sexual Trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and the healthy proliferation for poetic compositions. Writing poetry saved John from his OCD of Suicidal attempts and thoughts. 

 

He learned his survival depended on his deeper comprehension of his metaphorical landscape through prose poetry of traumatic episodes and triggers obsessing with terrible thoughts. 

 

John's family is his help. John's wife, his greatest helper, as well as his daughter Vanessa, his greatest childhood friend, his brother Mark, and sisters Jodi and Lori have always been with John throughout his traumatic episodes. 

 

Living now in a comfortable state of gratitude, Evans continues to write of experiences other than childhood and military traumas, he converts his compositions of poetry into joyful, healthy, and happy encounters with all types of content. 

 

John Gregory Evans lives in the West with his adoring wife, and their Shih Tzu Paavo.