Luminary: Drew Dellinger

Luminary: Drew Dellinger

Drew Dellinger is a spoken word poet, teacher, and activist. He is founder of Poets for Global Justice, and author of the collection of poems, love letter to the milky way, with forewords by Thomas Berry and Matthew Fox. Dellinger has presented and performed at hundreds of conferences and events across the country, speaking on justice, ecology, and democracy. Dellinger's poetry has been widely published and his work is featured in the film Voices of Dissent, and the books Children of the Movement and Global Uprising. In 1997 he received Common Boundary magazineis national Green Dove Award. Dellinger has studied cosmology and ecological thought with Thomas Berry since 1990, and he is currently writing a book on cosmology and justice. Dellinger has been called "an important voice of the global justice movement" by YES! magazine and "a national treasure" by Joanna Macy.

Following are two of Drew's poems:

hieroglyphic stairway

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
once
you
knew?

I'm riding home on the Colma train
I've got the voice of the milky way in my dreams

I have teams of scientists
feeding me data daily
and pleading I immediately
turn it into poetry

I want just this consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies
contained in my speech

I am the desirous earth
equidistant to the underworld
and the flesh of the stars

I am everything already lost

the moment the universe turns transparent
and all the light shoots through the cosmos

I use words to instigate silence

I'm a hieroglyphic stairway
in a buried Mayan city
suddenly exposed by a hurricane

a satellite circling earth
finding dinosaur bones
in the Gobi desert
I am telescopes that see back in time

I am the precession of the equinoxes,
the magnetism of the spiraling sea

I'm riding home on the Colma train
with the voice of the milky way in my dreams

I am myths where violets blossom from blood
like dying and rising gods

I'm the boundary of time
soul encountering soul
and tongues of fire

it's 3:23 in the morning
and I can't sleep
because my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the earth was unraveling?

I want just this consciousness reached
by people in range of secret frequencies
contained in my speech


drew dellinger—©2003 1-866-POETICS—drew@soulforce.com

the laws of earth and objects

at the core of the Milky Way there's a black hole with a ring of blue
stars around it
at the core of the Milky Way there's a black hole with a ring of blue
stars around it

does anyone else feel this strange music?

'cause these days
kids are raised
with television the real religion
kids are raised with
television the real religion
kids are raised
to have Nike™
engraved
on their psyche

i travel in and out the veil of tears

that balcony in Memphis
in my eyes
gunshot in my ears
in a land of weary dreams

i travel in and out the veil of tears

i take the poison from the poison
turn the poison into passion
i take the poison
from
the poison
turn the poison into passion

i have no sister
but the moon
and the story of the oceans
and the blood of Christ like
music in my veins

i wander this
mountainous
aquatic
body of the goddess
tasting the
bread of the present
and the
breath of compassion

i want to know the laws of earth and objects
like patterns of migration
like the boiling point of water
like the law that holds the moon
so
gently

does anyone else feel this strange music?


drew dellinger—©2003 1-866-POETICS—drew@soulforce.com