Drunk, we staggered home.

Aware of having been
some
other where
a while

That woman, she could answer

any question rebbi axt,
Ohhhhmyyy

she laugh and say, Dude, I got the Intent-net,
in my hand

That's more than a list of numbers, this
accounting idle words going on, on going, as fast as

lightning, at the scale, of, say

cat-ions ifiying an-ions
at random,
seen systematical, from a distance
zoom out
at the scale, of, say
Great Deep Field.

Center you, I'm no matter.

synchro
now

zoom out
Use that steam program
Universe Sandbox,
you gotta see that to imagine this, right,

and next is what you keep saying is unbelievable,
but its not.

Good things come to them
to whom
good makes more sense.

Earth from the moon POV

Confusion flux, spurtual,  caused by the solar flare of all solar flares,
one side

Whooshing the Ice left from Patton's flood
into steam, the stuff, not the app,

which swooshhhesssssssssss smack
into the freezing repurcussions
from the daark side…

The Noah event, that was bad,
This one, the last one, this just previous one,

was spiritual. Magnitudes incomparable
(save in parable and example, exemplar gratis,
says the bodiless being, with a roll of  my wrist and a bow)

At that very time on the side away from the flare,
the daark side of the planet, this one…

a Donald Patton nitrogen snow ball
that nearly breached Roche's limit,

too not nearly enough,
dis -integration
The atmosphere freezes
to the quark level, snap,

the cold
explosive
forward momentum
booms a nitrogen bubble now
minusminusminus
solid nitrogen
melting

any heat locked in flare fired steam,
what was once the water
that washed away the gods and locked their cities
of ivory under the ice

on the sunny side,
where now, then,

a solar flare like legends build empires upon
has passed, fires rage

there were survivors who lived to tell

and old stories never die. Old story tellers do,

Only miners survived, gold digger mostly,
few alchemists who knew the mystery in mercury,
Lost was all knowing but to a very few,
who truth be told had been the owner's
well kept servants, ministers of this and that
they perished with all the fires touched

we diggers, we only marvel

How bits of time, exact as ours, can be seen happening
all in bubble of Mercury. Cooked out red rock like these.

"Blood o' the gods of old, swat I'astold."

Messages from the gods, grandma, said, "Mercury calls for gold, gold listens, when fire's hottern fire can be,
unless
the breath of men blow on the coals", we all said that last part and blew out the light. G'night


but a story told a wee bit here a qubit there
here a little, there a little
line upon line,
precept upon precept,

'cept no body knows what I know about cept,

capere, a story starts, a provisioning tale. Wait.

it means grip. like a tool. rock breaks nut.

Paper covers rock, but scissors are so far in the future
that now, my time, my mind wanders after whys

this authoritative telling of the story, in it,
none know the terminal tale.

As in times past, there were survivors who lived to tell

and old stories never die. Old story tellers do,

Tho' here's a clue.
Meek's not bad,
stupid, for no reason, is.

Living long for the sake of a song heard once,
in dream luring me on, promising right now, I'll

know what it's like to see, oh

POV I made this clear some time ago,
time is less predictable than any imagined, before 2018
when, you know…

Even those tales old drunk Hesiod sold
in the Hittite tavern at Delphi,

Chronos thought wrong in those,
he ruled but for the merest gleam o'

Time, then a bubble gen erated by the thought of
opposition to transition,
nothing to something,
pushing /pushing back
stretch/snap/spark
that takes power, pulsing power, throbbing power

push/stretch
glow/snap
you know, imagine, glowing - cheat, think 2018 CG
glow/snap
Planc time,
each time the bubble pushes back
a ripple
imagine a clock, later, if you believe then, you must.

Now, see the bubble of all men have imagined,
since the time when such a bubble was only evil,
continually.

It went viral.
Noah we know for sure, almost, survived, ? Cushites kept records. In Africa.
Akkad kept record, too.
Some Hopi survived somehow and they have a tale.

They say they know the story is ten thousand years old,
I've been to a crossroads
on their journey,
stories
tell of it, still, today.

Holy means marked for good reason.
Marked with clues, not riddles, maps

Sacred means secret means hidden away for use,
not common, every day, quotidian use, right use.

Time, the opposing force, is precious to us all.
In time, we do all we can and die,

in ever, we expand, in no time at all. I imagine.

You fill it. Now, Your expandable mind's time,

time pushes from the outside,
wisdom pushes from the inside,

And so it goes, life goes on and music grows on ya,

Amusing how they do that, teeny muses dancing
shiva on the tip of my tongue,

singings songs in tongues I've never known
if they
are words on tongues
or sounds on tongues,

notes,

Baysian Binary Cross Validation
still ends with some people thinkin'
"it is finished" left them with a ton o'weight,
that's wrong, insist resistance.

Some, heavy duty, leaders of lambs, they claim
power in their mouths, spoken from fixed hearts,

but fixed upon, is truly the song,
said, words are only
little bits of whole sym ulacrum of re-ify-ing

where broken things re-pair, and life goes on…

"fixed, my heart is fixed",
no, your heart is machine of the most magnificent design, perfected,
a time at a time.
Flexing, pacing time itself, faster slower,

try some time
alone
be still, pond still

I know the story broke,
I could not hold it.

In the night, bitter cold
Frozen fragile...

There are pieces scattered every

where, everywhere
there is time, there is at least, a point

a story may stand upon and ask an angel
to dance.
Dance, give it some flare, what do we care?

Nobody's watching, but that fly.

PART I

’Tis the middle of night by the castle clock
And the owls have awakened the crowing ****;
Tu-whit!—Tu-whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing ****,
How drowsily it crew.
Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,
Hath a toothless mastiff, which
From her kennel beneath the rock
Maketh answer to the clock,
Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour;
Ever and aye, by shine and shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
Some say, she sees my lady’s shroud.

Is the night chilly and dark?
The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray:
‘T is a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.
The lovely lady, Christabel,
Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;
And she in the midnight wood will pray
For the weal of her lover that’s far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heaved were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak,
But moss and rarest mistletoe:
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly,
The lovely lady, Christabel!
It moaned as near, as near can be,
But what it is she cannot tell.—
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.
The night is chill; the forest bare;
Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady’s cheek—
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

Hush, beating heart of Christabel!
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
She folded her arms beneath her cloak,
And stole to the other side of the oak.
What sees she there?

There she sees a damsel bright,
Dressed in a silken robe of white,
That shadowy in the moonlight shone:
The neck that made that white robe wan,
Her stately neck, and arms were bare;
Her blue-veined feet unsandaled were;
And wildly glittered here and there
The gems entangled in her hair.
I guess, ‘t was frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she—
Beautiful exceedingly!

‘Mary mother, save me now!’
Said Christabel, ‘and who art thou?’

The lady strange made answer meet,
And her voice was faint and sweet:—
‘Have pity on my sore distress,
I scarce can speak for weariness:
Stretch forth thy hand, and have no fear!’
Said Christabel, ‘How camest thou here?’
And the lady, whose voice was faint and sweet,
Did thus pursue her answer meet:—
‘My sire is of a noble line,
And my name is Geraldine:
Five warriors seized me yestermorn,
Me, even me, a maid forlorn:
They choked my cries with force and fright,
And tied me on a palfrey white.
The palfrey was as fleet as wind,
And they rode furiously behind.
They spurred amain, their steeds were white:
And once we crossed the shade of night.
As sure as Heaven shall rescue me,
I have no thought what men they be;
Nor do I know how long it is
(For I have lain entranced, I wis)
Since one, the tallest of the five,
Took me from the palfrey’s back,
A weary woman, scarce alive.
Some muttered words his comrades spoke:
He placed me underneath this oak;
He swore they would return with haste;
Whither they went I cannot tell—
I thought I heard, some minutes past,
Sounds as of a castle bell.
Stretch forth thy hand,’ thus ended she,
‘And help a wretched maid to flee.’

Then Christabel stretched forth her hand,
And comforted fair Geraldine:
‘O well, bright dame, may you command
The service of Sir Leoline;
And gladly our stout chivalry
Will he send forth, and friends withal,
To guide and guard you safe and free
Home to your noble father’s hall.’

She rose: and forth with steps they passed
That strove to be, and were not, fast.
Her gracious stars the lady blest,
And thus spake on sweet Christabel:
‘All our household are at rest,
The hall is silent as the cell;
Sir Leoline is weak in health,
And may not well awakened be,
But we will move as if in stealth;
And I beseech your courtesy,
This night, to share your couch with me.’

They crossed the moat, and Christabel
Took the key that fitted well;
A little door she opened straight,
All in the middle of the gate;
The gate that was ironed within and without,
Where an army in battle array had marched out.
The lady sank, belike through pain,
And Christabel with might and main
Lifted her up, a weary weight,
Over the threshold of the gate:
Then the lady rose again,
And moved, as she were not in pain.

So, free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court: right glad they were.
And Christabel devoutly cried
To the Lady by her side;
‘Praise we the ****** all divine,
Who hath rescued thee from thy distress!’
‘Alas, alas!’ said Geraldine,
‘I cannot speak for weariness.’
So, free from danger, free from fear,
They crossed the court: right glad they were.

Outside her kennel the mastiff old
Lay fast asleep, in moonshine cold.
The mastiff old did not awake,
Yet she an angry moan did make.
And what can ail the mastiff *****?
Never till now she uttered yell
Beneath the eye of Christabel.
Perhaps it is the owlet’s scritch:
For what can aid the mastiff *****?

They passed the hall, that echoes still,
Pass as lightly as you will.
The brands were flat, the brands were dying,
Amid their own white ashes lying;
But when the lady passed, there came
A tongue of light, a fit of flame;
And Christabel saw the lady’s eye,
And nothing else saw she thereby,
Save the boss of the shield of Sir Leoline tall,
Which hung in a murky old niche in the wall.
‘O softly tread,’ said Christabel,
‘My father seldom sleepeth well.’
Sweet Christabel her feet doth bare,
And, jealous of the listening air,
They steal their way from stair to stair,
Now in glimmer, and now in gloom,
And now they pass the Baron’s room,
As still as death, with stifled breath!
And now have reached her chamber door;
And now doth Geraldine press down
The rushes of the chamber floor.

The moon shines dim in the open air,
And not a moonbeam enters here.
But they without its light can see
The chamber carved so curiously,
Carved with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver’s brain,
For a lady’s chamber meet:
The lamp with twofold silver chain
Is fastened to an angel’s feet.
The silver lamp burns dead and dim;
But Christabel the lamp will trim.
She trimmed the lamp, and made it bright,
And left it swinging to and fro,
While Geraldine, in wretched plight,
Sank down upon the floor below.
‘O weary lady, Geraldine,
I pray you, drink this cordial wine!
It is a wine of virtuous powers;
My mother made it of wild flowers.’

‘And will your mother pity me,
Who am a maiden most forlorn?’
Christabel answered—’Woe is me!
She died the hour that I was born.
I have heard the gray-haired friar tell,
How on her death-bed she did say,
That she should hear the castle-bell
Strike twelve upon my wedding-day.
O mother dear! that thou wert here!’
‘I would,’ said Geraldine, ’she were!’

But soon, with altered voice, said she—
‘Off, wandering mother! Peak and pine!
I have power to bid thee flee.’
Alas! what ails poor Geraldine?
Why stares she with unsettled eye?
Can she the bodiless dead espy?
And why with hollow voice cries she,
‘Off, woman, off! this hour is mine—
Though thou her guardian spirit be,
Off, woman. off! ‘t is given to me.’

Then Christabel knelt by the lady’s side,
And raised to heaven her eyes so blue—
‘Alas!’ said she, ‘this ghastly ride—
Dear lady! it hath wildered you!’
The lady wiped her moist cold brow,
And faintly said, ‘’T is over now!’
Again the wild-flower wine she drank:
Her fair large eyes ‘gan glitter bright,
And from the floor, whereon she sank,
The lofty lady stood upright:
She was most beautiful to see,
Like a lady of a far countree.

And thus the lofty lady spake—
‘All they, who live in the upper sky,
Do love you, holy Christabel!
And you love them, and for their sake,
And for the good which me befell,
Even I in my degree will try,
Fair maiden, to requite you well.
But now unrobe yourself; for I
Must pray, ere yet in bed I lie.’

Quoth Christabel, ‘So let it be!’
And as the lady bade, did she.
Her gentle limbs did she undress
And lay down in her loveliness.

But through her brain, of weal and woe,
So many thoughts moved to and fro,
That vain it were her lids to close;
So half-way from the bed she rose,
And on her elbow did recline.
To look at the lady Geraldine.
Beneath the lamp the lady bowed,
And slowly rolled her eyes around;
Then drawing in her breath aloud,
Like one that shuddered, she unbound
The cincture from beneath her breast:
Her silken robe, and inner vest,
Dropped to her feet, and full in view,
Behold! her ***** and half her side—
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
O shield her! shield sweet Christabel!

Yet Geraldine nor speaks nor stirs:
Ah! what a stricken look was hers!
Deep from within she seems half-way
To lift some weight with sick assay,
And eyes the maid and seeks delay;
Then suddenly, as one defied,
Collects herself in scorn and pride,
And lay down by the maiden’s side!—
And in her arms the maid she took,
Ah, well-a-day!
And with low voice and doleful look
These words did say:

‘In the touch of this ***** there worketh a spell,
Which is lord of thy utterance, Christabel!
Thou knowest to-night, and wilt know to-morrow,
This mark of my shame, this seal of my sorrow;
But vainly thou warrest,
For this is alone in
Thy power to declare,
That in the dim forest
Thou heard’st a low moaning,
And found’st a bright lady, surpassingly fair:
And didst bring her home with thee, in love and in charity,
To shield her and shelter her from the damp air.’

It was a lovely sight to see
The lady Christabel, when she
Was praying at the old oak tree.
Amid the jagged shadows
Of mossy leafless boughs,
Kneeling in the moonlight,
To make her gentle vows;
Her slender palms together prest,
Heaving sometimes on her breast;
Her face resigned to bliss or bale—
Her face, oh, call it fair not pale,
And both blue eyes more bright than clear.
Each about to have a tear.
With open eyes (ah, woe is me!)
Asleep, and dreaming fearfully,
Fearfully dreaming, yet, I wis,
Dreaming that alone, which is—
O sorrow and shame! Can this be she,
The lady, who knelt at the old oak tree?
And lo! the worker of these harms,
That holds the maiden in her arms,
Seems to slumber still and mild,
As a mother with her child.

A star hath set, a star hath risen,
O Geraldine! since arms of thine
Have been the lovely lady’s prison.
O Geraldine! one hour was thine—
Thou’st had thy will! By tarn and rill,
The night-birds all that hour were still.
But now they are jubilant anew,
From cliff and tower, tu-whoo! tu-whoo!
Tu-whoo! tu-whoo! from wood and fell!

And see! the lady Christabel
Gathers herself from out her trance;
Her limbs relax, her countenance
Grows sad and soft; the smooth thin lids
Close o’er her eyes; and tears she sheds—
Large tears that leave the lashes bright!
And oft the while she seems to smile
As infants at a sudden light!
Yea, she doth smile, and she doth weep,
Like a youthful hermitess,
Beauteous in a wilderness,
Who, praying always, prays in sleep.
And, if she move unquietly,
Perchance, ‘t is but the blood so free
Comes back and tingles in her feet.
No doubt, she hath a vision sweet.
What if her guardian spirit ‘t were,
What if she knew her mother near?
But this she knows, in joys and woes,
That saints will aid if men will call:
For the blue sky bends over all.

PART II

Each matin bell, the Baron saith,
Knells us back to a world of death.
These words Sir Leoline first said,
When he rose and found his lady dead:
These words Sir Leoline will say
Many a morn to his dying day!

And hence the custom and law began
That still at dawn the sacristan,
Who duly pulls the heavy bell,
Five and forty beads must tell
Between each stroke—a warning knell,
Which not a soul can choose but hear
From Bratha Head to Wyndermere.
Saith Bracy the bard, ‘So let it knell!
And let the drowsy sacristan
Still count as slowly as he can!’
There is no lack of such, I ween,
As well fill up the space between.
In Langdale Pike and Witch’s Lair,
And Dungeon-ghyll so foully rent,
With ropes of rock and bells of air
Three sinful sextons’ ghosts are pent,
Who all give back, one after t’ other,
The death-note to their living brother;
And oft too, by the knell offended,
Just as their one! two! three! is ended,
The devil mocks the doleful tale
With a merry peal from Borrowdale.

The air is still! through mist and cloud
That merry peal comes ringing loud;
And Geraldine shakes off her dread,
And rises lightly from the bed;
Puts on her silken vestments white,
And tricks her hair in lovely plight,
And nothing doubting of her spell
Awakens the lady Christabel.
‘Sleep you, sweet lady Christabel?
I trust that you have rested well.’

And Christabel awoke and spied
The same who lay down by her side—
O rather say, the same whom she
Raised up beneath the old oak tree!
Nay, fairer yet! and yet more fair!
For she belike hath drunken deep
Of all the blessedness of sleep!
And while she spake, her looks, her air,
Such gentle thankfulness declare,
That (so it seemed) her girded vests
Grew tight beneath her heaving *******.
‘Sure I have sinned!’ said Christabel,
‘Now heaven be praised if all be well!’
And in low faltering tones, yet sweet,
Did she the lofty lady greet
With such perplexity of mind
As dreams too lively leave behind.

So quickly she rose, and quickly arrayed
Her maiden limbs, and having prayed
That He, who on the cross did groan,
Might wash away her sins unknown,
She forthwith led fair Geraldine
To meet her sire, Sir Leoline.
The lovely maid and the lady tall
Are pacing both into the hall,
And pacing on through page and groom,
Enter the Baron’s presence-room.

The Baron rose, and while he prest
His gentle daughter to his breast,
With cheerful wonder in his eyes
The lady Geraldine espies,
And gave such welcome to the same,
As might beseem so bright a dame!

But when he heard the lady’s tale,
And when she told her father’s name,
Why waxed Sir Leoline so pale,
Murmuring o’er the name again,
Lord Roland de Vaux of Tryermaine?
Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart’s best brother:
They parted—ne’er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining—
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between.
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
Sir Leoline, a moment’s space,
Stood gazing on the damsel’s face:
And the youthful Lord of Tryermaine
Came back upon his heart again.

O then the Baron forgot his age,
His noble heart swelled high with rage;
He swore by the wounds in Jesu’s side
He would proclaim it far and wide,
With trump and solemn heraldry,
That they, who thus had wronged the dame
Were base as spotted infamy!
‘And if they dare deny the same,
My herald shall appoint a week,
And let the recreant traitors seek
My tourney court—that there and then
I may dislodge their reptile souls
From the bodies and forms of men!’
He spake: his eye in lightning rolls!
For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned
In the beautiful lady the child of his friend!

And now the tears were on his face,
And fondly in his arms he took
Fair Geraldine who met the embrace,
Prolonging it with joyous look.
Which when she viewed, a vision fell
Upon the soul of Christabel,
The vision of fear, the touch and pain!
She shrunk and shuddered, and saw again—
(Ah, woe is me! Was it for thee,
Thou gentle maid! such sights to see?)
Again she saw that ***** old,
Again she felt that ***** cold,
And drew in her breath with a hissing sound:
Whereat the Knight turned wildly round,
And nothing saw, but his own sweet maid
With eyes upraised, as one that prayed.

The touch, the sight, had passed away,
And in its stead that vision blest,
Which comfort

They hate the shadow of the bird
over the high water of the white cheek
and the conflict of light and wind
in the salon of the cold snow.

They hate the bodiless arrow,
the precise handkerchief's farewell,
the needle that keeps the pressure and the rose
in the cereal blush of the smile.

They love the blue desert,
the swaying bovine expressions,
the lying moon of the poles,
the water's curved dance at the shore.

With the science of tree trunk and street market
they fill the  clay with luminous nerves
and lewdly skate on waters and sands
tasting the bitter freshness of their millennial spit.

It's through the crackling blue,
blue without worm or a sleeping footprint,
where the ostrich eggs remain eternal
and the dancing rains wander untouched.

It's through the blue without history,
blue of a night without fear of day,
blue where the **** of the wind goes splitting
the sleepwalking camels of the empty clouds.

It's there where the torsos dream under the gluttony of grass.
There the corals soak the ink's despair,
the sleepers erase their profiles under the skein of snails
and the space of the dance remains over the final ashes.

like a good poet, I whine and whinny:

the muses are unreliable, get too much paid vacation,
unlimited unpaid, and pretend their cells are out of range,
even when they are in bed with you and you’re near desperate
to cop a feel of inspiration

my problem is a variation on the theme. Everyday I jot down
too many possibilities, a handful of words added to the list of
pound bound childless titles, sad faced orphans, dogs and cats,
squeaking “pick me, pick me,”
our reply a casual
“you on the list” rather than admit they are titled, but bodiless
until cupid smashes a cupcake in my face and the bell rings

there they stand - at a friendless crossroads - direction home,
path unknown, awaiting a poet tour guide to complete them

if this sounds a bit like a bad achy breaky country song,
then you and I, on the same side of where I could be headed

cause at the friendless crossroads, always unsure, left foot first?  that first line, first step, could be a false messiah,
or a free-at-last, a free-at-last emancipation

but there are no sidelines in a forest there no sidelines in a poet’s mind; there are the minefields of mindfulness that can explore explode and explain why it is tempting to believe that every gifted one deserves a break today

but you cannot be broken or break off from the community

“Hillel said: Do not separate yourself from the community; and do not trust in yourself until the day of your death. Do not judge your fellow until you are in his place. Do not say something that cannot be understood but will be understood in the end. Say not: When I have time I will study because you may never have the time”

my friend,
substitute writing poetry for study, for study is for us the analysis of everything, that is, everything we say, see and know the need to communicate

so
those who abide in the life of good words will not suffer an abdication (yours)

do not think
there are friendless crossroads,
there are only crossroads that the eye cannot yet see a fellow sojourner coming toward him,
bearing an oversized load of
the inside insight of responsibility
that demands sharing

that is why we call our meetings at
a crossroads,
a cross

At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An ****** vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies
(Her casement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!

Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
This window open to the night!
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice-drop—
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully—so fearfully—
Above the closed and fringed lid
’Neath which thy slumb’ring soul lies hid,
That, o’er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thou no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come o’er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all-solemn silentness!

The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
For ever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!

My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep;
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold—
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged panels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals—
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood many an idle stone—
Some tomb from out whose sounding door
She ne’er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.

For Leonard Baskin

To his house the bodiless
Come to barter endlessly
Vision, wisdom, for bodies
Palpable as his, and weighty.

Hands moving move priestlier
Than priest's hands, invoke no vain
Images of light and air
But sure stations in bronze, wood, stone.

Obdurate, in dense-grained wood,
A bald angel blocks and shapes
The flimsy light; arms folded
Watches his cumbrous world eclipse

Inane worlds of wind and cloud.
Bronze dead dominate the floor,
Resistive, ruddy-bodied,
Dwarfing us. Our bodies flicker

Toward extinction in those eyes
Which, without him, were beggared
Of place, time, and their bodies.
Emulous spirits make discord,

Try entry, enter nightmares
Until his chisel bequeaths
Them life livelier than ours,
A solider repose than death's.

There are so many shadows on the planet.
The ones of the living, bodiless, moving along, appreciating the complicated road the humans are taking to enjoy each beat of their heart. But then there are others.
Shadows inside of those who live.
Hiding beneath the flesh lies an empty carcass of what used to be the poem of a life yet to be lived. Hiding beneath lies a ruined soul waiting to be picked up by death. You do not always recognize those who have died inside. They know how to put up a front, but… the inside is rotten and empty and sad and destroyed and I wonder how you can possibly live a life like that.
The real question, though… is how that happens? How do you die inside? Does it happen all at once?
Someone tells you they do not love you anymore, and everything goes through you, your heart, your soul, your happiness, everything vital just crushes down and breaks all over the floor in an invisible flood of despair that swallows your entire being?
Or is it done slowly, almost imperceptibly? You go through the motions, you smile and laugh, but somehow, the laugh empties itself out, as if, suddenly, you only had one reserve that would never replenish. The reserve runs out and the laugh is empty. The smile faints into a neutral expression, and then it's gone, too. The rest follows the same path. After a while, every gesture, every word, every look is empty. But the change is so subtle, almost natural. And no one notices. And you are the last one to leave. Your body is a shadow and you are gone.
"As good as dead".

Moments, each like a drop of rain
That is the continual movement
Of the Omniverse
Forming, falling, breaking and rejoining,
Inhaled back up to the skies
And starting all over again,

Eventually, even the Gods,
Like energy into matter
Like electrons and protons and neutrons
Like atoms into molecules,
Like those bodiless strands of DNA
Floating in magnificent soups of matter,
Cloning themselves,
Like the cells they formed connecting and creating life,
Systems of energy making machines,
Like the bodies that wasted away
When their brains became their graves
Breaking away into pure information,
Finding each other
In the vast expanses of space
And reconnecting like the broken lines of a puzzle
Finally piecing together
To make the image of a single universal being…
They too shall join and make one,
For many are the plains of the multiverse
And many are the gods that stare out
Into its infinite dimensions.

Sun cascading through the window,
The Mountains my blanket
Everything in its right place, and I in mine
For surely life is a wonderful thing
and I am no mistake.

Can a person be defined by a word? Can we, in reality chain a person to one word, or even a great sum of words? Can all that is encompassed within each individual human being, be summed up with a word, a description, a label? For the very meaning of word is a unit of language, consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning. Are words the most effective "carrier of meaning"? Or is it possible that there might just be something more, something deeper? This makes me think of the quote from The Mozart Effect, where Don Cambell says, “On the psychiatrist’s couch, the board of the local PTA, or at a job interview, we strive to assert our identity as strong, independent persons, our persona or public mask—all from the Greek roots per son, or ‘the sound passes through.’” Our very core nature is that we desire to hear a vocal confirmation of who we are and labeling ourselves and others with words, gives us a false security. The way we are labeled and seen and judged passes through us, it effects us to our core. When someone “fails” they are then in turn labeled a “failure”? My question is, by labeling a person who has made mistakes, or is even continuing to make mistakes a f a i l u r e , are we really encompassing all that is within them when we say the word “failure” and chain it around their neck? Is every action that they have done a “failure”? Do they not also have things that are successful about them, and isn’t simply their state of being a success?

I am convinced that we are all on the same level, one person no greater than another person. No person a mistake, no person a failure. For let us all challenge ourselves to not define people but rather feel them, seek to understand them. Let us really see them, for who they are, not for who we think they are or what we may see. Like the quote from T.S Elliot’s book Family Reunion, where it says
“I tell you, it is not me you are looking at, Not me you are grinning at, not me your confidential looks incriminate, but that other person, if person, You thought I was: let your necrophilia feed upon that carcass.”

Or the quote from the Invisible Man,
“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a ***** like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasm. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids- and I might even be said to posses a mind. I am invisible; understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless head surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination-indeed, everything and anything except me.”


These are both excellent examples of how our own judgments, preoccupation with our problems or ourselves, anything and everything, can distract us from really getting to know someone, to understanding them in the cell of their heart. For if we were silent and simply allowed the music of life surround us, we would listen and hear, the people when they spoke. For “to listen is to vibrate together with another human being.” And how eloquently Lao Tzu said that, I can’t think of a better way to describe what I am trying to say. What a provocative way to think about the simple act of listening. Think of feeling what people are saying as two harps being played in perfect unison, vibrating together. To really hear someone we must reach a place where we can be receptive to whom they really are, throwing aside our preconceived ideas.

How could we take the sacred and beautiful act of listening and distort it into something that is so uninvolved, so impersonal? How can we, how can I, constantly throw away the precious gem that is to listen, only to pick up the garbage of judgment and lack of concern? I’m convinced that constantly doing this has left quite a toll on the human race. When was the last time you felt that someone got you, really got you, or saw past your flaws or the masks you wear and simply heard you, felt your pain, knew where you were coming from, simply was just there with you? Chances are it’s probably not often. I believe that no matter the outward appearance or what people do that it’s the state of their heart that matters. We are all fallible because we are h u m a n, so when people in their own state of humanity, hurt us, let us choose not to take offence, but rather choose to see past our own pain and see their own pain that caused them to hurt us.

I believe there is beauty in our shortcomings, and humanity. Not that we continue to remain the way we’ve always been but rather accept that we are flawed and that can’t do this on our own, and then we will begin to grow. In our state of being humbled and broken, we grow, we change, we transform. Slowly and surely as the flower that springs from the cold ground and bursts forth from it’s shell and becomes something completely different, we as humans will break through our own “shells”. First we must admit that we have flaws for this process to begin. Being flawed is beautiful because it’s something everyone shares. We’ve all been hurt, but once we come to the place where we understand the pain behind the flaws and see how we can’t possibly judge anyone because we all have flaws, we all have failed.

We are all equals. We are all connected. We are all sons and daughters of humanity. We are connected to the earliest of times and the latest of times.

What happens to someone on the other side of the earth does in fact, effect us. I believe because we are numb to the reality of that connection, never listening, never feeling, that we miss the beauty of this great fellowship of human beings. When we isolate ourselves, not only are we denying ourselves that desire to b e l o n g that dwells in our innermost being, but we also can begin to elevate ourselves over another person. Which leaves me to wonder why we spend our lives awarding ourselves for being better then the person next to us, not doing what they did, when shouldn’t we be listening to them, hearing them, seeing them for who they are in their own brokenness, and helping them through?

We spend our lives harboring anger towards and event, person, or even ourselves and judging and comparing ourselves on a made up idealistic scale to define our worth. We are already worth so much simply because we are humans, and we are alive. Is not even a single rose still admired by the gardener? We are special, and if someone were to bring all the wealth of the world to offer for one person, or to measure the worth of that person, it would not even begin to compare to our worth, no matter our mistakes or who we are.

Just as we hurt and long to be accepted and approved of, so does the person that has hurt you or the person you see yourself as better then. Do we not feel our connection to humanity when we feel the sense of deep loss in our spirit, our innermost being, when our actions cause pain to another person? So since we are all one, all connected, why not shower people with love and grace and feel them, feel with them, instead of labeling them and trying to judge ourselves against them.

We have exhausted ourselves by denying ourselves the basic needs to be known, loved, heard, connected, and accepted, for far too long. It’s time for change, in both my life and the lives of those around me. We’re beaten and bruised from holding on to our anger, relentlessly trying to gain approval, judging our own mistakes and comparing them to others to see if our mistakes were ‘slightly less bad then those of the other person’. If we would set aside those chains that imprison us, and allow ourselves to feel the pain of others, allow them to see our own pain, then, although we will never reach perfection, we will grow, the deep yearnings and aches of our body crying out to be known and our pain from the wrongs done to us will stop.

If we’re willing to bare the burden of feeling with someone, or simply allowing ourselves to just be, exist, beside someone who’s hurting and be open to simply let the sound, the vibrations of their words penetrate our souls, then, and only then will our lives and the lives of others be drastically changed for the better. It would be infectious; spreading to every person we came into contact with, causing a worldwide revolution.

So what I’m saying is even after all this, I believe in changed lives, I believe that our impact on others is far greater then we will ever know.I believe that one single person, no matter how flawed, who stops for one moment and simply listens to another human being, and sees them as they are, then proceeds to reach inside their chest to reveal their beating, heart, alive and full of dreams, will change that person forever, whether we see it right away or never see it. It's the same in our lives, we may never see the fruits of our labor, but we must focus on the goal and not the distance needed to reach our goal. We impact people. When we judge people or don’t see them for who they are, they become dead to us, they can no longer change into who they were meant to be, or we simply do not hear them, the passions and dreams are not awakened, and in doing this, we are robbing ourselves the joy of knowing someone, investing in them, and seeing them change and they feel the effects too.

We all need to be awakened from being the living dead, to a state of constant awareness of our body and all our senses and the surroundings around us, the people around us. People as a whole are hurting so deeply, and I believe that one person can in fact change that. All it takes is one [broken] person to spark the flame and soon, others, much like kindling for a fire, will catch ablaze. I believe, that we must allow ourselves to climb into another person’s skin and feel, and see the world as they do.

We must realize that we are no better then one another, for we are all broken and need one another. I believe that no one is hopeless, no one a lost cause, for if we take the time to listen to them and care for them, something in them will change no matter what we may see on the outside. In this investing and caring, listening and feeling, seeing and believing, we will awaken in both the people around us and in ourselves the dreams which we thought for so long to be dead, and the world will see change like it has never been seen before in history.

I’m not saying that I have any of this down pat, I’m not by any means a model for not judging someone and seeing them and hearing them. If anything, I am the complete opposite of this consumed in my own problems and too busy to stop and feel. This is my apology of some sort to those i have hurt, and giving recognition to those who have helped me along the way. So thanks for believing in me. I believe that it’ll take some time, but that I can and will gradually change into someone who is aware of people around them, someone who is awakened. Even when my actions, are completely opposite of everything I’ve just talked about, there is still a part of me that is quietly reminding me to humble myself and see myself for who I am, no more, no less, and then see others for who they are. Somehow, I’m going to get to where I want to go, and I’m going to become who I want to become, I just have a lot of judgmental ideals, preconceived ideas, bitterness, pain, and self-absorption to leave behind to step into who I want to become. So I’m going to commit to this journey even if it means sometimes the only thing I can do is just be, in my failures and my success, and even when the pain seems unbearable, it is my deepest desire to stay on this path. I want to change and help the people around me, but before I can do that I have a lot of work to do.

594

The Battle fought between the Soul
And No Man—is the One
Of all the Battles prevalent—
By far the Greater One—

No News of it is had abroad—
Its Bodiless Campaign
Establishes, and terminates—
Invisible—Unknown—

Nor History—record it—
As Legions of a Night
The Sunrise scatters—These endure—
Enact—and terminate—

524

Departed—to the Judgment—
A Mighty Afternoon—
Great Clouds—like Ushers—learning—
Creation—looking on—

The Flesh—Surrendered—Cancelled—
The Bodiless—begun—
Two Worlds—like Audiences—disperse—
And leave the Soul—alone—

'Tis a bleak wild hill,--but green and bright
In the summer warmth and the mid-day light;
There's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wren,
And the dash of the brook from the alder glen;
There's the sound of a bell from the scattered flock,
And the shade of the beech lies cool on the rock,
And fresh from the west is the free wind's breath,--
There is nothing here that speaks of death.

  Far yonder, where orchards and gardens lie,
And dwellings cluster, 'tis there men die.
They are born, they die, and are buried near,
Where the populous grave-yard lightens the bier;
For strict and close are the ties that bind
In death the children of human-kind;
Yea, stricter and closer than those of life,--
'Tis a neighbourhood that knows no strife.
They are noiselessly gathered--friend and foe--
To the still and dark assemblies below:
Without a frown or a smile they meet,
Each pale and calm in his winding-sheet;
In that sullen home of peace and gloom,
Crowded, like guests in a banquet-room.

  Yet there are graves in this lonely spot,
Two humble graves,--but I meet them not.
I have seen them,--eighteen years are past,
Since I found their place in the brambles last,--
The place where, fifty winters ago,
An aged man in his locks of snow,
And an aged matron, withered with years,
Were solemnly laid!--but not with tears.
For none, who sat by the light of their hearth,
Beheld their coffins covered with earth;
Their kindred were far, and their children dead,
When the funeral prayer was coldly said.

  Two low green hillocks, two small gray stones,
Rose over the place that held their bones;
But the grassy hillocks are levelled again,
And the keenest eye might search in vain,
'**** briers, and ferns, and paths of sheep,
For the spot where the aged couple sleep.

  Yet well might they lay, beneath the soil
Of this lonely spot, that man of toil,
And trench the strong hard mould with the *****,
Where never before a grave was made;
For he hewed the dark old woods away,
And gave the ****** fields to the day;
And the gourd and the bean, beside his door,
Bloomed where their flowers ne'er opened before;
And the maize stood up; and the bearded rye
Bent low in the breath of an unknown sky.

  'Tis said that when life is ended here,
The spirit is borne to a distant sphere;
That it visits its earthly home no more,
Nor looks on the haunts it loved before.
But why should the bodiless soul be sent
Far off, to a long, long banishment?
Talk not of the light and the living green!
It will pine for the dear familiar scene;
It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold
The rock and the stream it knew of old.

  'Tis a cruel creed, believe it not!
Death to the good is a milder lot.
They are here,--they are here,--that harmless pair,
In the yellow sunshine and flowing air,
In the light cloud-shadows that slowly pass,
In the sounds that rise from the murmuring grass.
They sit where their humble cottage stood,
They walk by the waving edge of the wood,
And list to the long-accustomed flow
Of the brook that wets the rocks below.
Patient, and peaceful, and passionless,
As seasons on seasons swiftly press,
They watch, and wait, and linger around,
Till the day when their bodies shall leave the ground.

I

I, in my intricate image, stride on two levels,
Forged in man's minerals, the brassy orator
Laying my ghost in metal,
The scales of this twin world tread on the double,
My half ghost in armour hold hard in death's corridor,
To my man-iron sidle.

Beginning with doom in the bulb, the spring unravels,
Bright as her spinning-wheels, the colic season
Worked on a world of petals;
She threads off the sap and needles, blood and bubble
Casts to the pine roots, raising man like a mountain
Out of the naked entrail.

Beginning with doom in the ghost, and the springing marvels,
Image of images, my metal phantom
Forcing forth through the harebell,
My man of leaves and the bronze root, mortal, unmortal,
I, in my fusion of rose and male motion,
Create this twin miracle.

This is the fortune of manhood: the natural peril,
A steeplejack tower, bonerailed and masterless,
No death more natural;
Thus the shadowless man or ox, and the pictured devil,
In seizure of silence commit the dead nuisance.
The natural parallel.

My images stalk the trees and the slant sap's tunnel,
No tread more perilous, the green steps and spire
Mount on man's footfall,
I with the wooden insect in the tree of nettles,
In the glass bed of grapes with snail and flower,
Hearing the weather fall.

Intricate manhood of ending, the invalid rivals,
Voyaging clockwise off the symboled harbour,
Finding the water final,
On the consumptives' terrace taking their two farewells,
Sail on the level, the departing adventure,
To the sea-blown arrival.

II

They climb the country pinnacle,
Twelve winds encounter by the white host at pasture,
Corner the mounted meadows in the hill corral;
They see the squirrel stumble,
The haring snail go giddily round the flower,
A quarrel of weathers and trees in the windy spiral.

As they dive, the dust settles,
The cadaverous gravels, falls thick and steadily,
The highroad of water where the seabear and mackerel
Turn the long sea arterial
Turning a petrol face blind to the enemy
Turning the riderless dead by the channel wall.

(Death instrumental,
Splitting the long eye open, and the spiral turnkey,
Your corkscrew grave centred in navel and ******,
The neck of the nostril,
Under the mask and the ether, they making ******
The tray of knives, the antiseptic funeral;

Bring out the black patrol,
Your monstrous officers and the decaying army,
The sexton sentinel, garrisoned under thistles,
A ****-on-a-dunghill
Crowing to Lazarus the morning is vanity,
Dust be your saviour under the conjured soil.)

As they drown, the chime travels,
Sweetly the diver's bell in the steeple of spindrift
Rings out the Dead Sea scale;
And, clapped in water till the triton dangles,
Strung by the flaxen whale-****, from the hangman's raft,
Hear they the salt glass breakers and the tongues of burial.

(Turn the sea-spindle lateral,
The grooved land rotating, that the stylus of lightning
Dazzle this face of voices on the moon-turned table,
Let the wax disk babble
Shames and the damp dishonours, the relic scraping.
These are your years' recorders. The circular world stands still.)

III

They suffer the undead water where the turtle nibbles,
Come unto sea-stuck towers, at the fibre scaling,
The flight of the carnal skull
And the cell-stepped thimble;
Suffer, my topsy-turvies, that a double angel
Sprout from the stony lockers like a tree on Aran.

Be by your one ghost pierced, his pointed ferrule,
Brass and the bodiless image, on a stick of folly
Star-set at Jacob's angle,
Smoke hill and hophead's valley,
And the five-fathomed Hamlet on his father's coral
Thrusting the tom-thumb vision up the iron mile.

Suffer the slash of vision by the fin-green stubble,
Be by the ships' sea broken at the manstring anchored
The stoved bones' voyage downward
In the shipwreck of muscle;
Give over, lovers, locking, and the seawax struggle,
Love like a mist or fire through the bed of eels.

And in the pincers of the boiling circle,
The sea and instrument, nicked in the locks of time,
My great blood's iron single
In the pouring town,
I, in a wind on fire, from green Adam's cradle,
No man more magical, clawed out the crocodile.

Man was the scales, the death birds on enamel,
Tail, Nile, and snout, a saddler of the rushes,
Time in the hourless houses
Shaking the sea-hatched skull,
And, as for oils and ointments on the flying grail,
All-hollowed man wept for his white apparel.

Man was Cadaver's masker, the harnessing mantle,
Windily master of man was the rotten fathom,
My ghost in his metal neptune
Forged in man's mineral.
This was the god of beginning in the intricate seawhirl,
And my images roared and rose on heaven's hill.

As when desire, long darkling, dawns, and first
The mother looks upon the new-born child,
Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled
When her soul knew at length the Love it nursed.
Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst
And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay
Quickening in darkness, till a voice that day
Cried on him, and the bonds of birth were burst.

Now, shielded in his wings, our faces yearn
Together, as his fullgrown feet now range
The grove, and his warm hands our couch prepare:
Till to his song our bodiless souls in turn
Be born his children, when Death’s nuptial change
Leaves us for light the halo of his hair.

we came tumbling out of the sky
in this choreographed array of movement
and tiny thoughts,
every five seconds abandoning our bodies
to see
us.
outside of "ourselves"

and we fell as one
in a glorious, majestic flourish,
to usher in what some of you will call
the end

and others will dance.
as we did, though
wingless, flightless, bodiless,
but no less beautiful or true,
because you all have that gift
to abandon your bodies at will
to be
wingless, flightless, bodiless,
as we are now.

At times like these
I miss you the most
not with the pretentious serenity
of the night
but with the open ferocity of the sea.

I miss the salt in your
sweat mingling with
mine in the slow
melting surrender
of two soulless bodies
or two bodiless souls


I miss exploring
those geographical spaces
connecting me to your beyondness
under the familiar but
comforting garb of the mundane
(I just hate calling it history now)


But tell me
do you miss me?
Do you miss me
basking in the
obscurity of your shadows ?
do you miss the
salt in my tears…

for I suddenly remembered

I forgot even
How to cry ….

Features of Measureless Endurance
Some have stood and looked on the face of the Nile others have stood at the base of Everest it’s hard to
Turn away your gaze you try to place it in your mind it jumps the bounds starts to build in tremendous
Colossal extravagant realms these alone can bare the load or cross the everglades see the meaningful
Mixed with the extreme confusion and at some point the secret turning envelops you and you except
What you can and digest the rest but there is a greater reality there are times in ordinary days you
March to extreme distances troubles exhaust either you are looking through eyes filled with tears
They ache and are weary your rescue comes unannounced from the most unrecognized source
Something that little thought is given the face in the mirror we look then forget give it little thought but
Others when wasted times befall them they look as if they are hungering for the sun after a long
Troubled night of darkness in the hidden recesses vagueness intangible non graspable bodiless
Memories materialize then fade when the aching heart would have your hands reach forth and hold
They give them the telling of deep longings that surge and crash against the walls of your soul
Speechless inability chokes the words that want to flow are ****** by powerful forces and into this
Torment one thing emerges as a soft glowing light saying in effect the darkness can’t hurt you I am
Here you are at a loss for all things dear then eyes that have seen you through some of the hardest
times and ears that have listened when all others turned a deaf ear to your cry then the mouth begins
to speak your knees grow weak overwhelmed you know times you thought were lost forever all foreign
distant lands you were walking fade and give way to the surest and most agreeable time a hand slips
into yours they never even know the blessing and comfort that is provided by that ole familiar soulful
knowing face that you never give a second thought and yet here its volumes cover hidden wounds that
are barely understood but the beaming glow takes you in tow carries you beyond treacherous reefs you
find you are being drawn down the island shore to a safe place that you can go inland you will find you
are a stranger but the face of your friend is well known by all and you will be accepted loved and cared for so the next
trouble breaks across your tiny boat look not at the waves but the strength etched in the friendly
feature of the one wisdom created for you alone in this you can master any storm know the soothing
mist the grandeur of sunset peace burst through every ray giving way for you to say thank you father you
have your way in the storm and you have anchored my heart in a sure place an altogether loving face

I am a skydiver
a cloud walker
A time traveler
in a bodiless soul
Feeling dared
to live the dream
Feeling strong
to move mountains ahead
Feeling brave
just to keep you safe
I might be broken you know
but I am forever yours

Some have stood and looked on the face of the Nile others have stood at the base of Everest it’s hard to
Turn away your gaze you try to place it in your mind it jumps the bounds starts to build in tremendous
Colossal extravagant realms these alone can bare the load or cross the everglades see the meaningful
Mixed with the extreme confusion and at some point the secret turning envelops you and you except
What you can and digest the rest but there is a greater reality there are times in ordinary days you
March to extreme distances troubles exhaust either you are looking through eyes filled with tears
They ache and are weary your rescue comes unannounced from the most unrecognized source
Something that little thought is given the face in the mirror we look then forget give it little thought but
Others when wasted times befall them they look as if they are hungering for the sun after a long
Troubled night of darkness in the hidden recesses vagueness intangible non graspable bodiless
Memories materialize then fade when the aching heart would have your hands reach forth and hold
They give them the telling of deep longings that surge and crash against the walls of your soul
Speechless inability chokes the words that want to flow are ****** by powerful forces and into this
Torment one thing emerges as a soft glowing light saying in effect the darkness can’t hurt you I am
Here you are at a loss for all things dear then eyes that have seen you through some of the hardest
times and ears that have listened when all others turned a deaf ear to your cry then the mouth begins
to speak your knees grow weak overwhelmed you know times you thought were lost forever all foreign
distant lands you were walking fade and give way to the surest and most agreeable time a hand slips
into yours they never even know the blessing and comfort that is provided by that ole familiar soulful
knowing face that you never give a second thought and yet here its volumes cover hidden wounds that
are barely understood but the beaming glow takes you in tow carries you beyond treacherous reefs you
find you are being drawn down the island shore to a safe place that you can go inland you will find you
are a stranger but the face of your friend is well known by all and you will be accepted loved and cared for so the next
trouble breaks across your tiny boat look not at the waves but the strength etched in the friendly
feature of the one wisdom created for you alone in this you can master any storm know the soothing
mist the grandeur of sunset peace burst through every ray giving way for you to say thank you father you
have your way in the storm and you have anchored my heart in a sure place an altogether loving face

Dance of the wind, shakes the trees, shakes the sky
Turn of the seasons
Turn of the storm
Sweet Ulyses on a broken tulip, dying
Reaching for the last of time
Within the great mystery.
Oh, holy land walking underneathe feet
With tired eyes and repeated lies -
The carrion song breaks down and cries

Yesterday closes in on thought's illusion
Of telling today to run around
Chasing past days gone
For the sake of youth gone
Crystal eyes and flaccid goodbyes
The carrion song breaks down and cries

Under soft caresses of Nature's glow
Ceases to be, the gift of selfishness
Asleep in the fog

Spinning madly, this rock of earth
Around star sun, a one-eyed Buddha
Taking gravity, magnetic energy
Invisible force
Orange burn, holographic sin
Make the clock jump ahead
Forward in time, backward in rhyme
Poor things of words
Emotionless, bodiless
Detailing worlds, both inner and outer
But never receiving rightful admiration
Or recognition
Oh, sad words of symbolic reference
Lay down your weary tune and collapse
Sink back into the void of a hum

Yesterday opens around thought's illusion
Of showing today the masterplan
When bizarre happenings stir the crowd of mind
'Tis the moment to step out of time
And examine the line,
The dire chime of truth
And thus enters the chance to realize
The carrion song that breaks down and cries

Some have stood and looked on the face of the Nile others have stood at the base of Everest it’s hard to
Turn away your gaze you try to place it in your mind it jumps the bounds starts to build in tremendous
Colossal extravagant realms these alone can bare the load or cross the everglades see the meaningful
Mixed with the extreme confusion and at some point the secret turning envelops you and you except
What you can and digest the rest but there is a greater reality there are times in ordinary days you
March to extreme distances troubles exhaust either you are looking through eyes filled with tears
They ache and are weary your rescue comes unannounced from the most unrecognized source
Something that little thought is given the face in the mirror we look then forget give it little thought but
Others when wasted times befall them they look as if they are hungering for the sun after a long
Troubled night of darkness in the hidden recesses vagueness intangible non graspable bodiless
Memories materialize then fade when the aching heart would have your hands reach forth and hold
They give them the telling of deep longings that surge and crash against the walls of your soul
Speechless inability chokes the words that want to flow are ****** by powerful forces and into this
Torment one thing emerges as a soft glowing light saying in effect the darkness can’t hurt you I am
Here you are at a loss for all things dear then eyes that have seen you through some of the hardest
times and ears that have listened when all others turned a deaf ear to your cry then the mouth begins
to speak your knees grow weak overwhelmed you know times you thought were lost forever all foreign
distant lands you were walking fade and give way to the surest and most agreeable time a hand slips
into yours they never even know the blessing and comfort that is provided by that ole familiar soulful
knowing face that you never give a second thought and yet here its volumes cover hidden wounds that
are barely understood but the beaming glow takes you in tow carries you beyond treacherous reefs you
find you are being drawn down the island shore to a safe place that you can go inland you will find you
are a stranger but the face of your friend is well known by all and you will be accepted loved and cared for so the next
trouble breaks across your tiny boat look not at the waves but the strength etched in the friendly
feature of the one wisdom created for you alone in this you can master any storm know the soothing
mist the grandeur of sunset peace burst through every ray giving way for you to say thank you father you
have your way in the storm and you have anchored my heart in a sure place an altogether loving face

On a temporary dusk,
The sun may bleed but not die.
On a fight between angels & demons,
None of the spirits sigh.
A cucumber moon melts on a dawn,
And become a bodiless beauty.
It will fall in the arms of the river bed,
Re-unite with earth on its divine duty.
A brighter sun re-appears one gay morning,
It’s timeless journey to death cave.
Another world turns around,
Life & death altogether spun on a magical wave.

Full of hate
Full of anger
Full of sadness
Full of broken pieces
Of broken parts
Of broken hearts

An ended life
A lifeless body
A bodiless soul

Hanging in the air
Lingering
Hunting
Haunting

Full of blackness
Full of blankness
Full of emptiness

Empty
Yet
Full

Full of confusion
Full of shame
Full of blame
Full of torture
Full of hurt

Full of regret
Full of fallenness
Full of worry
Full of worthlessness
Full of exhaustion

Full in death

Some have stood and looked on the face of the Nile others have stood at the base of Everest it’s hard to
Turn away your gaze you try to place it in your mind it jumps the bounds starts to build in tremendous
Colossal extravagant realms these alone can bare the load or cross the everglades see the meaningful
Mixed with the extreme confusion and at some point the secret turning envelops you and you except
What you can and digest the rest but there is a greater reality there are times in ordinary days you
March to extreme distances troubles exhaust either you are looking through eyes filled with tears
They ache and are weary your rescue comes unannounced from the most unrecognized source
Something that little thought is given the face in the mirror we look then forget give it little thought but
Others when wasted times befall them they look as if they are hungering for the sun after a long
Troubled night of darkness in the hidden recesses vagueness intangible non graspable bodiless
Memories materialize then fade when the aching heart would have your hands reach forth and hold
They give them the telling of deep longings that surge and crash against the walls of your soul
Speechless inability chokes the words that want to flow are ****** by powerful forces and into this
Torment one thing emerges as a soft glowing light saying in effect the darkness can’t hurt you I am
Here you are at a loss for all things dear then eyes that have seen you through some of the hardest
times and ears that have listened when all others turned a deaf ear to your cry then the mouth begins
to speak your knees grow weak overwhelmed you know times you thought were lost forever all foreign
distant lands you were walking fade and give way to the surest and most agreeable time a hand slips
into yours they never even know the blessing and comfort that is provided by that ole familiar soulful
knowing face that you never give a second thought and yet here its volumes cover hidden wounds that
are barely understood but the beaming glow takes you in tow carries you beyond treacherous reefs you
find you are being drawn down the island shore to a safe place that you can go inland you will find you
are a stranger but the face of your friend is well known by all and you will be accepted loved and cared for so the next
trouble breaks across your tiny boat look not at the waves but the strength etched in the friendly
feature of the one wisdom created for you alone in this you can master any storm know the soothing
mist the grandeur of sunset peace burst through every ray giving way for you to say thank you father you
have your way in the storm and you have anchored my heart in a sure place an altogether loving face





--------------------------------------------------------------­------------------

The splinter colors
draw me.
I would like to cuddle
with their invisible sources.
Black no longer means to
me the kicking open
of mother's womb.

The old bodiless existence
from which my essence poured
has filled its minute's worth
of purpose.

I have strength to shun
any painful return.
I am free.

New moments slip
easily between my smallest
dappled places,
and a loved guide determines
my best steps.

There was water near, her horse could smell it, and so could she after journeying so far. Seemingly small things regained their importance in an empty land such as this, for what use is wealth without water, or power without others to wield it upon? A strange thought, not like her at all. People changed in this desert though; she knew from the way she watched her horse’s stride, and how she could remember all the names of the constellations, something she had not been able to do since times long past. She would not allow her mount to make directly for the water source, a well most likely, and she was wary. Around the foot of this dune, and there it was, the expected well, and a single palm standing sentry beside it. She drew water, relished the sound as it sloshed around in the hide bag, relished the act of letting her horse drink first, the joy of uncomplicated companionship. She drank, refilled her own water skins, ate a few dates, and let her gaze wander. She had maybe an hour left of daylight and was in no hurry to arrive, wherever it was that she was going. A hawk cried as it stooped upon a hare two hundred yards to her right, a beautiful thing to her. And on the heels of that, a fear. A quarter mile away, outlined against the distant plateau, walked another rider.

She had been drifting, sailing almost into a sleep, and now she was awake. What was that sound? Guitar. Her guitar, played with unsure hands, hesitant and sad. Bodiless chords making their way through the open window. God it was hot, oppressive almost, and she could still see the sweat beading on Clara’s forehead. She would not get back to sleep now, not so uncomfortable. She wriggled out of bed, carefully moving out of Clara’s arms. Needlessly though, Clara never woke without a good shaking or a loud noise. She pulled her green sweater off of the chair where it had been thrown an hour before and paused before putting it on. Something she had forgotten to do maybe, something at the back of her mind. Nothing. Closing the door behind her, she padded through the small living room to the open balcony and stood behind the man sitting on an old barstool, rescued he said, from a bar in Alfama. She watched him try and play her guitar, watched him bent in concentration. There was a bottle of wine and two glasses, one empty, standing on the wicker table next to him. Picking up the empty one, he held it out to her without turning around. “I hope I didn’t bother you Ta’ra, I was in a mood and couldn’t help it.” “No,” she said, taking the offered glass, “It’s too hot to sleep.” It annoyed her that he always knew when someone was around him, and in she and Clara’s case, which one of them. Curling up on the loveseat opposite him, she gazed out at Lisboa in all of its late afternoon beauty. “Give that back, you’re butchering whatever the hell it is you’re trying to play,” holding her hand out for her guitar. He handed it back to her, shrugged and said something about it being a long time since he’d picked up an instrument. She smiled, drained her glass, and began to play an old song, barely remembered. “Çevrem, etrafım şen mutlu iken. Ben yine hüzünlüyüm” She had never heard the melody played with a guitar, but she knew it well enough to play it without any hesitation. A haunting thing, this song, in a dialect she only knew by proximity, but no less powerful for people who cared for such things. She cradled her guitar, intent only on the music, on where her fingers must go. He watched and listened. “Why talk. If you do not listen to me? Running away…”

I walk down to the stream,
a ghost among the tendrils of mist
wakening from the moist air.

The half-moon gives a weak light to my feet,
but grows stronger
as the night rises
and shakes off the sleepiness of twilight.

Sitting on a rough stone,
I look into the shadows
and begin to think.
I pull out my flashlight, try to write,
then turn it off and stare at the stars.

Branches of the tree above me grasp at the wind.
I wrestle with much more,
but cannot grasp my thoughts
or the inconceivable movement
within my soul
any better than I can subjugate the bodiless air.
A melancholy that is not sorrow
settled on me a year ago
this night, in the dark of October's waning moon.

I stand up and leave the stone to wander.

I meet the banks of the shallow stream
and stand there for a while, empty.
There is nothing,
there has been nothing,
for twelve months
since I renounced my pain and bitterness.
Everyone tells you that somehow
love will find you
when you let go of hate.
Everyone is wrong.

The stars spin
in their slow, silent dance;
the highway sighs in the distance;
the moon rises slowly as it had done
for thousands of years.

"Speak!" I importune the stars.

They do not answer.

"Show me your light!" I implore the moon.

The moon hangs there,
still,
among the darkness of the stained sky.

"Answer!" I demand of the sky,
and the sky says nothing.

Twelve months of solitude,
of emptiness and silence,
hovering over the abyss.

I have looked into the abyss.
The abyss has looked into me.
And slowly, like the setting moon,
like the way a fever ends in peaceful sleep,

I begin to fall.

willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:
                     the calm course of a star
or the spring, appearing without urgency,
water behind a stillness of closed eyelids
flowing all night and pouring out prophecies,
a single presence in the procession of waves
wave over wave until all is overlapped,
in a green sovereignty without decline
a bright hallucination of many wings
when they all open at the height of the sky,

course of a journey among the densities
of the days of the future and the fateful
brilliance of misery shining like a bird
that petrifies the forest with its singing
and the annunciations of happiness
among the branches which go disappearing,
hours of light even now pecked away by the birds,
omens which even now fly out of my hand,

an actual presence like a burst of singing,
like the song of the wind in a burning building,
a long look holding the whole world suspended,
the world with all its seas and all its mountains,
body of light as it is filtered through agate,
the thighs of light, the belly of light, the bays,
the solar rock and the cloud-colored body,
color of day that goes racing and leaping,
the hour glitters and assumes its body,
now the world stands, visible through your body,
and is transparent through your transparency,

I go a journey in galleries of sound,
I flow among the resonant presences
going, a blind man passing transparencies,
one mirror cancels me, I rise from another,
forest whose trees are the pillars of magic,
under the arches of light I go among
the corridors of a dissolving autumn,

I go among your body as among the world,
your belly the sunlit center of the city,
your ******* two churches where are celebrated
the great parallel mysteries of the blood,
the looks of my eyes cover you like ivy,
you are a city by the sea assaulted,
you are a rampart by the light divided
into two halves, distinct, color of peaches,
and you are saltiness, you are rocks and birds
beneath the edict of concentrated noon

and dressed in the coloring of my desires
you go as naked as my thoughts go naked,
I go among your eyes as I swim water,
the tigers come to these eyes to drink their dreams,
the hummingbird is burning among these flames,
I go upon your forehead as on the moon,
like cloud I go among your imagining
journey your belly as I journey your dream,

your ***** are harvest, a field of waves and singing,
your ***** are crystal and your ***** are water,
your lips, your hair, the looks you give me, they
all night shower down like rain, and all day long
you open up my breast with your fingers of water,
you close my eyelids with your mouth of water,
raining upon my bones, and in my breast
the roots of water drive deep a liquid tree,

I travel through your waist as through a river,
I voyage your body as through a grove going,
as by a footpath going up a mountain
and suddenly coming upon a steep ravine
I go the straitened way of your keen thoughts
break through to daylight upon your white forehead
and there my spirit flings itself down, is shattered
now I collect my fragments one by one
and go on, bodiless, searching, in the dark....

you take on the likeness of a tree, a cloud,
you are all birds and now you are a star,
now you resemble the sharp edge of a sword
and now the executioner's bowl of blood,
the encroaching ivy that over grows and then
roots out the soul and divides it from itself,

writing of fire on the slab of jade,
the cleft in the rock, serpent-goddess and queen,
pillar of cloud, and fountain struck from the stone,
the nest of eagles, the circle of the moon,
the seed of anise, mortal and smallest thorn
that has the power to give immortal pain,
shepherd of valleys underneath the sea
and guardian of the valley of the dead,
liana that hangs at the pitch of vertigo,
climber and bindweed and the venomous plant,
flower of resurrection and grape of life,
lady of the flute and of the lightning-flash,
terrace of jasmine, and salt rubbed in the wound,
a branch of roses for the man shot down,
snowstorm in August, moon of the harrowing,
the writing of the sea cut in basalt,
the writing of the wind upon the desert,
testament of the sun, pomegranate, wheat-ear....

                         life and death
are reconciled in thee, lady of midnight,
tower of clarity, empress of daybreak,
moon ******, mother of all mother liquids,
body and flesh of the world, the house of death,
I have been endlessly falling since my birth,
I fall in my own self, never touch my depth,
gather me in your eyes, at last bring together
my scattered dust, make peace among my ashes,
bind the dismemberment of my bones, and breathe
upon my being, bring me to earth in your earth,
your silence of peace to the intellectual act
against itself aroused;
                         open now your hand
lady of the seeds of life, seeds that are days,
day is an immortality, it rises, it grows,
is done with being born and never is done,
every day is a birth, and every daybreak
another birthplace and I am the break of day,
we all dawn on the day, the sun dawns and
daybreak is the face of the sun....

gate of our being, awaken me, bring dawn,
grant that I see the face of the living day,
grant that I see the face of this live night,
everything speaks now, everything is transformed,
O arch of blood, bridge of our pulse beating,
carry me through to the far side of this night....

gateway of being: open your being, awaken,
learn then to be, begin to carve your face,
develop your elements, and keep your vision
keen to look at my face, as I at yours,
keen to look full at life right through to death,
faces of sea, of bread, of rock, of fountain,
the spring of origin which will dissolve our faces
in the nameless face, existence without face
the inexpressible presence of presences...

I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot;
the moment scatters itself in many things,
I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams
and deep among the dreams of years like stones
have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood,
with a premonition of light the sea sang,
and one by one the barriers give way,
all of the gates have fallen to decay,
the sun has forced an entrance through my forehead,
has opened my eyelids at last that were kept closed,
unfastened my being of its swaddling clothes,
has rooted me out of my self, and separated
me from my animal sleep centuries of stone
and the magic of reflections resurrects
willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:

*Mexico 1957

She stood a few meters to the west, a strikingly close distance that would usually be much too close for comfort, with what I expected to be thoughts of danger and malice floating around in her head. But here I was stone-still in my long johns with a lovely tea in hand (I had gathered mint and bark earlier in the day just for it) and I was not afraid. I had a head and a stomach full of sisterhood and peace to offer her. We stared deep into each other eyes for what seemed to be a long while. She tested the waters, moved with unease, smelled around my camp. She was a shaggy silhouette backlit by a lush sunset of purples and reds.
I observed her and she me. As the stars began to peek out at us here down below, she seemed to grow comfortable in my company. A true creature of the night. Both pairs of our eyeballs hung bodiless now through the curtain of nightfall, reflecting only the small fire I sat near. Her eyes were glazed in a funny kind of yellow, and I’d bet mine looked just as eerie to the wide-eyed wolf floating in nothingness. She wandered and sniffed out into the trees and sat for a moment watching me drink my tea. With that, I never saw her again. One moment, one blink, and her eyes were gone from the shadows. I was alone again. I appreciated her company and was glad to have shared this evening with her.

The coals burned for a while with the dying dusk but eventually bled into the blackness just like everything else. Everything had its day but now it was night.

Most nights were expected to be lonely. I braced myself for the sorrow. Tonight it did not come. Though shivers shook my spine, rattling my bones, I felt no desire for any arms other than mine to warm me. Instead there was ecstasy and freedom in my solitude that flooded my dreams. I was alone and I could do absolutely anything that I pleased. So I slept and slept long and slept deep and woke with the sun as my only companion and was very glad that it was so.

The next few moons were peaceful, as the skies were preparing for the birth of the next blood moon. I too prepared myself for the next leg of my journey.

my essence hides on season tides
that watch my flock with eyes hawk wide
the hills, the trees, the harmonies
reside inside the endless seas
swimming through the timing to
the cliffs of peace that god once knew
we stand and scream atop life's seam
and animate this clockwork dream

freedom lies in love's warm hold
a trying tale the ages told
these shackles be but soon undone
and thus the bliss and I breathe one
we sew the skies and weave the ground
and drink the love that's all around
a bodiless embodiment
of all of nature's gold intent

I'll meet you here when your time comes
and vibrate still with beating drums
a goodbye glance that stills your heart
the end ends here; extends your start
of all the angels, echelons
and mighty kings that bring the dawns
I'm glad it's you who saved me from
the welcome words that aren’t well come

but time is short and must I say
we'll meet again one fateful day
my grace resides until your end
much love my love, my heart, my friend

There were stitches up her leg
watching her walking slight ahead
crossing the street as the skin slowly pulled apart at her seems
transfixing crimson drops
they would fall slowly I thought

I blinked

Just a tattoo nothing more
the blood was gone, I looked away

She turned the corner, I waited for the bus
I watched the edge of her skirt disappear around it
like the coat tails of the white rabbit
looking down, eyes closed
what would that be like...?

A rabbit in a waistcoat skirted the edges of my thoughts
the wind teased cool fingers at the back of my neck

Feels like flying doesn’t it…

A disembodied voice chipping away at my daydream
I ignore it, instead conjuring a hole under my feet just like Alice

What is? my voice answered for me
another chip breaking away
I started down the hole

The wind… when it blows like that it feels like flying

I wished the voice would leave
I wouldn’t know I’ve never flown…

Neither have I…

I could hear the voice smiling
a crack of light broke through my daydream
I turned away from it catching a glimpse of blue coat tails just around the corner

Why is it like flying then?
another chip…

Why isn’t it?

Go away I thought bitterly
the bodiless voice laughed softly
cool air teased my neck, back of my shoulders
I heard the bus pulling up to the stop

Be seeing you then?

My daydream crumbled away into reality
I opened my eyes still looking down

No…
the only answer

Hmm… that’s too bad

Another pause
I looked at the bus doors opening to admit me

Well goodbye then… Alice…

It was smiling again
I shivered, turning to put a face on the voice
Dress it in something more then the sound of its smiling

No one, I stood alone with the breeze kissing my skin and smiled a little

Goodbye… Cheshire cat

i cried a tale
a feverish tale

of demons on tables and babies in glasses

of faces on floors
and portraits of lovers etched on doors

of gap-toothed beggars with golden teeth

of priests bending over with no god to please

i sang and sang
of bodiless faces

faces that went to faraway places
(i lost five tears to a man with four faces)

i sang and sang
of a princess with no womb
who ran to a juliet
buried deep in a tomb