frank andrick

frank andrick has lived in San Francisco, Paris, Lockeford and Sacramento, where he has been an integral part of the poetry scene for many years. Deeply influenced by French poets such as Verlaine and Baudelaire, andrick’s poetry flirts with surrealism at times, but I think of him as a romantic as well – one who believes that art, and the sharing of it, can redeem humanity to some extent. As a regular host at Luna’s Café on Thursday nights, frank often mixes poetry with music, and he recently produced a mixed-media event which included films from the 1930s as background for his poetic work. Frank also edits WTF, Rattlesnake Press’s quarterly journal of the literary and visual arts, which is now going into its fourth edition.
(Note: You can order WTF, or find submission guidelines, by visiting Rattlesnake Press at http://rattlesnakepress.com/wtf.html )

Here are a number of frank’s pieces, plus a piece that he has selected that was written about six thousand years ago. “Oh lady of the largest heart,” is, to his knowledge, “the first poem we have a record of.” It was originally “printed” on cuniform tablets! Enjoy the work of frank andrick.

Sativa

Sativa - A Rose By No Other Name
Mystikal, Mysterious, and Mortal.
Miss Rose I presume??
A Rose by no other name.

aaah Sativa,
A thousand stories, bedside tales, she-her-azade
One and a million secret places
Zero the void, come into being
The void I sink into - When I sync into U
U the unknown - night bloom
What will and can be - up to you and me
The shapeless breathes form
The wet whorl of an ear echoes and inspires
the fire down below.
We are none - we are one

aaah Sativa,
All the animals are here
All the angels too - Tutti
Possibilities are endless
In the infinite universe of verses
Sum surrounded in flaming blue
49 petals has the ancient mystic rose
Mouth flowers- - La Rose du Monde
Seeking the Rose of the world - Whose touch stirs the snake
Awakens the Rose of imagination.
Searing sex into vision - Seering visions into sex
The High Priestess lowers the veil
RoseCross and flame - Sight and smell intoxicate
Phases of the flowering, phases of the moon
Beauty has a new name
You
The Rose By No Other Name.

THE POET IS A THIEF OF FIRE

To be a poet
entails more than
the writing of poems.
It demands a commitment
to live and die with great style
and an even greater sadness.
to wake up each morning
with the fever raging,
and to know that it can never
be extinguished except by
death,
and yet to be convinced that this suffering,
this sensitivity carries it’s own unique
reward...
I want to be
the Hierophant
of an unapprehended
inspiration.

EVENING PRAYER

Discontented with everything and discontented with myself
I should be glad enough to redeem myself and restore my pride
a little in the silence and the solitude of the night.
souls of those i have loved ,
souls of those i have sung,
fortify me, sustain me, drive me far
from the corrupting vapors of the world.
And you, my God, grant me
the grace to produce a few beautiful lines
which will prove to me that I am not lower
than those whom i despise.

 

oh lady of the largest heart

by enheduanna (A Sumerian moon priestess/poet circa 4000 bc )

oh lady of the largest heart
keen for battle queen
eldest daughter of the moon
she is changeable, and hidden
SHE completes the great of me
makes flawless the ordained powers
she shrieks and the gods start shaking she raves
she speaks she shakes with rage
demons throw ropes snares bodies burn in blistering flare
she is the one who disobeys

lioness Inanna, leaps to slash the fearless
mountain wildcat, prowling the roads
shows her wet fangs, gnashes her teeth
where she spits venom fighting erupts
tumult spreads the poison
she is Inanna bearer of happiness
she holds the life of heaven with her single hand
she the lady lioness
out of nothing shapes what has never been
her sharp wit splits the door where cleverness resides
and there reveals what lies inside
these two she changed and renamed
reed marsh woman into reed marsh man
& back again ecstasy and trance are yours
to gather the scattered, and restore the living place
are yours
she is the one who disobeys,
oh lady of the largest heart.