"mandala" poems
.
In a costume of conflicting emotion,
of crossing diamondic colour,
with regal posture in grief,
the Harlequin and the King,
a display of opposites
creating a composite being,
that eases her body
gently into the waiting water,
to float away serene,
on her journey to the nether.
Midnight blue and emerald green,
the regalia of ermine,
both ostentatious and humble,
robeing the aspects,
understated in crowning splendour,
the gentleman King bows,
and the Harlequin laughs,
the bi-polar reaction
to the tragedy of misfortune,
with a sting in the myth-tale.
With the dark hues of mourning,
a legend passes on her way,
across the streams of time,
on a voyage to discover herself,
carrying her Harlequin in a purse,
holding her King to her breast,
owning them both in her heart,
the medicine wheel spins,
knowing the grapes of wrath
yield the wine of spite.
The motley speckles of attire,
a starry parody of night skies,
lighting the decorated funeral barge,
gliding along the rivers of space,
worn with the mantle of sorrow,
and it sails into the sunset,
as the Harlequin and King observe,
the mandala turns,
the bier of the Queen departing,
bears their sadness forth.
The Harlequin laughs and laughs 'til he cries,
his heart grows cold, then withers and dies,
whilst the King, statuesque, memoirs his life,
lamenting the legend of a Queen, his wife.
© Pagan Paul (24/07/18)
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 5:51 AM UTC
The orchid is flowering
Opening,
a living mandala
Next to my bed
I hear it in my dreams
It's telling me very strange things
About the chemistry between us
And what being a flower really is
And what it really means.
There's a lot to learn.
The orchid whispers in chemical symbols
I danced through the night one night
I drank water in the desert
The sweetest taste, I've ever known
I heard a sound I've never heard before
The buzzing of Chi
Blowing in
while the curtains fluttered
In the night time wind.
Our time I know is limited
Forever wilts away
But while the orchid is flowering
That's for another day
I find myself longing for the scent of the night and at least
One more dream to go.
Apr 26, 2018
Apr 26, 2018 at 10:52 AM UTC
our coolest babysitter lit a long joint and drove us to church
in her well worn '87 oldsmobile with chipped gold paint
a drooping side mirror and a tape player
that smelled like stale london gin mothballs
and a sunset butterfly heart at the same time
it had a deep ocean green calcite mandala
dancing from the windshield mirror
and a steal-your-face tattooed on the back glass
she used to blare brit-pop trying
to make the speakers bleed
that day when they finally oozed she swerved us
left through the other lane and sunday morning fog
to cut a jagged path through thick woods and into an oak tree
with a soundtrack of slow motion oasis and screeching tires
i clammored to the backseat to block the window
glass from your beautiful angelic blonde head as
dew sprayed into the vacancy from the ditch and
when i pulled the seatbelt spiderweb out of your mouth
and lifted you out of the car i was standing
barefoot in a cluster of bright red sumac next to
an ant hill pile of twisted steaming metal
and you were dripping blood from your eye and knees
asking me if we'd be late for sunday school
but you were awake and trying to smile so
we followed the powerlines back to the main road
holding hands dizzy and sweating
worried no one would ever find us
limping while the springtime songbirds
held their tongues for us but
when the hot ringing in my ears finally stopped
the sirens grew loud and close and the
birds too began their wet lipped eulogy
sometimes i think about
missing church that day
when the weather's bad
on nights like last night
sometimes i remember
our babysitter when
the fog rolls in over
the road in the morning
i wonder if she still
gets high on the
good stuff while
she drives or
if she's just
a treehugger
Aug 23, 2015
Aug 23, 2015 at 9:09 AM UTC
the sun beats
loose fence stakes into
the ground
and I kiss each ray
as if it were
my own child
the sky rains down
a corpse of butterflied
snow
its wings—
a brace
to bend my
broken legs straight
my love
begins to crawl
setting the dry
snow aflame
burning patterns
in the mandala
snowfall
sun’s flame
whips its invisible
lion
snow lets the
growl pass through
and my bones
cackle
setting straight
the image of
sunny snowfall
this sunday
morning
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018 at 10:20 AM UTC
Life is a mandala!
Everything is a mandala!
-oh my God, I can use my lungs-
Nothing lasts and nothing
matters, however lovely
or terrible
Murderous fingers ripping
unimposing string of
yarn, row by
hourly row
Jan 2, 2015
Jan 2, 2015 at 10:52 PM UTC
Short sidedness,
blistering thoughts;
selfish predisposition:
What a world!
Hypocritical claims
about profound lack of wisdom
and fear of loneliness;
Deeply ironic statements
about some lust to be alone
that you felt as you ******
Your words seem well chosen and articulated,
and perhaps in time will become true;
but it seems to me that they right now
are as hollow and transient as the space
between your actions, logic, and resolve:
I've found very little
that can make me stop
to laugh and cry all at once,
perhaps a few pieces of Beethoven's music and some really ******* good metal;
but you sit atop that short list
on your rather gorgeous and elegant hubristic throne,
mocking the progress I've made,
oozing with scorn and spite:
You have so much to learn before you will be regarded as you like to assume you are:
"Responsible"; word around the campfire is: hardly.
"Honest"; perhaps in words, but apparently not actions.
"Mature"; physically, it seems, but mentally? Not so much.
"Respectful"; only to yourself, and seemingly not even that.
I tried to help, and clearly failed.
If it were a test, you cheated;
didn't bother to see how it could've been,
but hey:
at least you were honest.
At least you told the Truth,
though your actions were untrue.
I thought I loved you;
I thought I needed you.
Perhaps I did,
but it has run it's course:
you killed it on purpose.
I suppose it served it's purpose to you;
that I have served my purpose to you.
I detach myself from you,
and from myself, in the process,
and in the process, I fall in love
with those aspects of myself
I so seek in others:
Darkness; honesty. Honor. Intellect.
Humour. Creativity, balance. Respect.
A level of elegance, but an amount of **** it";
Mental maturity, to an extent.
A moderate badass. A **** badass.
Though, it seems,
the path to Heaven is paved with good intentions,
and is built with the bones of the hopeful,
and is illuminated by unfounded faith
in ****** ******* people:
A mandala of Irony.
Jun 20, 2013
Jun 20, 2013 at 9:46 PM UTC
Hildegard of Bingen
the most musical abbess
of the year 1097 a.d.
met with Jung the unconscious detective
and Ginsberg the howling poet
for lattes at some Starbucks
in a vibrating city
on a shimmering afternoon.
Angelic minuets keep flowing,
effervescing through my chakras
like tonal champagne . . .
the glowing femme declared.
Beams of ethereal light infuse me,
tsumanis of energy tempt me
to dance right out of my habit.
Ignoring the possibility
of seeing a naked nun drink coffee in public,
Alan mused behind his hornrims . . .
I get what you mean
like I have felt the same perfusion of joy
watching cans of peas and ayahuasca
dance with talking bananas
at the A&P; Market near my pad in Brooklyn,
can you dig it?
Still suffering from his Freudian hangover,
Carl reframed them both . . .
Any conclusions or convictions
drawn from such experiences
may not self-verify because
your introspective identifications
attempt in vain
to concretize the amorphicity
of decentralized psychic sensations
which reach conscious awareness
only at the expense of extension.
What did he just say?
Hildegard asked Alan.
I have absolutely no idea,
the portly poet answered
as he doodled an intricate mandala
on his hemp napkin.
Jan 1, 2012
Jan 1, 2012 at 12:21 AM UTC
Not too distant beach tree sways in distance
Mandala Rorschach blot patterns dance like celebrating Salish drum circle
There's a hallow college sound of crime show to my left
Bickering with the occasional crush of,
**** my job is stressful."
A sleeping armadillo composed of quarks reflective within a drop of water
Fallen from the bottom-bulged North 49 canteen
A foot and 3/4ths away the snow-white generic of a ***** coffee mug formerly host to a Tetley green stands silent
Reminiscent of the eternal stillness of a mountain range
Fibonacci's name rings inexplicably from tilting branches
And I can't help but wonder if I would be grasping his hand in grasping a branch.
19 years alive and I can't help asking if I've grown-up too fast
Or simply grown into myself.
I feel old
young
and somewhere indescribable most of the time
and it's funny I cannot even fathom the length of 22 years.
A deflated balloon yellow like trend pants or sunrise sits like dejected missile
No longer screaming towards Gaza
No longer screaming.
A Holiday Inn Express pen sits with a ready-call number
Part of its mustang flame
If its quality of penmanship has any parallel to hotel service
Perhaps I'll stick with hostels.
Nov 29, 2012
Nov 29, 2012 at 2:34 PM UTC
Life is not a straight line
It curves
in chaotic
unpredictable and
Beautiful ways...
A chance encounter on the way home
A lover lost in a storm
A sunrise after a long lonely dark night
The first cold of winter
And the last dew drop in Spring.
Miracles more than mere Moments
The emotions and memories
Shading in the pattern
Giving it shape and depth
Defining something imperceptible until it is Done.
A Cosmic Mandala - Temporary Divinity
This is Life
so...
Embrace
the
Curves
Mar 21, 2015
Mar 21, 2015 at 7:24 PM UTC
I know I've been there,
I've given into death and altered the fabric of reality
Every day we waste away transfixed by flattened images
Of the limitlessness of death
Coupled with elusive, Luciferian harm which will befall us all
Who subsist on the manipulated reality of the hyperspace information field
But one day, enlivened by the festivities of Shakori Hills
And the fungal spirits who awoke beside us
I walked the irreversible pathway through oblivion
Facing cruel destruction and terror
For a horrifying passage across Styx into eternity
And emerged within a crowd of mollusks dancing to the waves of a musical sea
All time suspended in the impossibly drawn-out ****** of the
Archetypal wizardry of rhythm,
The swirling clumps of faces in
Unshakable ecstasy
And seemingly responding to the wild currents of my conscious thought;
A longing for human touch drew the others closer and closer around me
Till they began brushing against me
Bumping into me,
The flow of the crowd saw its axis at my psychic emanation
As once more the last song of all time began with thunderous energy and applause.
I escaped the arresting confines of the crowd
By willing them aside, wearing, as I suddenly became aware, the shoes of Moses
And seeing my muddy feet upon the sands of Egypt
But I yet had no understanding
Of the nature of the garden of earthly delights
Into which I had fallen,
And fear began to envelop me,
Producing law enforcement officials hawklike swooping in to limit my power.
I had but to let go of my acceptance of their power over me to transcend them
But fear tethered me to reality,
Even as I saw about me a Dharmic mandala
Of my past present and future,
Generating inexplicable archetypes around me in a manner profoundly defiant
Of rational logic.
Synchronicity compounded upon me
As the Christos within me
Brought rain down upon us
Forcing us together and leaving me in dumbfounded reverie
Of all that had transpired to bring this moment forth
What had seemed to be the end of history was in fact
The awakening of a new rebirth
The first moment of coming to be
The union of past, present and future
As the reassuring smiles of my trustworthy disciples gently allowed me passage back into a rational existence
I beamed in utter gratitude for the eternal life which Christ afforded us.
Chaos had subsided back into normalcy
But still winked at me
In telepathic coincidence.
My soul has begun to realize that it resides in all things
Soon they are to be reintegrated
Nov 22, 2012
Nov 22, 2012 at 10:16 PM UTC
It's telling looking through
the window’s eyes ;
a room with a paling grey glass view
befogs the clouds reign inside the storm
Often feeling misbegotten regret
for the unfiltered passing glimpses,
whetstone honed and splayed ;
raw hues of a latent life exposed
There's an uncertain hidden shame
in the unheard truth
starving out in the cold;
dwelling in a petrifying silence
of a common hunger
the lonely do ache
Merciless hunger pangs
manifest and shake
with an unrelenting bitter taste ;
loneliness grapples and grips
like a silent earth quake
rattling a rib caged heart — writhing
as Autumn bares the trees
A jagged ambiguous fault line
ripples through the hollow echo ;
a bolt of lightning caught in a bottle
strikes — silently contained
swallowing the unspoken words
in a greater good
This broken merry-go-round
keeps turning round and round;
the great mandala spinning on
like a worn out hamster-wheel
without a conscious trace
of going anywhere out there
The place you come from
is gone when you leave it —
even if you really never
feel you were from anywhere
but a thousand unmarked mileposts
from out here somewhere adrift;
a pilgrimage towards understanding
why sometimes I don’t know
if I know who I am — or could have been —
waiting on a threadbare prayer
One-day the winds of change
will shapeshift — bye and bye ...
"When the light that's lost within us
reaches the sky"
Jesse Stillwater
November 2018
Nov 1, 2018
Nov 1, 2018 at 2:16 PM UTC
The poleax of Paroket
a pietersite soul sheath
the head which is not,
keening like a red horse
between two lions
slaying men and peace
with the hymns of ascent,
swatting humanities darkness
thrilling the sword of Michael;
First Cause , sweeping the graveyard
dust garden of Magna Mater touting
predicant trappings of the etheric
revenant a self compassing
mandala who is all right side invoked
By laudible Yahwistic nutation.
ELEETE J MUIR.
Oct 24, 2012
Oct 24, 2012 at 2:13 PM UTC
an octagon tent
wide enough that chucking rollies
to the sand made impossible
sprawled layers
you turned to quote Dali
told me how pale blue washed with lucy
shimmered skyline into dimension
acryllic-smeared sass drips canvas
into murmurs circling dilation
dimethyltryptamine stains
painting dreams on my eyelids
with flowerbrushes and silk,
mushroom dust gathers in discarded hues
on your pallet, where the colors of your irises
dry into a nebula of night-blooming jasmine
the scent of how you move when you sleep
and sleeping is never so sweet
as dancing through lucidity
with you as my sheets.
and i've traced your thumbprint so often
i'm sure if it were stretched around a marble
like buffalo skin on spirit-caller drums,
a globe would be seen
in which Greenland is finally proportionate--
the map on my wall always bothers you,
but I do too, and everyone does,
urging me under the geography
etched into the sea of your surface
by the crucible of your purpose
and working me into
empty behind your right
below the 22
between i'ching
and the forty two names of god
clasping your fore in silver
copper wound around my finger
hamstrings woven like wire
kambaba jasper, two to share
you hang Tibetan tektites
to elevate space
meteorite fragments
lodged in your helix,
stardust blood,
mandala sand from your mother,
and our tendons wrappe
by dexterous carpals
make such a pretty pendant
of my heart,
for synesthesia mistakes not
and my addiction to the pen has eased
for you breathe murals
and syllables never could
match brushtrokes of carbon dioxide.
Aug 7, 2013
Aug 7, 2013 at 1:13 PM UTC
Strike a mark on a sun kissed shrine
Cheek bones, dance within the sand's light -
Lambent spore sprig -Rot - beneath the mine
Lay the tourniquet fused, marble eyes.
Center stark stork - wracked to atomic bliss
Forked tongue minotaur, auric troubadour -
Machinations of bellowed amethyst,
Composed the flowered Aum, raising thy *********
Arachnid's webbing - strung of turquoise beads -
By what are the viscid lines severed clean
That they convolute binaural progeny,
And lure the soul to breathe?
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 7:17 PM UTC
An innocent Child
growing into a Man,
A journey of Evolution,
A natural Phenomena,
Physicality is a Mandala.
Emotions in Abundance,
Rising in Love,
Only to Fall,
A Mercurial Drama,
The Heart is a Mandala.
Choices to Baffle,
Time conquered Memories,
Sharpness of the Mind,
Like the sparkle in Cola,
Intellect is a Mandala.
A jar wrapped in Silk,
Holding the Fragments,
of a colorful Identity,
Disappearing into a Nebula,
FOR I AM A MANDALA
Oct 4, 2018
Oct 4, 2018 at 12:30 PM UTC
You first touched my heart
When I was inside you
Then the gates opened
To a cold, cruel world
You counted my fingers and toes
But something else was missing
Maybe it’s in a picture book:
All those steps to climb
Rules to learn
Angles of pain
The animals collect dust
The bubbles burst
The night lights fade
The seashells lose their sound
The rocking chair breaks
The goldfish die
The mandala dissolves-
But visible bruises heal
Often I blame you for what can’t heal
For what’s inside of me-
The spiral staircase
But for all I know,
I chose you
Why?
Jul 7, 2012
Jul 7, 2012 at 4:19 PM UTC
A road trip with someone
Driving along the long road
Listening to our favorite songs
Singing in the car
Wearing my sundress
Taking polaroid pictures
Standing on the field of flowers
Looking at you with shy smile
Wearing flower crown
Lying on the mandala blanket
Reading poetry books
Sitting under at the blushing sunset sky
Watching the sun disappear
Candle lights
Sleeping under the stars
Talking about life and dreams
Making memories
Forgetting the world
Jun 24, 2017
Jun 24, 2017 at 5:17 AM UTC
nimbus clouds
evoke
apparitions
of evolved
yogis sitting
lotus
deep in
states
of solitary
mindfulness
rules of
law
tales of
prophets
no longer
apply
yesterdays
pristine portraits
crumpled into
dust
compose today's
Mandala
memories
of fables
accruing
critical mass
become
nimbus clouds
Oakland
3/6/11
jbm
Mar 13, 2011
Mar 13, 2011 at 9:56 AM UTC
the soul of bees
proximity to the hive mind
recurring swarming. accumulation
cloudy cobwebs, the insects that were caught in your corrosion
your corridor zone
glide up her back alley grey train on the wish biscuit
the rochochet eagle
the prizm mandala, triangle
and the tree prizms, how is your teleScope working?
how is your VibroScope?
who is your ally through the great dark
the cavernous mystery
Oct 5, 2014
Oct 5, 2014 at 2:39 PM UTC
O Madiba! Madiba your ship has finally come to rest
Rest now, now rest, for peace was your bequest.
Humiliated, disgraced, yet in captivity you chose
By embracing your enemy, you learnt and rose.
Insulted, assaulted, assaulting, at fault,
Lover, Soldier, for Justice, for God’s sake!
Stop work, break bread, water and salt
And follow in his wake.
O Madiba! Tata Madiba you who have overcome
A true mandala spun, a Nelson who has won
Overcoming loneliness, cowardice and fear.
Bravery but a blindness brought on by all held dear.
Shame, defeated, blame, defeated, fame -
Let all come, let all shake,
Same blood, same, all the same,
And follow in his wake.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 12:07 PM UTC
Loss is a heart drawn in the sand like a mandala,
Or bravery built like a sandcastle,
Too close to the edge of the sea when the tide comes
Slowly washing away every last grain,
Every speck of courage
Built up to walk across the boardwalk
To the end of the pier to look her in the eyes
And smile without an awkward, nervous giggle
To ask her to dance.
Her elegant wrist rests on the old, wooden
Pier guard rail that contrasts
With her soft, creamy hazelnut skin.
Her hair is backlit, gloriously
Set on fire, revealing her radiance.
You are not ready yet and all your plans are sure to fail.
The salt in the air is thick in your throat
As you notice how large the ocean is behind her,
And how high up the planks of wood you’re standing on
Rise above the crashing waves.
Loss is yours because you turn away
A few steps from deeper waters.
The wooden boards beneath you creak.
Nov 24, 2011
Nov 24, 2011 at 6:37 PM UTC
in a heat like this you forget you have a stomach, patina’d as it is with shame. the junction of thigh and hip is a bear-trap. what do you and bears have in common? a bracelet of red dents at the wrist and no escape. anyways, keep trying. the four-by-four cube of yourself gives slowly, like a mattress or lung, something to be punctured. there, the air is water-soft. the walls are cream, not pink, but still you wait for threshold to meet threshold, for the mandala-fold of ribs to fall away. come winter this womb of cream will expel you a reborn thing, with fur.
Jul 9, 2015
Jul 9, 2015 at 12:42 PM UTC
I read the Bible, totally
To consecrate me.
I read Castaneda avidly
To elevate me.
To teach myself to speak
I wrote poetry.
To calm my neuroses
I performed musically.
The sky above me
The earth below
So much about this world
That I do not know.
I am definitely an animal
But not so very wild.
Yet not so very different
Than I was as a child.
I learned all the verses
They taught me in school.
I tried to heed the warnings
Not grow up as a fool.
I memorized the advice
From those who seemed to care.
I counted all my blessings
And did not forget to share.
It’s not always easy
The lessons from school.
It takes a lot of courage
To live by the Golden Rule.
When life doesn't go right
As it will to all good men,
I remember all the good I did
And then do it all again.
The sky above me
The earth below
So much about this world
That I do not know.
I am definitely an animal
But not so very wild.
Yet not so very different
Than I was as a child.
Oct 18, 2016
Oct 18, 2016 at 2:10 PM UTC
I am going to die
Someone tripped my breaker
I swim in the sparks
Thinner lines of longitude
Meet tangentially above
The third eye.
A veil is dropped and I
See the spinning mandala
Colors drip in lateral formations
Each line crosses
Infinitely deep in every direction
Bisecting me
Pay attention now
You are dying
You will tear through the veil
******* in the first breath
Cold air
The buzzing is around you
Warm glowing life forms
They sing songs!
Music of shape and color
Cyan and lilac notes
Fluttering from their bodies
Their songs spark and lightning
Through my body filling me with joysorrowlustpainguiltecstacy
Arcing off of my skin
Leaving long gaseous, crimson-green trails through the buzz of light
Watch me!
Look at this
Do you see what I can do?
Do you see, young one?
The souls gather around me
Whispering the secret of the ******
We laugh together at the simplicity of it all
They show me their playthings shaped
Totem poles of fractal colors impossibly
Spinning on a string of deoxyribonucleic acid
Quadruple helices infinitely intricate strands
Dripping diamonds in hues of color I cannot name
It didn't last long
Knowing the secret of it all
Go back now
To your bed
Back to your dimension
Don't try to remember us
We are multidimensional
Children casting tridemensional
Shadow puppets upon your dimly lit cave walls
Oh Demon! Oh archangel! Oh fairy! Ghost!
You foolish primate
Smearing your cave walls with words
Try to figure us out, shall you?
We are forgotten like a dream
Stop
Stop
Stop
The walls are alien
And the impossible
Shattered bloom on each surface
Sing and vibrate
It feels as If I have been here before. As if it has always been but I am allowed to see behind the curtain
Join the club
Join the club
We vibrate inside plant matter
Inside each atom we dance
Recreate us in your mind's eye dearest vertebrate
Watch us swim in and out of your memories
We have left our fingerprints upon the archaic machinery
Of your central nervous system
We are here
You are here
We are everywhere stop looking
We probe and poke at you
And sometimes we ancient-ones bend down and kiss you on the lips
You strange humans always exclaiming: Déjà vu
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 10:23 PM UTC
The first time I saw your face
It was the most beautiful flower
I had ever seen
A mandala of perfection.
Bringing me
Absolute peace
How could I not
But love you.
Nov 4, 2021
Nov 4, 2021 at 10:45 AM UTC