The Poetry of R.E. Slater: R.E. Slater

"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Monday, March 31, 2025

R.E. Slater - The Divine Poet

Dante and Beatrice at the gates of Paradise, by Dore

The Divine Poet

by R.E. Slater

"Ecce Vox antiquior -

non mea, sed iam mea fit."

"Behold, a Voice more ancient than mine -

not mine, yet now it becomes mine."

In every divine moment the Poet sings worlds

into being with love and purpose...

every syllable a sunrise, each phrase a living stream,
freed the silences of deep time, birthing new life -
spilling from darkness's voids where dreams
once slept dreamlessly.

Waking, lurid dreams springing to life

in crescendoing stanzas...
rising like restless seas testing landfall's shores,
slaking earth's barren soul -

a'thirst divinity's Light and Life,

pulsing florid songs of beauty

On every rising wind.

Each line of grace can be charted

on every sparrow's flight...

or in nightjar's incessant evening trilling -

echoing creation's poetic heartbeat

flushed in chorused song as unstilled

desires striving to be, become.

But not all songs nor poems are ever so

gilded or gentle...
each beauty borne, each jagged life birthed,

comes stitched in grief and flame - woven cruel

threads of dissident strains alongside threaded

companions named mercy and compassion.

Without which each living poem of grace

and purpose is too easily flung away...

like fated castaways upon evil, unjust seas -

For every creature is a living line

drafted in divine mystery, made in pain,

The Poetry of R.E. Slater

Monday, March 31, 2025

R.E. Slater - The Divine Poet

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