"watchfulness" poems
*
From childhood to this age
From birth to death
*Until you met me with
Glimpse of LOVE
Everything was a mirage*
All the time....
Wherever I see & feel
Every image, sound,
Words & touch are fake
*Until you met me with
A Glance of LOVE
Everything was a mirage*
From the first breathe till last
From sunrise to sunset
From short-to-long sight
From oceans to peaks
From night to morning
From sleeping to awakening
From watchfulness to awareness
*Until you met me
With a touch of LOVE
Everything was a mirage*
The mirage of LOVE that evaded me
Your LOVE removed me the starkness of
Life's illusions & delusions
*Until you met me
The eyes that were just dreaming of LOVE
Your LOVE made "LOVE" a reality
Till then everything was a mirage*
The paths that we walk endlessly
The insomnia before and after LOVE
Those tears that I cried for LOVE
*Until you met me
And led me to your LOVE fragrance
Everything was a mirage*
We've crossed every line
Into each other's shades
After all this time
LOVE has crawled back
Out of my desert mirage
In your oceanic BLUES
*Until you met e
And showed me
The ABSOLUTE TRUTH of your LOVE
Everything was a mirage*
My despair has become hope
The breathe is deeper & stable now
The heart is calmer in peace
My soul is flying high
In the wings of your flight
*Until you met me
And sparkled your LOVE on me
Everything was a mirage*
*
Nov 4, 2018
Nov 4, 2018 at 11:20 PM UTC
Tes pas, enfants de mon silence,
Saintement, lentement placés,
Vers le lit de ma vigilance
Procèdent muets et glacés.
Personne pure, ombre divine,
Qu’ils sont doux, tes pas retenus !
Dieux !… tous les dons que je devine
Viennent à moi sur ces pieds nus !
Si, de tes lèvres avancées,
Tu prépares pour l’apaiser,
À l’habitant de mes pensées
La nourriture d’un baiser,
Ne hâte pas cet acte tendre,
Douceur d’être et de n’être pas,
Car j’ai vécu de vous attendre,
Et mon coeur n’était que vos pas.
In English:
Your footsteps, children of my silence,
Saintly, slowly placed
Towards the bed of my watchfulness,
Approach, muted and frozen.
Pure one, divine shadow,
How gentle, your cautious steps are!
Gods! …all the gifts that I can guess
Come to me on those naked feet!
If, with your lips advancing,
You are preparing to appease
The inhabitant of my thoughts
With the sustenance of a kiss,
Do not hurry this tender act,
Bliss of being and not being,
For I have lived for waiting for you,
And my heart was only your footsteps.
Nov 21, 2015
Nov 21, 2015 at 6:18 AM UTC
So stick up ivy and the bays,
And then restore the heathen ways.
Green will remind you of the spring,
Though this great day denies the thing.
And mortifies the earth and all
But your wild revels, and loose hall.
Could you wear flowers, and roses strow
Blushing upon your ******* warm snow,
That very dress your lightness will
Rebuke, and wither at the ill.
The brightness of this day we owe
Not unto music, masque, nor show:
Nor gallant furniture, nor plate;
But to the manger’s mean estate.
His life while here, as well as birth,
Was but a check to pomp and mirth;
And all man’s greatness you may see
Condemned by His humility.
Then leave your open house and noise,
To welcome Him with holy joys,
And the poor shepherd’s watchfulness:
Whom light and hymns from heaven did bless.
What you abound with, cast abroad
To those that want, and ease your load.
Who empties thus, will bring more in;
But riot is both loss and sin.
Dress finely what comes not in sight,
And then you keep your Christmas right.
3k
methinks thou confuseth
thy heart's impatient beating
with the tremulous and sonorous
summation of the immeasurable
wail of clocks ticking, begging,
listen!
these wondrous matches glorious
arranged in heaven,
where weighty watches
and yellowed human calendars
long ago dismissed, irrelevant,
discarded.
marked full well,
they did
upon thy heart,
when as babe
you drew first breath.
when thou will receive
love's bounty,
nothing more and nothing
less.
heavenly their watchfulness eternal,
impatience does not grant favour
to love long lasting,
ever true,
even if struck anew
with first impatient glance,
for much thought and endeavor,
masterfully planned,
thy turn scheduled,
recorded, awaiting only
for inevitable
discovery.
for though the streams of spring
rush full fleshed,
swollen forward,
thy truest love is
best read in the
gentle constance of
a gentle lake's
modest waves lapping,
like a beloved's
best ring finger
stroking thy cheek
in one continuous
caressing.
need not thou lament,
nor groan
with impatient travail,
fare thee well,
for the sails,
the course inexorable,
the destination prescribed,
foretold and heralded
upon the flags of thy eyes,
the banner of thy words,
that rest prepared upon
thy fullest and hungry
lips.
chance is but a
secondary miscreant,
whose role is but as narrator.
let's him speak infrequent,
but when comes his time
to conduct his sale,
well behooves you to
listen to that littlest of voices
you so oft disregard,
victim of your willful
fears!
the time, the play, the locale
all matched and set,
now we await only
your demonstration and forbearance
to honest augur the
greatest courage
to speak the hardest phrase
e're spoke:
I love thee more than myself.
for whence
can only be,
when thou breakbeat
the chains accursedly nominated as
Me First.
shout the key out loud
In the hour, nay, the instance,
thy first believe,
then long life and long love
can then
and
only then
commence.
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 11:41 AM UTC
Is it rude to lean my boots, that which touches the ground, without any kind of discretion or watchfulness, up against the toilet seat and tie them up neat, into little bows?
I'll never know, I suppose, whose bottom will sit, and **** where I thought it appropriate to mend my un-laced foot.
Is it non-sensical and insensible to stare off into space, breath heavily, and pause in mid edit, while a handsome chap, inside and out, walks past with a stranger? "Call out his name," No, heavens no, do not call out his name.
Are our engagements forever fleeting? Am I to arrange the next meeting? "It's the 21st century," he retorts one day, "I gave you the wrong idea," the next. Wrong idea? Just because we woke up and smoked a **** together and discussed the pros and cons of city life versus country life doesn't mean you gave me any ideas, I just thought you liked me.
Wrong idea? Idea, the conception, misconception, that your touching my naked body, meant that from there on out, we were going steady, and I was to call.
The 21st century, is all that it is cracked up to be.
And I am cracking up, outwardly, while I muse.
Inwardly, I am cracking.
Needless to say, Athens county should most surely stop fracking.
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 6:23 PM UTC
GLIMPSE
My heart a pouch of rich wine overlays yours
a drop of blood spilled over an arum lily
waits with longing intense, retains no tears
as it remembers its cringes of final fear when it
jumped into your chest of steel, smell of fruit juice, water and old leather all around
My soul lays naked in a room of light while your music plays next door
two plumed serpents dance slow dances to rhythms of drums and pipes, notes of knowingness, sounds repeated
I listen again and again
Spacious a white room waits aged and innocent
in a no-zone forest of mushrooms, poppies and pebbles as the piano vibrates with silence
while Goddess does not speak of a mission that never ends, watching for symbols that appear and vanish while progress moves worse than a snail with a footsore over splintered glass
Surrender struggles to be free !
Drops in space hung on Venus threads
******* heaving and falling, passing tests of temperance, strength, solitude
swallow death and darkened silence deep
in a psyche of five thousand years
Across oceans of space my thoughts travel
not knowing whether they reach your light or
hermit in your head or the warehouse in which
you play with waves of froth on ***** sand
seals and gulls glide and shout
A lighthouse looks on still and sure
muck in the harbour awaits an embrace
fried chips beckon and call to fill my open belly of waiting Sun as love struggles for freedom on a higher plane with yours in ether on a wall I read
Still you sleep a hundred thousand sleeps of
fear and watchfulness
in the distance runs Skeleton Woman with tangled bones to be untangled
knowing that long ago she completed her work
of inner peace with honours
Spartacus and Helen looking on
I wait not for you alone but to fill your Heart
for another work of love, to drink your tears
slate your thirst ~become one, two, three to
ten again as dough rises with surprises inside
eggs fresh full, two yolks and cream to be
eaten on a jetty of harmonious voids
Love lost and found, lost and found
all over again
©ghairodanielspoetryandsong2003
Sep 11, 2025
Sep 11, 2025 at 4:55 AM UTC
It's the twilight of December
early dark
And the Mother Goddess
In her slumber sleeps
and dreams,
Like the fog
she moves stealthy
on tip toe
Across the sky
The Moon
like a swollen belly
drifting silent and alone
in frozen space
smiles
in her watchfulness
of Earth Mother
and laughs
a Crones laugh
December 21 2013, Raven
Dec 22, 2013
Dec 22, 2013 at 1:14 AM UTC
I have lived a life of turbulent experience's, you see
I know of others who have experienced much more disturbance
They were the ones whose watchfulness took protective care of me
This is the route Our Father granted to teach His lesson
To love one another in all circumstances
In life within the turbulent sea
In preparation for all He needs me to be
Thank you to all who have led me
To acknowledgement of the Lords truth
Through this turbulent sea
For those still experiencing the turbulent waves
Upon this tumultuous sea of life's route
We are all traveling upon
I pray daily that the Spirit will lead you
To the calming of the storm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL, CONTINUE TO SHOW DEEP LOVE FOR EACH OTHER, FOR LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF
SINS
1PETER 4:8
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 9:27 PM UTC
I’ve entered the Inner Passage
Thought of as the safe route to Alaska
Protected by friendly coves and sheltered bays
Shields voyagers from the uncertainties
Of the tectonics of a heaving Pacific
The Inner Passage
A compass point of
Jack London’s imagination
Spinning fantastic adventure yarns
of audacious Sea Wolf sailors
And rugged fortune seekers
Answering the call of the wild
The Inner Passage
Fraught with hidden shoals
And submerged rocky promontories
Lay just below the water line
Jutting on the steep banks
Of a glaciated mountain lined sea
The Inner Passage
Precludes an easy escape
To the boundless freedom
Of the open seas
One cannot sail away
One must firmly
grab the wheel
Guide the rudder
map the terra firma
Of a misconstructed life
The hazards and mishaps
Buried in the unconscious sands of the mind
interred to protect the heart
From the walking ghosts
Springing to life
Emboldening
The daily aches of living
The Inner Passage
Seemingly the safe route
Yet the hidden shoals
The ship wrecks
crews of stranded castaways
Call out for recovery, resurrection,
Watchfulness and recognition
Careful navigation is required
To salvage the wreckage
Rescue the unfortunate victims
Of the disasters and gales
I engendered along
my life's journey
The Inner Passage
A promise of rebirth
Reconstitution, recovery
“Can a man enter the womb again?”
The Gospel writer asks.
This inner passage may yet
Deliver me to a reinvigorated life
Let me uncover
What lies deep
In my tell tale heart
Let me tame
the mighty beasts of the sea
That rule the fathomless waters
Of my tumultuous emotions
May Thy Will and a better course
Heal my restive soul
My I finally free
my grounded vessel
From the false sanctuary
Offered by shallow shoals
Freeing me to dive deep
Into the hidden reefs
Of my heart and mind
May this pilgrim make good progress
May I accept life on life's terms
May I practice a well considered
engaged stewardship
May I never arrive at a staid place
And become wholesomely satisfied
with a serene state of being
The Inner Passage
Indeed a difficult voyage
Is underway
a new course mapped
I will pass through
The dark ranges where the
Commanding heights of
Fear, anger, resent and regret
Become nothing more
Then the precipitous peaks
Of a harmless silhouette
Fading away into the mist
Of yesterday's twilight
The Inner Passage
Aboard the Kennicott
Near Ketchikan, AK
8.22.19
jbm
Michael Nyman
The Piano
Aug 22, 2023
Aug 22, 2023 at 4:50 PM UTC
Known, let it be--of sight inhaling the fragrance
of roses...of touch hearing the impactful sounds
of stones sacramentally tasted.
The senses shall be as misappropriated goods
in an open air market--coveted by a Singularity
that shall bore them away.
By blameless necessitation what sense took its
turn of sense...called upon by a thoroughgoing
life.
That life solemnly sworn to solidified places of
light--whose need of need, aggrieves not its
reversion to light, but shines upon flesh's folding.
As every burden reaches for its reason, reaching
what's unburdened by virtue that reach.
As Virgil guided Dante through the dark wood,
he was once guided to offer guidance, the
unbreakable watchfulness of crossing paths.
Of guides, there are many--untold many, that the
idea of emptiness at any given moment, is merely
an interchangeability from fullness...ebulliently so.
The senses shall be as misappropriated goods
in an open air market...coveted by a Singularity
that shall bore them away.
Nov 23, 2016
Nov 23, 2016 at 1:00 PM UTC
**In watchfulness and praise,
His holy mount is reached,
He cometh sure to take His Bride,
As the sanctified have preached .
The Christ of the saints will return to the earth,
Rejoice, singing all day,
How good the Lord how great His work,
Rejoice singing all day.
There's harmony and peace
When holiness our aim,
No doubting then when truth we Know,
And all righteousness shun fame.
It's only through His grace,
Redemption we attain,
No dark'ning clouds can mar our sight,
When the kingdom is obtained.
Christ satisfies our hearts,
In trails He gives strength,
With inward might we brave the storms,
And His gentleness our wealth.
Restoreth He the sick,
His scourgings heal our pains,
All Satan's might He crushed for e'er.
Lo! His faithfulness remains.**
Nov 30, 2015
Nov 30, 2015 at 7:10 AM UTC
Known, let it be--of sight inhaling the fragrance
of roses...of touch hearing the impactful sounds
of stones sacramentally tasted.
The senses shall be as misappropriated goods
in an open air market--coveted by a Singularity
that shall bore the away.
By blameless necessitation what sense, took its
turn of sense...called upon by a thoroughgoing
life.
That life solemnly sworn to solidified places of
light--whose need of need, aggrieves not its
reversion to light, but shines upon flesh's folding.
As every burden reaches for its reason, reaching
what's unburdened by virtue that reach.
As Virgil guided Dante through the dark wood,
he was once guided to offer guidance, the
unbreakable watchfulness of crossing paths.
Of guides, there are many--untold many, that the
idea of emptiness, at any given moment is merely
an interchangeability from fullness...ebulliently so.
The senses shall be as misappropriated goods
in an open air market--coveted by a Singularity
that shall bore them away.
Oct 20, 2014
Oct 20, 2014 at 1:14 PM UTC
I have a feeling that someone is watching me
An almost effervescent watchfulness
Clumsy at times but quick to disappear
Not quit self aware
Like looking at yourself in the mirror
Is your reflection there when your not looking?
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 2:34 PM UTC
Almost 4 a.m.
on a misty Kansas morning.
I try to wash away
the sleepiness
from my insomnia crusted eyes.
Flip my racing thoughts
resting on a fresh sheet of paper—
spread so clean it sheens,
like fresh snow on a sunny day.
clean pen and magical colors.
drop and watch in wonderment,
as the colors sink in...
waltzing,
into the white stillness.
words never heard,
until this very moment..,
dancing in my frenzied brain.
the fresh trees reaching out...
a drop of sea, a chilly souvenir,
the stories of sunsets,
peeled back layer after layer...
and a moon laid on lake waters.
a tender breath of mystery...
a river filled with apparitions
here now—
then gone.
wet roads reflecting,
winding around echoing hills.
the stale winter breeze, now reborn...
floating across the valley as a new dawn.
steam rising from forgotten coffee.
my eyes wary, and then closed.
I feel the calm glow of lights,
the hum of the city,
the silent shadows.
the peace of the morning symphony.
Pen to paper, again,
mind firing untainted tales,
as the pigeons rise.
followed by the squirrel...
and the downstair’s neighbor—
a flick and puff of his first vice.
a new chapter, a clear desire.
the trees rise, the day rises.
night slowly walks,
forward.
onwards,
towards the
spring morning, reborn.
Jul 14, 2020
Jul 14, 2020 at 9:12 AM UTC
How ironic that some people run before they even truly see in me what there is to run from.
I am kind, perhaps too kind for you,
But I am not what you see.
I would be too sweet if not for my core.
I hide a quiet sort of watchfulness,
The sort a snake has before it strikes, the sort a jaguar has when it sees prey and all the world narrows and compresses to a point
Just out of distance.
I am not the blood. I am the teeth.
And I lie down with lambs who think they're lions, let them walk on me, let them lead.
How much easier people are to know when they think you weak!
And I have no need to use my power, no agenda, no want it would serve to let my nature slip.
Why then should I rise and bare my teeth?
Let them pass, let them sleep,
I have more to hunt than pride and fear:
I could make you kneel but WHY?
To be feared is not to be loved.
To be feared is not to be respected.
If I do not have your respect when I am small
It means nothing when I have expanded,
When I grow tall and loom, my shadow throwing darkness over your pale, surprised face.
All my life with this strong, lithe, wild thing I have lived
And it has crouched within me,
Waiting.
Sometimes it snarls, sometimes it tenses with such an urge to spring
That I must turn away and hold my head to hold it in,
But never once have we-
My beast and I-
Found a reason great enough to strike.
Although inside I move with the easy grace
Of something that knows it was born
To rule
To win
Something so settled in power that it has no need to show itself,
Although beneath my brittle china bones and porcelain skin
There lies another layer-
That of sinew and of black inky vigilance,
A sentient shadow.
Within me is that of claws and talons, that of fangs
That of such perfect, suspended stillness...
Within me lies the moment before the candle goes out
Within me breathes already a last breath
Within me is the moment before a kiss
And the moment before the taking of a life
All at once
All the same moment, in the end,
And yet
I kneel.
And yet I give,
And yet I choose love.
And even from this softened form, this gentle disguise
They flee.
Sep 30, 2015
Sep 30, 2015 at 8:24 AM UTC
Give to sorrow, watchfulness.
Give to happiness, no eyes, but its blind eternals.
Give to me, the blind thoughts that can see through humankind.
Apr 28, 2019
Apr 28, 2019 at 1:10 PM UTC
Sun replaces storms and dew sweeps cold winds;
Chests stir to life and feet rush to pray;
To the Lord of the worlds and of nights and all days;
That hearts be pure and washed of all sins;
Legs merge and lower among one another;
With a strong admiration that lasts forever;
Heads rhythmically bow and touch the sacred floor;
Pearls of rewards doubling behind the door;
To the Beauty sweeter than solace;
Much prettier than silk, gold and grace;
To the King of Heavens and days and nights;
To the King of miracles and solitudes and lights;
Praises and glory are floated to Him;
Who is more real than any futile sweet dream;
From Whom memories are never to fall apart;
By Whom peace flows among our very hearts;
Winds may blow while their grass remain green;
But all fear still, the watchfulness of the Unseen;
Who knows where our hands have been;
Who witnesses what our words shall mean;
Who watches what tongues want to say;
Who sees how hearts promise and swerve and lie;
Who stays alive all through the night and day;
Who created the earth, the moon, the stars, and the sky;
So fear not the laughter of this world;
Which is too plain and as false as words;
And dwell ever not in its bland rapture;
Which is as bitter and crude as literature;
And I cry again, ever and everlastingly;
Hearing His sweet and thoughtful sanctity;
His Words that are as tight as the rainbow;
His Words that I want to hear still, tomorrow;
And I recall again all those warm phrases;
And of their pretty scarves and natural laces;
But can I only be here, by the window to hear;
Listening with pain, by my own white pool of tears;
While inside flows again those rains of virtues;
That I once liked and ever wished to choose;
The belief to which I longed to vow;
The febrile phrases my heart used to know.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 7:30 PM UTC
Some hours later, night having fallen over Lisboa, It was Clara who sat in the loveseat while Ta'ra was asleep. Simon kept graveyard hours, partly from work, partly from an ingrained watchfulness that only ever left him in the small hours before dawn. So it was a usual occurrence for the two woman to sleep and wake and find him still active and awake, cooking or writing or at work, sometimes just staring aimlessly at the skyline of the Almafa. Clara was speaking of her loves and loyalties to him, no guitar for her though. Her gifts were the brush and her voice, both of which had always held a power over men. Her life had been one of passions only half felt, half lived, an object to be possessed by those she enraptured with a whisper in the ear or a sketch on a napkin.
"You speak of passion with such...disdain. As if it's something one could do without and be better off..." He looked up at her from the tile floor of the balcony where he was sitting crosslegged like some aesthetic. She smiled her full, rich smile down at him and then turned away, knowing this was a man she had tried to conquer, and failed. She had known he couldn't be swayed the way most were the first night in Tangier while waiting for the ferry. It had been her intention to barter passage from him for what most men think of as passion. Instead he brought them both to his apartment here as roommates, gotten papers for them, helped them start a life that wasn't that of a hunted thing. "Passion is a weakness that brings us away from ourselves, and presents us to someone else's lusts and wants and needs. In the end, we give all we have, and are emptied of life," she whispered, more to herself than Simon. He sighed as one who isn't sure whether he should speak or not. "You say that, and yet I'm attracted to that word, its implications, its many meanings to us. What you think of as passion is so different from what I think of it as, or Ta'ra for that matter." Clara gave a sharp ha! as response, as if she could divine something we mortals were ignorant of. "Isn't that what you two share," he asked, "passionate love? For eachothers' bodies? Your souls? I hear the two of you, envy it sometimes you know. I haven't been lost within someone completely like that in a very long time." Turning back and staring at him hard before speaking, she slowly and precisely told him that he would never understand what that really was between the two women, because he was a man.
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 3:35 AM UTC
She soared above the frozen fields
Melting away the years unused
Budding life on old limbs still
A greening now that by her choose
The brightness burned the gray away
As warm winds bring the seeds to sow
A nightness then is now a day
The sprouts will find a way to grow
Her watchfulness of me her duty
She chose then not to run
Despite my acts to seem unruly
She is still my summer sun
Jun 23, 2018
Jun 23, 2018 at 1:22 AM UTC
In this house,
Volumes raise
In drinks
As in voices
Days dependent
On dad's dependency
Some nights
Bottle bottoms
Brew brutal words
Wonder if he bully's himself with them too
Warned watchfulness
Wait
For the wind up
Hope
For the wind down
Mom's voice tiptoes
When his snores begin to sound
This house
Sighs deeply
Apr 25, 2017
Apr 25, 2017 at 1:03 AM UTC