As the Heavens
Embrace the Earth
Love abounds
In the sky colors at Dawn
See the sunset hues of autumn wine
Let the flame of Amour
Arise within you
If you feel lonely,
outcast, separated
Distant
Warm yourself by coals
Breathe on them
See the glow
You are truly
Never Alone
By still waters
Or the babbling brook
'Twixst the spring blossoming trees
Surely LOVE is there
Whispering to you
From long lost memories
Stand beside Her
Gaze with her into your future
A new day of
Grace and Eternal
Promise
Never give up hope
never give in
never surrender
Reach out to the finish line
Where Love
Always wins

When you are abandoned,
Listen with your whole heart to the mighty rushing wind
When you are rejected
Watch the falling rain drops descend from stormy skies
When you feel alone
Dip your hand into the coolness of the babbling brook
When you are shattered
Walk on soft earth and lay your hand on rough solid granite
Let the pounding surf, rolling waves remind you where you came from
Let the moon and stars tell you tales of your eternal home
The sun does not cease to share its rays to warm your countenance
Broken, bruised, battered, barren
The flame will speak your name
Calling you a treasure in an earthen vessel
But like any precious metal
You have impurities
Molten smelting required
Before the revealing of...
Your glory

Infinite stream
Bytes
Everything is a matrix
Of information

Some i prioritize
Some i ignore
Some i choose to give meaning

Is that the meaning encoded in the stream?
Or my overlay?

Can i separate my impulse from the incoming signal?
Divide it from the trigger
Slice off the arousal?

The stream of ****
Must it force a rise out  of me?

Or is it just...
Another meaningless image
Saturated with lust
A sponge absorbing and bursting
With the prurient soaking
A blob of sweaty damp pheromones

Best washed away
In the predawn rain of innocence?

The glistening snow melts
On the mountain top
Into rivulets
Fragmenting as
Beads like glass bubbles

Containing
The essence
Dew dripping
Dew drops
Portions of
Infinite sky
Where stars are poets
Declaring love
In musical spheres cascading

Shattering corrupted auras
Of lost souls
Triggering their metamorphosis
Into the resurrection of eternal light
On the fields
Of emergent
Possibilities
Nascent paths
Unlocked from this prison earth
And its microcosm of dwindling
Probabilities

This is the panorama
Across endless star lanes
The ever self creating
Universe

From Hollywood, the elite  down todregs of society live on your radio and TV
In my home, my peers, the streets
All I was told at my mother's knee

The messengers of our society
Say: believe this about reality
And what to do, who I am supposed to be

From the cradle, hypnotically hammered so-called truth
In the school of youth
Pounding molten metal, letting it cool to steel
This is what is true, this is real

So well packaged, the American dream
Mom, apple pie, pursuit of riches so lavish it's obscene

Pleasures become addiction
...driving obsession
Control, manipulate my mind and emotions

Red pill? Blue pill? Never see the light
Learn wrong from right
The hypnotic matrix of endless suggestions
Believe with no questions

Preachers sell me their brand of truth from the pulpit
So many flavors
Different versions of the savior
This can't be the only truth can it?

Politicians, old and wise
Trust me to guide and tell no lies
Will my vote do what they advertise?

Lies, deceit, illusion - it's crazy
But you tell me to question my sanity

These lies obscure my reflection
Like the mist after a hot shower
Image lost in the semi-truths
I tell myself...

I'll be ok without you

I don't
- miss your warm breath on my skin
-  long for a glance at the gleam in your eyes

Your scent is forgettable
You are replaceable
Your head on my chest - I don't miss the warmth of that touch

Distance is my friend
Coldness in solitude is my companion
(Pretending is better than feeling when alone)
Numbness is better than passion
It doesn't hurt as much as being close to you

Time heals my wounds
(Not really)
And what a ******* price to pay

So lamentable,
poetry is not marketable.
Not worth making haste
to conform to public taste.

In the final analysis,
path to financial paralysis,
is the poet's life
No worldly gains, only strife.

The lonely moments of heartache
If only the silvery moon was a woman
Extending long silvery fingers
Invitation to a starry dance so far from this life
Earthbound

Dream coalescing from spidery luminescent fibers
Cloudless, the inky night
Calls my heart aloft
Impossible future memory

If I could only dissolve in a Star Trek transporter
And be reassembled
Elsewhere,

My life is glimpse
Out the window
On a dark rainy night

Why do I have to feel?
Feeling brings pain.
Heartache pounds within the cage of my chest.
Feeling brings confusion.
What should be a clear reflection looks more like
The cloudy mirror after a hot shower.
Feeling is an ache in my bones
Worse than the dew soaked English morning.
Feelings reach for the stars
Only to be an abrasion
Like falling off my bicycle
Feeling is the road rash of the soul.

Nails along the chalkboard
Screeching loudly enough to cringe
Harpy feelings take vampire bites
Draining life from heart and soul.

Here I sit in the dark of night
'Neath the sullen icy gaze of Luna
Contemplating the ravages of...
What I feel

Yet feel I will,
Indeed feel I must...
Inescapably ensnared by emotional ties,
situations and other connections
Sometimes not even breaking the surface
The overwhelming watercourse
Of feelings ...
Impossible to stem
Can't even put a finger in the ****
to slow the torrent at times.
Often, I don't even want to stop the flow,
even when that would be the sane thing to do.

Goodbye my love
Melodiously sigh the radiant crimson orange clouds
As their tendrils seem to flicker against
Distant emerald tree limbs
Resting on the darkening jagged hill

The sighing tune fades, yet endlessly repeats
out towards the pale azure horizon

All that is beautiful
Echoes of longing
Needfully resonated in the chambers of two lover's hearts below

Every kiss hello
Prelude on airy strings
To a goodbye
Precious paradox
This fleeting joy
embraces the lovers as vines climbing the grey stone wall

If I only knew what I was searching for
I would know
When I found it

Stirrings like the tide
Waves wash over me
On this barren, windswept shore.

Do I still believe?
What is love anyway?
Does anybody really know?
     (Howard Jones)
You try to give it away
Yet you don't know if...
it will come back to you.

The rift between the dream of heaven,
                               the nightmare of earth.

Two worlds colliding,
      As the stars fall,
           They are not caught in our nets.

Heart pounding and mind awash in doubt,
     Walking forward as nothing is closer.

The question: is it illusion?
Hangs in the air,
       Like rain droplets before

The storm

Seek a higher LOVE
Bring it into the world
Leave behind all your
   Past conceptions of
       Romance
  earthbound lusts
Bury her past
   Meditation by the graveside
Plant a new heavenly seed
   into the earth
Let the seed germinate
Heal from wounds
      Forget the guidance of
          Self-bondages and limitation

It is time to leave the house of death

OPEN your HEART to the NEW
         LET IT RISE
A NEW BIRTH
out of sea-foam
            ...and...
The fabric of the dark azure skies
      ...your star...
          ...is...in...
                MOTION

I am alive.
Blood courses through my veins
In rushes my breath
The scent of the morning dew on the rose
Wind against my face as i ride down on my cycle
The dark road lit by 500 candlepower before me
Flashing red illuminating behind me
Exhiliration
My pulse rushes
Controlled glide in shiny silver wheels flashing
Heart pulsing

My eyes still see
Tree limbs dancing in a cloudless azure summer California sky
The brilliant sun of hope

At twilight silver slice of the moon
So beautiful in its haze illuminating the dark path of tree shadows below
To live, to breathe...
Dream of a better day

Where shall i guide my my foot and place my next step today beneath the dawn horizon?

The Artist paints the sky with a rosy fingered dawn (Homer)
Bringing love, truth dispel lies
Harmony in my daily chaos

Sing!

Beauty radiant
Emerge from the chrysalis butterfly
Wings sheared hopelessly

I may not be able to turn water into wine
                but I  can pour a cup of water for a thirsty stranger
I can't walk on water
                but I can be by your side near the waters
                find you shelter in the storm
I may not be able to miraculously heal the sick
                yet I can rush you to the doctor
I may not have raised the dead
                but I can speak the words of life
He can forgive your sin
                and I can help him cover your nakedness,
                show you that your shame is a lie
                
I may not be Jesus
but I will go where he asks me to go
to be a light to the hopeless
a friend to sinners (I know I am the worst sinner of all so I do not judge you...)
I will be the ear that listens to your story
and the shoulder to cry on,
and give you a hug...

God ******
mercenaries
vipers
hypocrites

The Lamb of God
sold into the marketplace
led into the slaughter

The Love and Heart of God
now a harlot
for the desires and pleasures of perverse men
--honestly, I have more respect for a Lady of the Night, than religious ****** who traffic in holiness

The Spirit of God
miracles transformed
into entertainment and to rake in filthy lucre

The Banner of God
leads an army of hate

The Pastor of God
exiles a member of Christ’s body

The sacred Writings of God  
twisted into a message of
judgement, guilt, intolerance

I am dismayed
disturbed
disappointed
disgusted
… I have seen too much

The Heart of God bleeds, tears fall from His eyes

How long will this go on?

Is there vengeance and a special place of punishment reserved for those who commit such travesty?
For those who trample on the Blood of the Savior?

--Serge Banderet

I think I am still dreaming,
But I am amazed,
That alone I still fly

There is a greater love than human,
Than our fragile hearts can bear
But I had to die
shed the skin of mortal thought
like a dry skin

Be broken hearted
betrayed
rejected
ridiculed

Empty, now my soul
Forgiveness a bitter bile
Though memories remain
Some sins redeemed
Amended, atoned for...

Purity sought
In a world of decay, corruption...
imperfection

And yet I found...

There is an immortal river that flows
In a place where gods and goddesses
lift up the Grail
And into the chalice pours
the water from the Source
of creation and life

Where hearts have wings
And are borne beyond time
In the garden of eternity

The rose never fades there
and thoughts (voices I have heard)
span timeless space
even from heavenly galaxies
to our mortal realm

There are two gates to the other place:
Surrender and Purity.


Peace.
Love.
Light.
Be Free.

Timeless Truths cannot be by mortal mouths spoken.
Those who speak have not known,
Those who know, realize the Truth cannot be put into words,
If you are willing to pay the price of what you value most,
You are on the path to understanding what I have written.

i am shadow
   darkmess
      death
         the sleep
that severs
    spirit from body
      
The river crossed
What will you pay the ferryman?

Youth
   the faded wilted rose

Beauty
  drains like wine
    from the shattered crystal chalice

Thorns no longer pierce
Bones to rotten wood
Blood to sea-water
Flesh merely sandy clay

Shadows without substance
Fragments of a long forgotten dream
We walk by each other as Strangers

Wish I could ask you what it means
that we remain guarded and separate

Do you ever wonder
about life, the universe and everything?
Do you not know
what you see is not all there is...?

There is Spirit, there is Matter
WE WALK IN <<TWO WORLDS>>

A hero is a candle
who burns Himself to give light

Saints bless
by turning suffering to joy
In their pain and tears,
they help others smile.

Eyes of ember and coals of funeral pyres
I gaze there in your fearsome countenance
Your mouth the ****** maw of destruction
****** teeth rip and tear
...the flesh of those I love

You are the cancer of hell
that eats the precious life of the soul

With a wicked smile
you hum the song of the gallows
..as you sharpen your sickle
ready for the harvest of bone crushing beheadings

On the edge of the mourning madness
weight of grief size of the millstone
then have I walked through dark graveyards
final resting place of rotting
skulls and bones

Epitaph
  Eulogy
    fade like the flowers at the grave and blow away
       dust into wind
Dust to dust , ashes to ashes...
   Worse yet the graves unmarked

Blood spills out drop by drop
one stroke and the next of the pendulum
   second by second you are erased, fading to black

Sand pours our grain by grain on the hourglass
resting on the monolithic slab of your putrid grey black altar behind you
also resting there the glass syringe with infinitely sharp needle
filled with a green somewhere between gangrene and neon radioactive waste
  one pinprick, the drug of desperation and suicide
    course through the veins of the walking dead

Surely you mock us
and dance near the empty grave that awaits us all
bringing venomous spittle to your mouth
so you can spit in our face to further humiliate us

Decay, corruption and rot
Your perfume with which your anoint yourself at every dawn

Waiting for the candle of life to flicker
so you can be the breath to blow it out
Forging  nails that pierce both saint and sinner
through heart, hands and feet

Your bony hand opens the veil to eternity

Vile and poisonous shadow asp
some day I will feel your bite
as you cut the silvery cord that joins soul to body

There are no words to describe your merciless cruelty
You are incapable of leaving behind anything behind
besides empty gaping loneliness

I HATE YOU, YOU ******* - I think of your sadistic ****** every time I walk down the center of town
And see the funeral home
Where there was the wake of my dear mom

"When music fades, worlds live not long."

O'Bryan, Zacharias . Seven Poems and Songs from Spirit Thorn VeraVoz LLC. Kindle Edition.

Music suspended...
ether vibrates
melancholy lilting echo
notes strung together as beads on necklace

Beads..
    fall
      slowly
         from
   sky to earth
Notes into raindrops
songs into dew
   fall on the grass and rose petals
  
   Look closely
   look again
   yes, again
    
     in that single fluid crystal drop
     hidden mysteries and revelation
    
   éclaircie - rendu plus clair
   (clarified made clearer)
     light through the prism
    
     golden ray passing through the single crystal drop bursting into color
     luminous fragments embedded as one filtered to reveal diversity
    
        So we as humans are
   one light
a thousand ray emanations particles
                            
    INFINITE LIGHT
born of the            drifting,
falling to earth...

Ever changing yet part of the One
      that is ALWAYS
         the same

Original Title: the Haunting

I feel lost remembering looking at you in tears
heartache at the memory
Why do I torture myself by listening to the last song
that had you sobbing
and it broke my heart to see?
I can still picture the color of the walls dark orange
the hot humid night in Honduras
on the front patio of the orphanage

I remember the morning you were laying in bed
when you told me you had had enough
We had sold or given away everything
Returning home to the States with $1000 in my bank account
Thank God, for my stepdad..still had a place to stay

Tears stream down my face
Hard to see the notepad as I write

****.

I look up at the sky..first full moon night
Who, exactly up there decide I should be born human?
I thought you were supposed to be a Good God...
What curse did I deserve for you to let me feel this pain?

In the background:
Roette: "Yeah, it must have been love but it's over now.
It was all that I wanted, now I'm living without.
It must have been love but it's over now,
It's where the water flows, it's where the wind blows."

and yes the wind blows...well more like it *****!

Broken, did i break you?
Was I so cruel?
Never meant to hurt you but the road to hell is paved with good intentions

Was it my silence or..
the burning lust I could never quell
..which I wonder at times if it will not lead me to hell...
and worse to a hypocritical Christian..the judgement on those who know the truth
is much more severe than those who have not heard.

Martika sings in the background:
  "when you tear temptation call..
    it's your heart that takes the fall"

The irony of it is
it started as a dream for us
one to share for the rest of our lives
I cared about you...listened to you
You were there to hold me in my dark moments
wipe away the tears
We danced, we had fun...
Years later when you were telling me how much I had changed...
you reminded me that when we first met..I sang to you at the beach on a starry night
Trapped in the romance and I was so far gone
Funny how different we were then almost twenty years ago
You had such high hopes for me
I changed from telling you I would never darken the doorway of another church to a full-time missionary
--15 years later I realized who you needed was a man I could never be

The wolf tattoo I got after the divorce
was because I never wanted to be so nice
or vulnerable again

You were so beautiful in that wedding dress
the way your eye shone
at the moment we were happy and it all looked like a promise

It's hard lesson when heartache becomes real enough
that it is an burning ache in the center of your chest  

This is an open wound
It feels like the pen should be writing gangrenous vile dark grey/green ink
as it lets the poison out

**** it.
   Time for another **** and a sip of wine
   Enough of this romantic ****

J Geils Band...singing about how love stinks..
music to my ears

Does make me wonder why
I let this internal drama play out
or worse get the better of me

And the songs go on
Brett Michaels - Love *****
Lily Allen sings smile - along with a video of her paying some guys to beat up her boyfriend

Not entirely sure..and maybe it's because it's one of the first times I have done this
But listening to other peoples anger and misery damnably helps
--and it amuses me that she got the cheating *******'s *** kicked

Cheating is the one thing I never did
though my ex would argue the point and call **** my mistress

Strangely, I will always admire her for giving so much
and how truly she was committed
Though it stings when she said she did it for God and not me

I know how deeply I hurt her
Yet I don't know if she will ever undertand the sacrifices I made and just how hard I tried

Somehow at the moment
Getting ******* is more fun that whiny assed *******
...and there's something to be said for some good **** and two buck Chuck

Love for  a human (and yes there are times I wish I was an alien..god knows that is how I got treated all the way through high school)
Reminds me how you make a statue
Simply carve away all that is not the statue

So it is with us
   what we must learn about love is as much what it is not
   as it is what we think it is
or what we think it should be...

I so want to write something deep and profound to impress everyone
Which it is the best time the write the last line and to...
           STOP

For a moment
pretend you pulled aside
the GREY DARK CURTAIN

Look with me...

Carved into a timeless oak
is the night-wolf
Your Friend
Guardian as you cross

Unexpectedly
    He
        Passes
             to
                                     YOU
t h e w h i t e  T-O-R-C-H
   you hear his whisper:
       Do not fear

As you emerge beyond the curtain
    All of it is: Purpose
More than dream

We are all Born
naked
We all Die
naked

Our nakedness is not a mark of shame, but of a return to perfection

Smile
Breathe deep for me
Close your eyes
Look within

IT IS NOT EMPTY
for kindled there by angels is the flame of love


no, I don't know
yet I understand

All of us connected
--Each of us
     Spirit
                                 O - N - E
I give this gift of hope to you

Do not despair
Do not give up
  just
          touch

                             I    N
                       A               B
                 R                        O
        E                             ­          W
   H                                             ...                                      
T                                                      It's there for a reason - REMEMBER

The POWER is in your joy
Let it ILLUMINATE
YOUR HEART

Your strength is in your soul
The flow is
LOVE

Reach out and touch
The SOURCE

FLY

Whatever.

I thought that I:
lost the power
fell from grace
left behind the Presence

Yet it remains anchored
Steadfast

It cannot be stripped from me
by a church that has exiled me
I was never to a Sunday Christian anyway

The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable
...were not given to me by man,
only confirmed..
Man cannot take it away

The heart I was given
the spirit that defines me
the gifts I share
The most important lesson I have ever learned -
that: "To love is to give"
will not be blotted out of my notebook.

So what am I?
I don't know
All I know is that my purpose here
Is to guide
to reveal
to those whom I sent

"You are not mere clay...Breathed of God is your first breath...and the light of eternity will shine upon your last"

No river is crossed
No path untravelled
No passage unjourneyed
...to which the gateway is not found within.

Beyond the boundary of the accepted, tolerated, comformable
is where you will find this cleric

Preaching in bars
reaching out on the streets

My only prayer:
Let me continue to defy
Assumptions of what can, should be done.

And in the end...
we shall all be on the long road home

All that I write
the poetry of my soul
a warriors song
to the tune of a call to battle

shadow black lotus
grey dismal clouds of despair
numb and distant
sleep of emptiness

Ecstatic visions
luminescent glow
cloud halo surrounding the sun on a field of grey / blue
Ethereal angel voices
heralding the way to nowhere
journey into the unkown and the unknowable
yet ken it I must
to become a reason for the next day

Crimson dark I have bled
theft breath by breath from life
visions of a dark graveyard

Yet this is where the Redeemer chose to resurrect
giving hope of life eternal

You hide within a dream
Heart beating strong
Guarded by the steel
you bear at your side
you wield it to cut true

The shield of love prtoects you from
the fiery lies

A rose grows watered by your tears

Romance is an open would
yet scars that fromed who you are

forward you march again into the battle of love
braving the fear
clinging to the clarion call reminder:
There will be victory

Pain is an ugly thing
Wounds bleed dark
They stink if they get infected
Scars form

You would not think
Emotional pain is worse
But it lasts longer
And suffering unnoticed
Can be more humiliating
When you have no badge of honor
For others to see

It hurts me to see others suffer
Typical (or maybe not so common)
Guy that I am
I want to fix it and make it go away

So hard to listen
But that is often what you need

I can empathize with you
Not pretend I know the depths of your hurt

Tell me your story
If all I can do is listen...

I will be here for you

You may have to help me resist the temptation to give advice

Am I really
Listening to the spoken words?
Or lost in your eyes.

Broken bottles line sidewalk by the bar
Reflections of neon

Drinks poured
Spirits spilled onto hardwood floors
Loud music muted
As the ***** numbs your brain
As you hope your troubles
Will fly away to tomorrow

In the cold reality of the next day you know they didn't
They dance with your hangover

Escape from the chains of the ordinary
Is not so easy..
But be ****** if we don't
try anyway
As we reach for the next Jack Daniels
For the moment
The buzz is another Southern Comfort

Borrow bravery from the bottom of a glass
Pretend you don't know
Life is more than chasing the next piece of ***

The thrill of the chase
You hope it will erase
That feeling
You don't want to face.

Brutal
Colder than the ice cube
At the bottom of your drink
Is the truth

The lie goes down so much
Smoother
As wet as the next Guinness.

Bar room brawls
Are no real testament of manliness
Why get stupid enough
Not to realize the difference?

Down the hatches
It burns so good.
Another brain cell gives up the fight.