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To the Wounded God

Steve-Mackin
click on image to hear Steve read his poetry.

“Cast a cold eye on Life, on Death. Horseman, pass by.” –W.B. Yeats

Steve,

I opened the reading at Sacred Grounds tonight, just like what you did for years. Except this time there was no “hear ye, hear ye!” but a sad announcement. Your poems led the way: Minotaur, A Thin Line Between the City and the Sea, and A Poem of the Wounded God. There were just a handful of poets there. Has the wind changed? The landscape that we found ourselves in five, six years ago is no longer, as we file out of the picture one by one.

The city, its streets and cafes, the crows outside your window, the luring women in North Beach and then the gyre and the spiral, the gods and goddesses and the myths… You preferred to wander in these vivid worlds than work at the bleak 9 to 5 job. You are a lover. A romantic. It was between Yeats’ tomb and San Francisco that your love affair lasted until the very end. But the heart, no matter how you look at it, was wounded.

 

 

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4 thoughts on “To the Wounded God”

  1. Thank you for your very touching words, Clara. “Time / is that which / out of which / I am made: / I am time /…Love / like everything else / is the discovery of Time.”

    I wrote this for Steve:

    ON THE DEATH OF YOUR FRIEND

    my son sent me,
    from Arabia,
    an image
    of proud
    horsemen
    on the desert
    sand,
    men of vibrant
    importance
    whose skill and intelligence
    was obvious from the way they rode

    when you told me
    of Steve’s death
    I thought of that
    image:
    death as a
    horseman, yes
    but even more
    pride of intellect
    the joy of being
    a rider of thought

    we are all
    horsemen
    & Pegasus
    is both wild & tame

    .

    I know he loved you
    & I wish him well
    in the deep after-living
    for many reasons
    but above all
    for that

  2. Steven was a poet more than any other thing. He loved the art, lived it and passed through it. Our Sargent at Arms, or lead on hitter. The man that did not need a microphone and who always had a word to say about what you said, your poem or life and a great storyteller.

  3. Steve became the wounded god in the Grand Canyon as the sun set and the walls of that great abyss melted into flesh.
    Together, we entered mythic terrain, wandering through the labyrinths of language to find something at the core, something more than the Minotaur. Our journeys are recorded in poems that attempt to capture the light, depth and gestures of the many experiences we shared. And though the great Atlantic came between us, really it is only a thin line incapable of keeping friends apart as death itself is a thin line unable to divide us.

  4. Dear Clara, I wanted to come to Sacred tonight but could not make it. Steve was a sweetheart, and I am so sorry he has gone. I can never write poems, but I wrote one for Steve on Thursday morning. Spanish horses seems to be a theme… Sus.

    Flying Home
    one foot in the old world
    one in the new
    Spanish guitars trilling
    words, yes only words
    the tone, the color, the sound
    Spanish horses rearing
    hoofing cloven silver
    scarlet vessel brimming
    vital blood red wine

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