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Dan Hess Aug 2022
The present moment is my happy place

and, when I step back and appreciate

all my woes and worries are erased



I’ll simulate the energy of peace

when anger and impatience ravage me

and the world seems chockfull of instability;

because, when I remember to breathe,

I don’t surrender my power to a feeling



Sometimes I find I’m faced with a choice

Life can leave me feeling as if I’m without a voice

All things appear so dull and strange

My heart, aching for a change



And I can choose to lose it;

let my rage consume and guide me

My power, when I abuse it,

unleashes pain I hide inside me



Seeking to subdue, control, or placate

is a futile effort

We must waste our energy 

to weaken what we wish to subordinate

Strength only doubles when we work together



Such is the same with one’s self

Fighting inner pain just drains 

and serves to lessen health

Nothing else remains

and one retires again to rest



I’ll step back, and take a breath,

and remember what it’s like to be at peace;

let my soft awareness spread

from in the deep of me,


and assess

with love, encouragement and patience

any problem that keeps me

from seeing beauty



Because love lives in the aching heart

-in the wandering mind

Love, is what we know, what we might find

It is why we yearn and ache

It is why we persist, in spite,

or for the sake of it



So, 
when I find that irate individual;

my mind and the world in turmoil;

when I can’t catch a break,

I can’t focus, can’t think,

I will remember love

is the nourishing thing

at the crux of being



It is the keystone 

to the doorway to new paths

of consciousness and coalescence

of presence and connection

of Love itself
Dan Hess Jul 2021
Oh… so I’m one of the lucky ones?
who get to witness magic
seeing things I can’t explain  

the veil may slip for me
even in the morning light
the moon itself dissolves
into the sun before my eyes

and I can’t help but laugh because
it’s magic  

whose heart is any less than full
needs magic in their lives
you’ll feel like a child
see the world through sparkling eyes
once you lose control  

you’ll find  
you’re cradled on the breeze
and nature glows with ease  

forests teem with fairies
oceans overflow
as Atlantis rises  

life is an eruption
as hands shoot from the earth
in a fleeting second
attempting to grasp at the heavens  

we are so young
so temporary
so beholden to something  
so much grander than us  

but it beholds us too
“half moon, in the morning sky

I guess the other half’s tucked away

in a blanket of blue

as our little nocturnal angel

cuddles up for a nap”

I look up from being engrossed in my inner monologue to see the moon has disappeared.
Dan Hess Jul 2019
By way of fate
you separate your heart
from what is real,
for in your knowing imposition,
you exhume appeal.

It is to turn away from flowing,
that you learn of ever growing
things within your own pariah's haven.

Patronize yourself in madness;
flicker in the dark.
Surround yourself with solitude,
and isolate your art.

You are the voice of ages.
You exist to turn the pages
fate is writ upon,
and wrought from nothing,
you will carry on forever.

Hark, your inner voice
is stark and screaming.
Rise.
Uncompromising
in your gleaming
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Ironically
Your position
In industry
Is to listen
To those above
In hopes of learning
What is right
Ignoring lifelines, tools, and insight
Even though your heart is yearning
Independence, innovation, new products still glistening
In spotless eyes, through mystery
You only need to stiffen
Stubbornly, surreptitiously
You practice new autonomy
To lead yourself to mending lives once bound to ties
Of day to day, and by and by
A loss of life to society
Regulation bound by autonomy
Dan Hess Apr 2022
We’ll start with a cackle
when I think to myself of spiritual principle
and the voices in my head debate the ideal
I stop thinking, by circumlocution

saying every different perspective,
to unsay the unsayable
I am right and I am wrong
I am here and I am there
I am all and I am nothing
yada yada yada, bla bla bla
whatever

At which point, I am presented with the hysterical image,
and idea, of “god” however you understand that,
to present itself as a bush, and say
“ I am who am” I am the alpha and the omega,
and so on and so forth.

Essentially evading the question,
because there is no answer.
It cannot be spoken.

Words are predicated on understanding,
but when we follow that thread of context back to its source,
we are left with pure, unadulterated awareness.

And what is that? It doesn’t need to be said.
It needs no context, no justification.
It simply exists and is being and is truth.
It demands to be known.
We cannot live without it.
Dan Hess Sep 2022
Take thee, thy gaze, in wistful, mourning solitude, 

and fix it thereupon a rose in bloom 

and thou shalt see and be consumed

in thoughts of death and interlude 
betwixt
the days of haze wherethrough 

the sunlight, harsh, consumes a baking brain 

a-pulse with pain, and still estranged

in what we call “forever.” 



Yet still, become 

(thee, thy rose in waiting)

whose entreaty and retreat betrays 

the idle mind, the aching heart;

and be that bloom, that efflorescent art.



Drink in the sun and be a part 

of waking day and masterful array, 

of soul drenched verisimilitude.


Whereby the unprimed, emptied mind 

aligns with thy divine spark, 

therein lies the secret: 



It is You 

who shines, who blooms; 

who dies unto Life become again,

through strife and separation, 

Beauty and Unity, and Universe in celebration.



It is Thee, not lost, not blind, 

but free to be and free to find,

to coexist and create bliss, 

through ignorance, your every wish 

begets a kiss with the intimate infinite.



A declaration of innocence, 

of birth, and Truth, 

and Love returned to It.



You are Sight.

Light seeing Light being.

Light Being, 
shining through the Night. 


Divine thing, 
hold tight.

It will be alright.
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Keep smiling your
Empty Smiles
You won’t be feeling them
For a while
If you keep wallowing
In your bile
You’ll never change, love

So keep
Rising from your ashes
And avoid those
Painful clashes
Of emotion;
Mental thrashes
Eased by your
Favorite drug

Once all of your
Traits have changed
Will you
No longer be deranged
Or just in a
Different kind of cage
Walk off the stage, love

Spectacular,
though you may be
You’re not a spectacle
Don’t you see
And this receptacle
To your grief
Should be disposed of
Dan Hess Feb 2021
I am rebirthed
in the sanctity of spirit
in rivers flowing
through my very being

channels clear
with an oomph!
whenever will works
worlds quake
in the wake of waves

erupting


spilling over

geysers plummeting
cascading a flood of 

ae (the) r



condensed in my crystal moon
emanating holographic light
that purifies the mind
and reignites

the flame of heart



clarity in microcosmic synergy
which permeates infinity
through fractalescent pockets
spiraling intricately 

into oblivion



from heaven’s highest branches
to the densities of roots
beneath the light of life



the world tree holds cosmos
identical to energetic outlets
effusing spiritual light
within our very vessels



we are 
mirror images
forever 

holding hope 

in our depths



an ever expanding accordion 

of intimate individuation
in unfolding fragments

forming frameworks for fate



so severnot the swell

plummet me, nought,
unto hell

nay, away into my shell



herein I reside
evermore, but never;

bide I, aligned

parallel or right inside
the flow of home
bestowed in mine
dissolved

and unconfined

even in the midst
of loneliness

and death
I feel not
bereft



I know
my nature beckons
in the reckoning of heaven
within, without, about
the energy of everything
reiterated in me
Dan Hess Jul 2019
To wonder you must wander
Take a trip in mental quips
Read a book, get lost in it
Start questioning your essence
Let loose your grip, forget the present

You can see a lot of things
That make you wonderfully confused
And spend a day or two, a year or so
In answering what you don't know

But eventually, you'll just run dry
And wonder what others think
So read a book, and take a look
And into ignorance you'll sink

Intelligence and ignorance go hand in hand
I'm ignorant in ways that I don't even understand
I need to find a new perspective,
To let my mind expand
I'll just pick any direction to head in
And venture into wonderland
Dan Hess Nov 2023
cradled in the womb of death
that warm, dark emptiness
black velvet

speckled light behind closed eyes
a deep, unfeeling sleep
that stretches on eternally
the safest place to swallow me
where nothing has to matter

and I will not try, and I will not be
and when I breathe,
my breath will be absorbed
in black velvet

blanketing me in silence
hushing and smothering festering red
flares of fearful violence

the heartbeat of the void
pounding in my ears
washes me away like ocean waves
and i am safe
in black velvet
Dan Hess Jul 2019
It's spacious in the background
I need some time to squander
My mind is made of moldruff
I might as let it wander

I've gotta let the walls out
And take a cup of three
I'm making extra couplets
I've gotta book a steep

Could listless information
on my cold beset'ums got?
A sparkling for the ages
But I think I'd rather not

I patched a cap in baldsworth
It's another half agown
I'm staking half'a bulb's herr
And heading out of town

It's constant and I know I'm broke
But I can't claim the race ahoof
I've legs but I've not caved a stook
And I'm a little houseshook
Dan Hess Mar 2021
I merged with this,
the Infinite.
The song of Heaven,
I could hear it.

Vibrations of eternity
surrounding me,
and written throughout everything,
the lyrics.

All different pitch
of perfect wave,
resounding to fragment
the quintessence
of this presence
to which I now belonged.

Yet, this energy condenses.
Re-administered,
from essence to presence.
A blip within the static of magic.

Eye could not exist,
in reminiscent wishes,
avasting existence.

The depth within the deep
of endless ocean called to me:
to stimulate emotion
in the impartation of separation
from Infinity.

The pull of gravity consumed me.
Here, again, within the fill
of fragrant, illusory "being,"

I live to speak of bleeding
into everything and nothing.
Dan Hess Jul 2021
It comes and goes
in flurries and spurious blips
It ebbs and flows
regaining balance as I trip


I stumble to and fro
but only so
I get a grip


so I can know
the self is just a sip
from a cup from a well
of endlessness


I think I’ll take a dip in it,
the aquifer  beneath;
the self that sleeps;


the surging deep
that covers all
that I discover
in the midst of this
duplicitous engagement with
the mist


Like water
in its various states
Like cycles of the moon
like seasons changing


Like the air:
the space that holds,
where self unfolds
in rearranging


but sit with it
the emptiness
and resonate in semblance


as when breathing
we are feeling
come and go,
but never leaving


Such deceiving things
the tapestry of dreams
forever stringing being


To be the thread
not alive
nor dead
but interweaving
Dan Hess Jul 2019
I climbed the mountain
Took the plunge
And fell in fear of flying

The moment came
I gave my way
And then found myself rising

I soared so far
And saw the world
From visions in the sky

I ran amok
And with some luck
I kissed my fears goodbye

I hovered there
Up in the air
Til winds exhausted me

Then landed back
Upon the ground
And walked
But still was free
Dan Hess Jul 2019
I dried my tears to desiccation
Now I'm stranded here in isolation
Deep within the mind
But I can't find myself to bring elation

I've lost the presentation of my ego to the id
I'm drowned about in seas of tears I've kept contained within
I'm poised in spirit on the nearest island here within my mind
But I'm still searching salty seas for something I will never find

I think I'm crazy, but I can't see truth here to compare
This false lucidity does not help me to feel more aware
I'm killing time within but drowning in emotions, wearing thin

I'm basking in the silent night,
and there's no light to guide my way
I'm strung about
I've learned to fly
But I can't see the shore
To my dismay

It hurts to see the earth all shrouded in the dark, this way
But it's a world within my mind, there's no way out, I'm still a castaway
I had "kryptonite" stuck in my head and somehow that helped with the flow ****
Dan Hess Jul 2019
I see angels
hiding in interesting places
Reading numbers and
forging signs for many
minds upon
passing tides
of energy
I see them
perched
atop their
ethereal pedestals
in astral
in multitude
and bleeding beauty;
magick, which winds
into the arrow of time
I see emotion
crystallize
and bend
the flow to
rend inertia
to the will
of mortals
I am
forever floating
on the tides
of in between
I am
I am
not
I am
but
a vessel
for this
energy
to see
itself
Dan Hess Jul 2019
There are so many wishes we make in life
But wishes are jaded opportunities, lost to time
If we are to make of ourselves, what we admire
At every turn, we must scan our surroundings
Look inside ourselves, and ask what makes us whole

Next comes the hard part
We must break our minds into fragments
Give up the wholeness, that sanctity of being secure
In order to follow our dreams in waking
We need to hold onto those pieces that shattered
In such a way that they can be repaired

Like puzzle pieces
To a picture that can never be fully seen
We zoom out as we move forward
And build ourselves into something incomplete
But ever growing

So wish for becoming
And cherish your imperfections
This is what dreams are made of
This is why we are free

We are not meant to understand life
We are only meant to love the beauty it brings
And chase the sun
Even though we know it always ends up sinking below the horizon

Don't forget to stop and admire what you don't understand
One day, when life passes you by, you may be those blades of grass
Those flowers that color a field grown wild
And although you may be stepped on, bent, and withered
Someone will find you, and they will see your beauty
In this life and the next
You are lovely
Dan Hess Jul 2019
What should behoove the moon lover
Who dances in the light of night;
Who tarries under darkened cover
Ever exploring beauteous blight?

Who should implore the deadened door
Of solitude and somnolence
To show ut'whence does light dispense;
What harbors in the depths of dense?

What should behoove the moon lover
To open eyes to darkened skies
And pray to stay another night
Within the depths of all that dies?
Dan Hess Feb 2021
Sun and moon in me

river of light and ocean of emotion
always spilling over pulchritudinous petals
of the unfurling lotus of energy

til comes the withering of flowers
when love ceases to flow
inertia, become inert
dormant in my hurt
i shrivel
so

now in night, when i sleep,
the mind unwinds there in the deep
my hidden, hollow heart it keeps

a home, alone, within me
aching emptily
in nightmarish symmetry
i view myself, unruly

but I know I am alone
to undertake the healing
of the heart I call my home
to fill me up again

so in the light of day I rise
open my mind
and beckon starlight

to shine a beacon through me
connecting everything to nothing
Earthbound energy in true reunion
with the cosmic overflow

Balancing duality of being
love of light, and darkest night
in honoring and seeing
my virtues and my plight
my stardust, gleaming

Alchemizing mind, body and soul;

effervescence, as the salt of the earth
dissolves in the endless ocean
restoring emotion
allowing tears to flow freely
once again
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Coffee for breakfast
And a knot in my stomach
That riles up the tension
Bloodflow, bloodflow, bloodflow
I have work to do
Dan Hess Mar 2020
Consider the way the soul hovers
when out of body
The electrified air
before lightning meets its mark

Consider transit to another realm
in every forgotten dream
The way the mind breathes
when it is consumed in its silence

Consider wells of water
as your very emotions
Consider the rain as its source

How we find ourselves
pulsating in recognition

of our surroundings

Consider the space
between two atoms
See the universe
from afar

Consider the size
of an ant to a star

Consider the first breath one takes
when resurfacing from too much time
spent underwater
Dan Hess Jul 2020
Eating grapes from the vine

recumbent, regurgitating anachronistic archetypes

-who would have known hedonism to be so iconic-

repugnant, slow creeping dribble down the chin

such sultry stench still lingers

in the mouth of the pig

a torrent of fluid ‘something’

unclean

as is apt of this ritualistical endeavor

to stow away one’s unease

immaculate indulgence, defying the sanctity of spirit
Dan Hess Jul 2019
I shower my soul in starlight
to cleanse these marks upon it
once called indelible

I am in transit
Flowing forth in stasis,
as the cinematic pages
flicker onward through my
ever changing perspective

I am on Time's Journey
of souls
I am a mourner
of the losses
which remake us
into something whole

For I am losing
what I thought
I was
before

I am choosing
to move past
what I abhor

I am becoming more

I am emerging
bathed in light
as old as time
I am shedding
all my existential
grime

I will rise
Unbound by
these depths
of darkness
Dan Hess May 2022
I go outside and see
the birds and the bees
Listen to the wisping wind
and whispering of the trees

Open up my eyes
and let my mind begin to bleed
out through my skull
and into everything

Look up, watch the clouds drift by
and feel the passing breeze
and as my head’s becoming light
I see the sun begin to blink

Everything’s alive
and It is breathing rhythmically
I leave the cave behind
To exhume the world from in my dreams
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Another cloudy day
Much to my dismay
Of course, the wind
Ever befitting,
My thoughts, rescind
Somehow both fleeting and constant

As my mind turns to nonsense
Much like my whims and woes
The rain begins to fall
The wind and I dance toe to toe

Before I think to regret it all
Before a drop might meet my face
My feet will shift, and nature, race

And though I truly know
That it will only grow
The world beyond me, now erased
My cares beseech my woes

We danced a lifetime
Storm and I
Forever, without a cause
Yet never to wet, mine
Still I'm dry
Thus met, am I, with thunder's own applause

The clouds finally clear
The sun, a spotlight, sheer
The wind implores a journey to bore
And carries me to nowhere near
Yet, still, I look before
And am consumed by fear
Knowing again, I'll meet the storm
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Thunder beckoning my tribe
Of foreign hunters from the sky
I fly on wings of solid steel
Centuries of anguish to appeal

He rides the lightning from afar
While trailing from a shooting star
The fiercest wind, a crashing sound
Mephistopheles inbound

The Satan's spawn, demon of wrath
Is on a malevolent path
Onto a rendezvous of  souls
Intent on taking all control

He hunts the weak to gain his power
Until will come the final hour
A battle between beast and man
The fight to take the promised land

In days of six and nights of five
The promised one will be revived
He will forsake his own
To sit upon his mighty throne

The innocent will be beguiled
All hatred will be reconciled
But this will all just be a hoax
And the world will be engulfed in smoke

Miasmas of the blackest night
The death of innocent by blight
Inseparable of death
Inoculating breath
Is taking hold of me
Suddenly I can see

And from the sky there comes a sound so loud!
In my mind I am alive again, though gasping for air.
I say please, save me!

They take my hand and I'm above the clouds.
And lighting fills the air.
And everything is energized, we're floating!
And I can see myself over there!
It's not over; he's back, the final conspirator!

So I grab hold of him, and I start punching him, but I'm just a boy!
They were there with me, my comrades, and they attacked him with the various building blocks.

But he unleashed a fearsome attack. All from his body it exploded. Shrapnel made a mark to me.
I fall feint.

And when I wake up there he is; Mephistopheles, standing over me.
I say, Mephistopheles! Why??
And he say, because there is no point!
And I say, what does that matter? You don't need a point to be happy.
He said, now, that happiness isn't everything. And he stabbed me in the neck.





But in my very last breath, no longer inoculating me, he say that it is to live that is to mean and that death is just to be as much.
I gasp!
Then it all fades again, this time for good. But the last thing I see, my comrade is falling down upon him and the final blow ends it.

Yeah, he got his wish.
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Meandering in longing
Enamored and encupped by awe
The throngs of no belonging
Emotions’ breadth in crypts of flaw

Supposedly a brief respite
Stretched to a night unending
Monotony and doldrums sit
In magick’s-wove pretending

Surrendered unto nothing new
Defender of the hidden true
I bide aside, in wait of you
In wait of fateful mending

I had a calling, when out there
I saw the light and rose, aware
But only now, as I’m ensnared
Do I see Night’s ascending

So grant me form to see in dim lit solitude
And grant me grace, to waste no time in interlude
I wish no more to stray amiss in destitude
And only then shall I find right, my wronging
Dan Hess Dec 2019
By this frailty of mine
the northern wind
should strike me cold
and I will shatter

Left afraid, asunder,
left to wilt and wonder
of the me I never had
yet still have lost

To see the sun
undone in darkness
when the overhanging clouds
consume it whole

As I am hung
struck fast to new beginnings
into winter’s ice
into roiling confusion
and omens of death
where the land speaks
only in whispers

All things sleeping, if alive at all
yet, I hear
deep in the warmth
of my heart
(which never dares to speak)
a final cry as I
loom over
Death’s cold stare

Parting from
the fragments of
life
I once claimed
myself

Untethered

There becomes
the all encompassing storm

No longer are there clouds
nor is there vision

We are suspended mist
This illusion of a form
which does not exist

I am not I

We retreat
to love in deep
to see the overlay begotten

Whilst under thy
unyielding tides
lie everything
as One
forgotten
Excuse me if this makes no sense. Nothing does right now..
Dan Hess Jul 2019
What is a whisper or a shout
when no one’s listening?

What is what is,
and what’s without,
if I’m not truly being?

What does it mean to feel,
if all that I know is but unreal,
and why does my heart sink in such loneliness?

There is no dialogue in poetry,
and for this,
I will ever wish my eyes
could produce tears.

Yet I am far too backed up
for such things to produce dribble,
nowadays.
My ducts will only respond to tragedy.

I don’t care if I’m beautiful anymore.
I don’t care if my words inspire.
I am a fallen tree,
in a forest only meant for harvest,
and the only guise of an audience herein
is carrying my destruction.

So harvest my heart for wood of the hearth,
and let me die in a blaze of glory.
Just please,
put me with my friends
when you’re ready to start your fire.
Dan Hess Aug 2019
What should pass comes forth to grow
To make my life my own, I know,
I must continue,
ever into,
this invidious dismissiveness,
exuberant in emptiness,
lamenting in my evanescence
as my mind is on the precipice

To reminisce
in paracosmic,
Exodus

To acquiesce unto the rest
Most pressing, incessant
Important matters to address

Perfidious indifference
Insistence on what is urgent
Resistance leads to-ward divergence
From the Oath of the Emergent
To the Mouth of the Insurgent
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Strange things, these eyes that wander only to find a beaten path
It was like magic, when I saw the numbers, saw the signs
And then she was, like magic, brilliant, full of flourish and such
And she was dark but luminescent, an enigma
And as it unraveled before me, all in one fell swoop
Did I feel alive again, but for a moment
Until from her grasp I fell, even before meeting her eyes
To see her wisping with the breeze
And see her wander
And squander herself on petty things
To avoid the clutch
Of that which would hold her
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Myriad despondencies
are born in me behind these walls
Where I can see what I might be
But cannot grasp from daily droll

I push, persist, to make ends meet
But in the end what I must greet
Is driven to me: mediocrity

Afflictions brought forth from the mind
Where sheltered, crippled, nothing aligned
And in myself I cannot find
The truth of self

So I retire upon this shelf
My sanity to be remembered
From this eleventh of November

I have given up on ambition
For life dealt me an ill position
Which cannot be regained
In a myriad of pain
Dan Hess Jul 2019
A flicker
The darkness parts
An expanse of black water
Slow ripples sway the boat
You are the sailor
Whispers call out from the dark
And speak your every deed
They know your name, your face
Everything
But of them, you know not
They torment you with reprehension
Remind you of your plights
And that, alone you are
Upon a sea of black
The ripples grow to cresting waves
The boat begins to sway
The whispering becomes a roar
Sharp, echoing through the dark
The voices scream
The boat rocks,
But still you are aboard
You clutch your lantern tight
And try to cover your ears
But days pass like this
Then weeks, then years
The resolve you once had
That innate, human determination
Has since dwindled
The screaming has blended
into your own thoughts
It is white noise
And still you are afloat
However, without hope
You plunge into the sea
Of your own volition
It is then you realize
The sea is thick, caustic
Not unlike rubber
To swim you must be strong
The sea has a will of its own
Currents form beneath your feet
It pulls you into the deep
You are drowning
The lantern's glow shrinks
Until nothing is left of either of you
Dan Hess Nov 2019
I want to become someone
Dan Hess Oct 2021
Tonight the wind blows;
the sky bursts under its weight;
the energy is immense,

and it is conscious.  

My mind splits;
my spirit lifts itself into the wind,
which drinks me in, to oblivion.
Thunder cracks on the horizon,
lighting the sky,
rippling in its immensity.  

Everything is subtlety, supercharged;
in nature, everything bleeds into itself;
in the ether, the wind blows backwards,
and consciousness is gravity
anchored to eternity,
streaming between the energy of thought.  

The wind has been blowing all day
and when I breathe,
in a different dimension,
where air shares a kinship with intention,
it caresses me; enveloping me physically,
restoring feeling to those parts of me
starving.  

I am too small to hold myself.
I am nothing, intermingling with being.
I am a raw throat;  
an aching thirst that cannot be quenched.  

I am water in its various states;
its many cycles.  
I am an ocean.
I am a puddle.  

I am limitless
-ness
drowning in the deep.
I am gasping for breath without lungs
to be seen.  

I am me, not being.
Who am I?
An unlabeled simplicity.  

Why complicate the mind?
(The heart, it aches to find
belonging. Only ever longing,
forever found in everything
surrendered unto nothing.)  

Can opening my eyes but rend me blind?
(The light, it’s all encompassing;
the white, forever bleeding into,  
fields of you; there is no you.  
Only truth can set you free.  
Die become eternity.)
I cannot.  

I must breathe it to believe it.  
Need to let it go to know.
Need someone else to show it to.
What’s one without two?
DMT
Dan Hess Feb 2021
DMT
Unleashing arrows of light
which scorch the sky
encroaching on the domain
of ancient anchors

Boring
through deep, unspeaking shrouds

as the orbs of everlasting force
should only sing through resonances
abounding when tangible things
dissolve in their fall from grace
alongside the eyes of earth

As if by rods of Zeus,
I am struck with white noise
meteoric light ruptures the heavens
rejecting the frailty of corporeal existence,

as the mind’s eye is forced open

my ears explode with ringing
the song of heaven vibrating my teeth


“Pay attention! Wake up! It’s not too late!”
The voice of ages calls through all eternity
to excite the soul which rests
in the groove of the heart

Spirits sing

always they are singing

their voices synchronize 
in chain reactions
causing reality to unfurl



Each star, a node
the strings of heaven shake
in holy harmony
spectrum-slipping into ripples
inconceivably infinite iterations of existence
unveiling vortexes of vectors
Tangents, tangling Totality in tantric tandem
until ubiquitous uniformity upheaves

the insidious illusions of individuality


So melt, dissolve, unwind, and un-become
again with the slipping, weaving, winding
blinding light of time unbinding from the mind,
til we exist in emptiness and find
that all along, we’ve intertwined ourselves
with what is else, a wealth of living
in delivering the realm
of dreams and streams of being gleaming
in the crux of everything
and nothing
there is opening
the apertures, the rapt and ruptured slipping
rippling
dripping starlight
fissures

Where beings bleed 
through overstretched dimensions
only held to wells of willowing intentions

a blip, a blast of consciousness
morphs into the pupil
of the master: World-Weaving-Thing
that observes the observer observing

eye am not eye am what I am eye am I?

sublime sub-liminality
entrenched in where, whence present
becomes presence without essence;
coalescence regresses
into evanescence
as
returned
is me to thee to We

Then

-Not-
Dan Hess Jul 2019
I couldn’t be lower
but at least someone understands you
I couldn’t be flatter
But at least someone supports you

Why pick me up off the floor?
That’s where I belong
Just leave me at the door
Someone to kick your dirt upon

I could use a place to hide
Somewhere safe, to stay inside
But I’m always left to wait on you
And clean your ***** little shoes
Dan Hess Feb 2022
bombardment of the senses
enlightened but inundated
the mind cracks, and self  
is exposed as vacuous
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Twas but an arid night of ambiance
They sought in duplicitous reunion
Of the innocent kind
When stars would shine, undermined
And spotless sparkling eyes would watch them blind

We are starbound, on the ground
Never hoping, never found
As those who fleet abound
In space, and leave no trace or sound
Are seeing us and wondering how
We manage to keep ourselves from choking
On these troughs which runneth open
To our feeble mouths

Oh simple scintillation
You are not what I beseech
I wish for truth in energies
And not to look back; to repeat
What I have seen that beckons thee
To hear my call, and ever fall
To what is empty
Dan Hess Sep 2019
To see myself for what is truly me

I must accept the ego is in twain

For ever fleeting is identity

When cast aside, the self is what remains

I am but a receptacle for life

Experience can mold me into man

Ephemeral, the lessons wrought of strife

Eternal is the person I call Dan

Wherein the passing days in endless bound

Should stretch ahead with no sense of relief

Where ev’ry gem of wisdom may be found

In conquering the objects of my grief

Though life can be so long, not much survives

Of who I was when I was but a babe

Still in my name forever I’m alive

So, this I swear to carry to my grave
Dan Hess Sep 2019
I’m learning that in order to disconnect from my ego, I have to accept it. I’ve always wanted to be this philosophical, poetic person who seeks enlightenment, but I’m not a philosophy. I’m still a person. I like to fool myself into thinking there is no self, but there is, it’s just in flux. The self is like a cork board full of pins and art pieces. The ego likes to think the things that are on the board are the self, but it’s fooling the self in doing so. The self just retains the images. The images just represent the self. Sure, the pushpins leave a mark that may never come out, and arguably the things they support leave a bigger mark when they’re hanging up there, but they can change. There’s only enough space for so much.
The ego draws the self portrait and says “That’s me” but the self knows it’s just a picture. It won’t be the same in ten years as it is now, but, there will still be remnants of the past that have stayed along for the ride.
Dan Hess Jul 2019
In she came
Like a gust of wind
Sweeping me off my feet

And in the air
I lingered there
And felt my mind retreat

It was loss of heat to air
Through which my mind became aware
And thence did doubt deplete

And as I lingered in the air
And as I saw myself engulfed
My eyes did rise to shining sun
Seeing visions of plenty; my whims undone

But thus, alas, as time should fleet
To harrowing mysteries before
My bubble burst at the seams
I plunged to dark, abhorred

Through questioning and recompense
I sought the light fore-met
And in the mind’s eye, new light shined
Through memory dispensed
So there I fell
To abject hell
And there my mind resides
Yet only in the shadow’s summit
Should inner balance, and life bide

Break free of fear
The dark is here
You harbor it inside
Make only effort to balance dark
With all the light you find

As love should take you places
You could never hope to see
Take care to love your many faces
Seek setting your soul free
Dan Hess Jul 2019
A complex; standalone
A shade of monochrome
-in the visceral war zone
A shield becomes a home

I sit in contemplation
Compelled by isolation
Abandoned indignation
A train stuck at the station

A fog of midnight blue
A baseless, abysmal hue
No heed for what to do

A distance from the crowd
Held in cerebral shroud
No feelings were aloud
The knight was just too proud

A mission to remember
The pains of last November
Was not one with the gender
You cannot be too tender

Insipid disconnection
Can find no resurrection
The self forgets retention
Plunged from its own discretion

In the end, I am not sane
There is no purpose
Life is in vain
All things are worthless
No care to feign
I lose inertia
I end the game
Dan Hess Jul 2019
Residual disparity
In clarity, begotten
By severance of recompense
For all whom I’ve forgotten
In betterment should I lament
For soon, will whims expire
As there, inside, my feelings, pent
A veil adorned by mire

And in my mind I am melting
Fleeing, freely sworn to skies above
Perplexed in my bemusement
Of a relief unfounded
For herein, when the penitent is I
My window is my gaze to forward flying
My imagination in the collective grid
Undying

Ebb and flow
And ripples
On the sea of energy
That we call fate
So plunge me deep
Into the waters
Where all things come to meet
And give me synergy
So I can understand
What it means to be

Tell me,
Please
That I am not alone
Dan Hess Feb 2020
Each monumental step
leaves us bleeding into eternity.

Yet, somewhere
in the endless streams of ether 
coalescence becomes us.
We are inextricably bound by energy.

As One becomes All becomes None,
our rivers run in tandem to the shore;
the ocean - the overarching body that is Love.

Then, ever again, in symphony,
amongst the cosmic dance we meet
as streams so small but cutting
throughout space,
the earthly structure of ‘our’ making.
What is it that is “Us” but everything
breaking?

I ask, and you I ask again,
yet you are nowhere but within,
and there I see the race;
the running and the chase,
the end becoming what begins
again in haste.

We are the past
that meets the future.
We are dissolution of events;
readministration of evanescence.

With every fleeting leap
into deeper colors,
and greater, denser things
where the webs become structures,
we meet ourselves as mirrors.

You were a ripple on a pond.
I was a whisper in the breeze.
Such silent happenings,
but so far reaching.
Dan Hess Mar 2022
In the beauty and splendor of the morning light
there is newfound glory, and truth to behold
Through toils and troubles I have found my might
In transmuting darkness, does love unfold

With every step I take, 
though I fear my back may break
and life may beat me down, 
and all seem to forsake

When every moment squandered seems
a waste of life in bated breaths,
and harrowing the mysteries, 
that come just before death

I know my heart cannot be free
of life and love and precious things
I’ll be rebirthed in sanctity
surrendering to spring
Dan Hess Jun 2021
with each breath, deeper

to each core the body holds

connecting light to silent sight

within, the darkness folds

awakening the sleeper
    


each moment passes

a skipping stone connects

to the water’s surface

rippling ad infinitum
    


each hovering lapse

of passing through the air

(the air we breathe)

stretching awareness 

over four corners
    


cardinal elements coalescing

fragmented only 

in seeing selves

seeing selves
    


when two sets of eyes gaze into each other

and see mirrors stretch in endless reiteration
    


with each sigh and closing eye

with each smile we wear with pride

with each muscle fiber coming to relax

we instill, in self, the greatness of it all
    


in every meditative venture

into ever expanding silence

we reach deeper toward the truth

speaking without thought

becoming present
    


becoming diaphanous, intangible

permeable sheets of white light

transparent vessels of time

we dissolve and become

Forever
Dan Hess Jul 2019
I seek for an amenity
To this disease inside of me
Which aggravates my energy
Extrapolating violently
Ironically, I'm logically abusing rationality
Irrationally exacerbating deductive realities
Which are bound to me in stagnant times
When my mind flies to other fallacies
I have to be strong but I'm just breaking microscopically

I'm always thinking too much
I can't stop, I just rush
I'm overwhelmed, but I can't touch the point
but I'm inbound and I won't disappoint

My thoughts are always chasing me
Tied down by acute empathy
And sympathy is not for me
Cause I can't bring myself to see
What is to come, what cannot be
where I will be eventually

Spirituality, obviously, must be bound to physicality
And so I ask you, how could we describe our own psychology?
An amalgamation of the slightest mental energy is quite the anomaly,
How can we help ourselves if we're just damaging humanity?

If you ask me, when our brains gain new insight
We can think in different ways and make change
Make the world bright
Let's share our claims with all who complain
And share peace and make things right

It messes with my head a bit that our mind processes everything,
That's all we ever really experience
We'll never be able to get inside someone else's head and test drive it.
Dan Hess Nov 2023
you feel an acorn drop on your head

and it doesn't hurt,
but now 
you are always looking for squirrels

where there are none



yet, if you look, intently, at the trees,

at the winding and intertwining of their branches,

you will see the crows, 
subtle, nigh invisible


in every tree in every forest

hidden amidst the leaves


you might lock eyes with them

and they will look away, or they may fly, 

but never explain a thing



but the wind will blow

and it will remember

and it will follow you on your journey
Dan Hess Jul 2019
As I gaze out, as I peer
Inconsequential, infant fears
Of petulance in every mirror
As agony grows ever near
As groans of surplus renegade
Emotions made to separate
Invocation resonates
But constipation iterated
Articulation dominated
Sentry fire of retrograde abominations
Aptly aimed at insecure infatuations
Toward a higher instigation

Where elation loses patience
Only minds can ease in latency
To be deceived, time after time
By mischief of the darkest kind
My own retention in-sublime

Though everywhere I turn
I find many options to be learnt
I find my bridges ever burnt
But not by me, my heart exerts
A longing for companionship
And loneliness will ever hurt
Until I reach abandonment
Until they see no more of me
Until they hate my every ounce of self
My every whim, desire, my needs
It threatens their securities
Indeed, I am burdensome
They see me as a mist, because I come and go
But never leave a trace or reason
They see me as a cyst,
because I linger ever growing, ever taking
They see me as a waste of space
with no haste to change pace
They want me erased, and I know why

Without proper alibi,
I have to reason to survive
I stretch emotions, time to time
to make ends meet and feel alive

But inside, ever, I will die,
consistently, and over again
Each time I sin
to retire my insignificance,
get high and make the most of it

Just to forget the ****
they admit to my indifference
Rip from it all instances of failure
to make clear my selfishness

I'm fading, and I can't turn to them
They don't believe I'm even sane,
so what's the point?

Who's playing games, here?
I'm just trying to maintain my happiness
before I explode
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