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Posts Tagged ‘Poetry’

A6concentric2d

SPEAKING IN TONGUES (dream stream)

Drag it through, wiped, stained, dyed, a sop.
This brush awkward,
the hand suffers from doubt,
stutters laden with gold black signs.

The words to use, the words not to use, the ordering of words, the letters of the law.
Stumbling into gaps, minding the gaps, the howling winds, the imminent rain. It changes everything and nothing. A shaman’s song summoning, departing on the wind. Three worlds by far is not enough, is too much. The twelve halls of the Aesir, joy and feasting in each one, even Ullr’s dark vale.

This script unlocks avenues,
makes actors vapours,
vapours actors.

Howling time, death-watch seconds. Do we care which demons are summoned, so long as they stream in and tell us: now it is real, now those wishes will become ripe and fall, now there will become meaning to all the suffering.
Who is it who sings, no sirens, no silkies, no fatuus igni? The chimes, the bells across the fields mingling with the blackbirds. In the cooling evening so silently the apple blossom peels seconds apart, minute by minute, statuesque, the light holds back, turns solid.

The song is not and is,
Each word offering gifts of meaning
Obscuring invention
Reducing points to lines
The gap, the space,
The disenchanted exquisiteness of it
Enough to breed madness
Or eloquence
Or a flutter of coincidence
The coming together of likes.
The burning of division.
A drum of words, rhythm and shock, imitation of emotion, the ruin of time.
Belonging to, not belonging to, lists, listen to the names,
Each name
a thousand new names,

Each placed here and here in the dark body ’til it glistens, quickens, revives, re-dreams those vast cascades. Smallest shattering of lives, fragmenting to combine into consonant and vowel, the thousand names of every god, every hall, every realm, every storm over the enchanted forest where the golden boys play, the golden boys with golden hair, who watch but take no part in each inevitable slaughter.

A dream only,
a day of dream,
a feast of dream,
an amusement of titans,
a hypothesis of worlds.
The heart singing alone.
The soul’s shape as song.
An ululation.
A speaking in tongues.

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jade beach1

ON JADE BEACH

On Jade Beach,
Looking out west,
Indigo and white, the sea.
Ripples, woven ikat patterns
By the cold wind.

We could not tell
What was precious,
Nor what bestowed
Immortality:
Pockets weighed down
With smoothed fragments
Of beauty.

Dark pine leans out.
An arc of dark sand.
White, cold wind from the mountains.

These pebbles were mountains,
This sea, spring rains.
Looking for signs of heaven,
Dreaming of jade rivers.

Six foot of snow
Deep in the hills.
Inside the grass-roofed houses,
Warm and dark:
Silk-drying racks,
Rice-harvest regalia.

The big drum is silent
But its roundness
Fills up the valleys
All around.

Our footprints along the ice paths
Melted, flowed into the bay.
The cedars redden again with pollen,
Rust-red in the sharp sunlight.

On smooth black sand
The tide rolls a pebble
To and fro.

Your fingertips
Impressed on clay tea-bowl rim.
The fragrance of memory
Bitter and bright.

These roads we take
So winding,
It is difficult to recall
The last views of the sea,
The last of the sunset.
Go on,
We shall not be far behind.

Down to the sea
Looking for immortality.

*****

jade beach8

BLEAK WIND

(no reason why
It should come up.
No reason why
It should not.
Remembering
The last time we saw you
Burdened but smiling
Far over the mountain passes
Down by the sea
Laughter along the shore
Dark pines listening
A bleak wind
Mountain still deep in snow)

****

THE WAY IT IS

no need to wait
no need to look back.
we are all following,
one by one.
the winding path
into deep mountain
stillness.

***
jade beach2

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MOTHER MOON

She pours it all out,

Empty, ringing.

She knows

Fullness will come again,

And she will pour

Herself empty

Without regret.

Teach us,

Mother moon.

****

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A RIDDLE OF BELONGING

Bright fragment of morning,
this view,
not all,
but sufficient to pause and breathe,
soaking in time,
a flavour hardly remembered,
orbited.

The layers of this, a riddle
Unfolding, rambled,
Conjured, tranced,
Misdirected.

Fleeing far from home,
We wander about
Nostalgic
For pastel dream.

Unable to re-insert,
Wriggle into that,
We cluster, eyes dreamy,
Around flaming fires
‘Til they smoke and splutter,
And we stretch, ache-limbed,
Search for farther fuel.

To stave the rain
We coccoon in caves,
Freeze dust and mud,
Roof in stone,
Limit light,
Fabricate, imitate, colour,
Desire to own our own,
Where, we say, the heart is.
A hope more habit,
More prison, more excuse,
Than our tiny world allows.

Somewhere
To return to
After filling time
Wasting time,
Validating use
In useless works.
A headlong career,
Slippery, cold, gravy train,
Glutinous, pasting days,
Covering over the cracks,
Crevasses of blue depthlessness,
Fractures within the slick logic.

To avoid that rupture
The mind replaced, time left over filled
With the chattering jingled dreams.
No need now to think,
All image offered up:
The screen of wisdom
Around whom we
Are satillites,
Moths
Failing to see
Our own burning wings,
The flicker of time
Eating timelessness,
Eating alternatives.

Clouds fill the day,
Sun and moon
Tell us all.
We float, evaporating,
Watching weather forecasts.

We have slipped between words
Singing inane hymns
To drown silence.
We who were born
To swim
The silences
Between moments
Between stars
Between heavens and hells,
To be at home,
Though homeless,
Silent
And singing,
Simultaneous,
In and out,
Seer and seen,
A field flowering,
Fragrant perception.

No longer fighting angels,
We become surrogate.
Subdued, swaying,
Conveniently untroubled,
Pacified.

****

sparked by a quote by Derrick Jensen, and a post by Ruth at:

http://inscendence.com/making-ourselves-at-home/

These words consider the layers of shell, of desire for a tangible home, a longing for belonging, the dreams fabricated within dreams. Mazed, chasing butterflies off cliffs….

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MAY, KISSED

White puddle

Seed cools

Moon damp

Blue

Sky bed.

May dawn

Opening

Long-limbed,

Dewed.

Kissed, one

By one

Each fold

Each hollow.

Sun-covered,

Warmed,

Held.

****

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20130430-190635.jpg
print of ‘Light of Beltane’ created from tree and other plant spirit symbols
*****

THE COOL GREEN FIRES OF BELTANE

These wild mad-eyed men
Fire burning souls, heart-clawed:
Let them cool and rest
Under the dapple of trees,
Let them silent learn to smile,
Let them melt a little
Considering this fragrant air
sufficient, replete.
Breeze-filled, bird-filled,
A hammock for goodness.

Let them drop their hunger,
The carving of empires,
The bitter profits of belief,
The fierce ambitions for more.

Let them love their sons and daughters
And let them remember the open woods.
Let them not fear heaven nor hells
But let them halt and watch
The small things gather, delighted,
Learning the blessing of trees.

Let the heart melt in May,
Let the skin warm, flesh relax, soul unfurl.
For there is a glory to find beneath all things
And it shall shine through
Enough for any,
Enough for all.
Life under trees.

Let the mountains remain open
Let the valleys be all in green shade
Comforted, rocked, whispered.
For there are sufficient deserts,
Howling emptinesses we need no more of,
No more cleansings nor clearings
Nor impositions of sterile order.

Let the heart melt into May,
The cool green fires of Beltane.
Let the soul, with the souls of all, unfurl,
The branching year blossoming.

Beyond is the cool airs turning warm,
Beyond is a place to rest completed,
Beyond is the dream of violet shimmer
The hum of summer, the nest of light.
Under trees, cooled, dappled, blessed.

*****

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20130430-100447.jpg

****

STRUNG OUT ( a bereft history of every sing)

In the beginning,
The worm word:
Strung thin sound.
Hesitant, looped
Monochord.
Free:
As much as it wanted,
Tied:
Either end an anchor
Of some
it
or other.

Simple,
Soon tangled
( darned attraction
Of molecular
soup).

A good idea
Scribbled over.
Attempts at,
Forgetful of.

Seriously playful,
Now only
Serious, panicked
Lost, mazed
Trapped
Traipsing time
Tired
But unable to
Prevent
Echo, mutter,
Wild laughter.

Self portait-
The void black
Reflection
Dilated pupils
Staring, straining
Into space.

Midnight skitters,
Meaning pretends
Itself.
Vocal chord,
Knotted, node,
A gap between
Wuh, wuh, words.

****

something to do with the primacy of sound, language, self-referencing mixed in with cosmogenesis, DNA as a jam session ( that slick four-piece polyrhythmic jive), a quote from Robert Musil, via N. Filbert ( jump starter of my brain). Souped up silence, those seers who strive beyond language, return from heaven stumbling and drunk, stutt, tut, tutter. I place on the tip of my tongue a consonant of fire, a vowel of air, extinguished by a sliver of spittle, mistakenly taken as a reason, a viewpoint, what is only a howl of sound, a pushchaired child hooting for echoes in cavern subways….

20130430-100523.jpg

the images are some sketches of the seed syllable ‘hung’, one of the three primal sounds of manifesting mind that may or may not become paint or silver or more words at some point

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FLUX AND FLAME
( for Master Jewellers, Jesa and Al Marshall
on their 10th year in business)

Gold and silver:
The softness there
Of sun and moonlight.
No use
But to adorn time
In timeless glow.

The most valued
Of things
Of no use
But beauty
Itself.

Heart’s desire:
Only
To possess
And to be possessed
Of beauty.

Folded starlight
Folded suns
Burnished
Offered
To adorn
Our dust.

The world made new,
Made glorious
By each small thing.

One moment
Of beauty
Vanquishes
The darkest day.

This body,
This world:
A gift
From a
Million suns.

****

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20130424-205506.jpg

ST. GEORGE’S DAY ( April 23) (dream stream)

Emblazoned,
A green field.
Light rampant,
Golden-haired,
Erect.

Last night’s stars, last night’s meteors, showers of light as we plummet dark towards the spin of centre, the galactic hum.

Last night’s shooting stars
see them scattered sparkling
on the green grass of morning.

St. George’s Day bright with a sword edge in the wind. Little lambs sleeping warm in the sun. Guardian’s day, the land’s day. We who are, who are we, a part and portion, a flock hovering, gliding down to feed. Our field, bordered and named, bred of us, born and bearing us, dirt and soil grasped, the smell of it, the smell of bone and memory, the deepest smell. The redolent sound reverberates from in to out. Sound beyond, sound within. Nothing that does not vibrate and sing hymns to itself and its innocent exuberant expansion.

Awoken with sounds taking form,
star whispers filling echoing corners.
Placing sounds and syllables.
Taking time and running it
still to watch.

Lanced, vanquished, absorbed, armour to armour, name to name, sound to sound, the neigh of horse, jingle of rein, rasp of scaled iron claw on rock, hiss of expelled flame. The conflict of vowel and consonent. Pinned, wings upraised, the word is formed, dragon-mind gives up and yields to sword-tongue, shield palette. They are not two nor many, those actions, these seconds, these words. They are the stretched thin ever-now, the elongated serpentine, elementally configured, evolution of instance.
He rears up, he severs skin, subdues, subjugates, becomes monster. Not two but one. Bound together as icon, sound and form. Primal hunter hunted, eater eaten, seer seen. Send out from each eye a spear of mind, ineluctably, inevitably hooked, united, absorbed, absolved of difference, a flow of electrons. Eye to eye, saint and demon, exchange sky and earth, fire and tears. One, redundant without the other. Standing waves, crest and trough, a rippled ecstatic hum, white noise of endlessness, gong of falling away.

I shall sink into sound now,
sink into sound, name the names,
place the branched syllables,
string myself naked for nine days,
sacrifice, sacred act,
forget and recall the way the tongue
touches tooth exploding instruction,
an exhalation of daylight,
sparks, stars, a spittle of,
a shaft of,
a spear of.

Purring back and becoming the wriggle of the living heart, forged and cast, caparisoned in echoes. Sound shelled within sound. An eggshell heaven tumbling with birdsong. It savours the roundness of the day. Exhales cloud, tumbling, scudding. A roar that might be sea, might be forest, might be time itself, enfolding shield, vanquished and glorious, golden and slain in the morning.
The giant from whom the world is formed. The jester has slain the king. He takes a golden bow, winks, farts and dissappears. High minded flatulence of patriotism, set to against demons and heretics, the giants of the wilderness. The old names abide, whispered.

A little right
and a wealth of wrong.
To image is to fix.
To fix is to miss the point.
The heart of itself is severed and expires.

A parable of all things, as well as a description, as well as a poem, as well as a mimicked riddle. High on his horse, self-appointed and righteous, the knight rides out to do good. He will go native before nightfall. Seduced by the rainbow sinews of maidens. Then we shall see pierced flanks in the spring, hilltops yearning for a splice of passionate light. We shall see a might entering in and an entering out, a trouncing, a gasping pant of travail. It shall scatter the roosts, it shall raise the heads of deer in the trees. A mighty union there shall be. No battle but a dance, a molecular dance, strings knotted, syllables severed from dictated meaning, wrapped only into its own involution.

Saint and dragon lover,
each echoing sighs,
the fire of tangled nerve
shooting out to the horizon’s edge.
A green shield lies the field.
A sparrowhawk hesitates,
turns and dives.
Silence inside silence.
Sound itself,
a swallow in new skies,
expanding.

****

20130424-205546.jpg

(the images are from a series of sketches I have been making to turn into silver pendants. Dragon energies are a fascinatingly robust archetype of earth/solar/cosmic sentience and as such are a fertlie ground for internal explorations in matters of consciousness and deep ecology)

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20130422-224423.jpg

NAMED

My name is
‘far from home’

My name is
‘forgotten, lost,
Misplaced’

I name myself
Under all the names
Others have bestowed.
I name myself the seed
The root, the star
Hid by cloud.

I name myself
‘moonlight on roofs’,
Hugged hollowness,
Footsteps echoing.

I name myself
‘mystery, scribble,
Equation’
Mistaken meaning,
A long road alone.

I name myself
‘roaring voice,
Bitterness, waker’
Too polite to manifest
World’s joy in wrath.

I name myself
‘uncertainty principle,
Void, precipice’.
Carrying a carapace,
A studied, practiced armour.

I name myself
‘foolish mirror,
Cascading breath,
Contusion of thought,
Knot’.
A persistence of error,
Circuitous conclusion,
Stumbled silence.

I name myself
‘No one is alone,
Wedded to their shadow’
Given form, formed,
Framed, fragmented.
By their shade
shall ye know them.

I name myself
‘rapture, remote view,
Releaser, pinion,
Branch, web, slurry’.
A cascade of chivied cells
Unconcerned, nested.

I name myself
‘shattered, frozen,
rainbow’
Shard spinning,
Glint and gone.

Each name an edge,
An arrived at limit,
A turning away.

Each, a thin ledge
Gratefully clung to,
A place to leap from.

I name myself
‘not object, not subject.’
I name myself
‘vowel’ with no
Restraining consonant,
A howl,
No glottal stop.

The sound of morning.
The sound of evening.
I call myself
‘remaining,
Abiding,
Concealment’.

****

( the sketch is for a silver pendant i am designing: dragon dance. Sort of sums up flaming throught the void that these words also evoke, I think)

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