Untitled

emerging visions emerging visions

Alchemy

Simple acceptance
The dancer with the dance
entering pre-dawn mystery
quiet interval, enchanting music.
Undulating reverie
alone in Hekate's garden
breathing in the memory
of jasmine and spice.
Weary roads have been traveled
crossroad to crossroad
the journey continues.
Weary days have found sustanence
in secreted hovels, dimestore romance.
Convoluted talk, empty gestures,
soul-less ritual
take up the stitches of time.
Some brave midnight
if I learn my lessons well
I will eat the fruits of Hekate's garden
dancing in piquant reverie
leaving my tears and anguish
along the windswept trail,
ebuillent music
dancing me
as the Goddess kisses
my tearstains into
gold.

Aquarian Dreams

Open your third eye
And your fourth
And your fifth
Make a wish
And wrap it up in bubblegum
Stick it to your bedpost
To dream itself awake
Into your dream
That is your life.

There are wishes made of water
Waving out to sea
Caught up in grievery
Cat-tails weeping
Weaving eerie reverie
Into the evening
Into the night
All through those dreamy,
Unaware of the hours days.

There are prophetic dreams.
They haunt or
Creep upon conscious walls.
Tell all is not
As simple as it seems.
There are reasons, portents, allies.

There are dreams
That wishes would simply die for.
They take us out of bounds
Into faery realms and more.
Sprinkling gold spun out of
Shining love and merriment.
Yes! The very mint
That stamps us sold,
That fulfills our greatest hopes,
Flies us to heights above
The most benign of clouds,
Sets our spirits free.

There are dreams
That bind
Define identities
Expose deformities
Deny extremities
Create barriers and rifts
Look to differences
As definitions
Defend what they define.

There are dreams,
There are dramas,
There are visions.
Tell me yours,
I'll tell you mine.

Armageddon

Gathering clouds
debating the contours
of a marvelous storm
building up
electrically
ionically
magnetically
enigmatically
rumbling
deep, deep
chthonic
rhythms
drumming, drumming, drumming
ozone wind
hypnotically
whirling through
opening doors, windows
wormholes
cyclonic chaos raining
raging, sobbing, shrieking
everywhere, everywhere
whirled into miasma
black, stinking, blinding
ripping through
whipping into submission
into ironic splendor
random bits, splinters, slivers
of skin, sprinklings of
vital fluids
wisdom wrought
then flung away
in orgiastic rending
lost in a storm
of biblical proportions

Artist's Paean

My part of the social contract,
my cultural role
is to dig deep down into the depths
of my soul,
which connects to
the collective whole
to fully merge with that landscape
become every bit of soil, every seed,
explore the before, becoming,
bereavement, paint it in color,
texture, tone, in language
that is mine alone
grown from and refeeding
the collective tongue.
Whatever the value we perceive
and pay into the collective budget
to receive
art gives beauty, pleasure, entertainment,
elevation of our mundane experience,
communication of politics and pain,
and ways to sustain intimacy, explain
personal perplexities, move beyond
boundaries, feel more than, embrace
a common destiny, absorb accumulated
wisdom, reason to believe in more than
-- on and on into mystery, history, possibility,
fantasy and wonder.
All this the artist gives, payment for the
sustenance of inspiration
refueling our power
to give ever more.

Astronomy Lesson

Darkening into heavier compression
Molten heat compressing
Density increasing toward
event horizon.
Twilight
on the apocalyptic battlefield.
Inside the box
are we dying
or transforming?
Starlight peeks in.
Do we suckle the energy,
grow strong and wise?
Or demand incineration?
Phoenix or dove, or cawing raven
beating our wings
against the emerging stars.

At the Table

You want your fond place at the table
You want to be a fellow jolly good "so say we all."
I tell you, the table is vastly laden with
layers of little memories, which
no two see the same.
We arrive at the feast
hungry for virtue, for love, for
forgiveness of our wanton ways;
willing to be merry, to partake of
ritual, merging through
transubstantiation.
Constellations, moving, shifting,
making waves in our collective
consciousness, appear to reveal
sparkling impulses of truth.
On that warm, wet evening
taking in the sweet, evocative air,
embracing untranslated joy,
something catches in our throats.
The song we need so desperately
to share can only emerge in shards.
The pain, sucked in with our breath,
becomes one with the bread and wine.
This is the blood, the body,
marinated in salty tears, preserving
what has not yet found
appropriate release.

Again, and yet again
meeting, to take sustenance.
Hungry battle wounds
courageously opening,
to imbibe the healing
of grace.

Back to Basics

Walking backwards, over the cracks, the broken glass, the crying shame
Looking in and out. All the hostile visions I never want to see
damning me.
They say to give is blessed, when in doubt give it all away.
I say
we are each a universe, so many worlds, so many stars
we lose track
we look back
whoosh into the vastness of possible trajectories.
Without crossroads, without stones of demarcation
we would fall upwards eternally.

I am digging a well,
a holding place for tears.
When the hole is of the right proportions
I will fashion a tight container of stone and clay.
The excavation uncovers rotten cadavers, old bones
twisted from unhealed breaks, bits of broken treasures,
shattered expectations,
here and there
pieces of nursery toys no longer loved.
I crawl through the earth, exulting in sensuous pleasure.
Moving like a snake at home in the elements,
shedding my skin, becoming silky sinuous sense cells.
It is so beautiful here, under it all.
Fertile soil, made of the cast off, the ruined, the dead.
Seeds try again to perfect the expression of dna.
It would all fall together naturally.

But nature did not make me.
It was selfless nurturance of worlds and stars
Trying to cast off their earthly heritage.

a quiet image of a ballerina dancing in starlit space

Whatever excites me
Inspires me
Gives me energy
In exothermic reaction
Whatever captures my imagination
And won't let go
Whatever the muses
Joyfully bring me
Dancing in graceful gesture
Whatever Goddess demands
Haughtily
Of co-creation
Whatever kicks me between the eyes
Taking my breath
Squeezing drops
Of living blood
From my wildly
Beating heart
Whatever calls to me
In ancient chants
Of wisdom
So pure, so frighteningly intense
So fragrantly intoxicating
Whatever it is now my time
To become

Battle Fatigue

Honoring righteous anger.
Not mean little sprites,
Chironic knights protecting me.
Cradling me so sweetly.
"Oh, no, dear, never forgive, never forget."
Torture is no way to say you're sorry.

Love whispered to me
in dreamlike memory
told me tales
told me lies.
I told myself those stories
whispering in the night
bereft of sleep.
I told myself of soft surrender.
Of gentle caressing days
dappled in sunlight,
lusty heat-soaked revelry
sharing secrets
so poignant, so intense.
The anger
burns me through
each synapse,
each myelin sheathe
blood, guts, lungs, heart.
Viral penetration, consuming
strength, vitality, duration.
I am languid and torn.
From time to time I rally
to fight my own tears,
my own mind,
my own field of battle.

No one comes forth for me
to offer my surrender.
Battle weary,
I can no longer breathe.
The anger breathes for me.
Gently wrapping me in
blankets,
singing me a battle song
urging me to take respite
as it soothingly scrapes off
the scabs
refreshing my wounds.

Between

There are places
beyond time and space
where we don't even know
we wander
delicately balanced
between what could be
and what we will allow.

Between Signs

Overwhelmed, under-the-weather
Bright, shiny stars zooming by
too fast to tether.
I ache for that burning,
cauterizing straight through
epithelial arterial walls.
That yearning
symbolizing cellular memory
of the All from which we each
derive, spend our lives striving
to re-merge.
I ache like flu, burning
in fever, creating
visceral dreams out of
thoughts I never knew
still plagued me. Wandering
dreamscapes so like pictures
in an eerie multi-D exhibition
of my inner realms.
Yet they remain vague,
vividly coloured, geometrically precise,
shaded and shadowed in
absolute perspective --
yet vaguely intransitive.

Intuition insists
the answers exist.

It is the questions that await asking.

Beyond Words

These are but words, conveniences.
The map is not the territory.
Insignificant, significant
Sides of a coin
Toss it
High into the air
Watch the stars
Dissemble
Satellites inch by
Outside Earth's blanket
Millions of years flash by
In blinks of light
Words can but clumsily
Grasp at the known
The agreed upon parameters
Stories we yearn to be told
Await a larger lexicon

Watching a World Cup match cross-cutting with a U.S. baseball game, not being interested in either (it was just what was on the tv while I was otherwise woolgathering), I found myself meandering along a train of thought about cultural systems. I know that World Cup matches must certainly be every bit as competitive as baseball, but watching the players on the field, they looked so free, like people enjoying a game. The baseball players looked like what they were, professional competitors, joyless, roped into set roles, staid areas of influence.

Capitalism as a working economic theory has by now tentacles laid out far beyond the clearly "economic" field. It has become an integral part of certain cultural operating thought systems. Thus, it is usually not even questioned when apologists insist that no matter what the unfortunate side-effects, capitalism gives us growth, prosperity, is the best way for the economically disadvantaged to get a leg up or in fact find low cost items they can buy at their low wages because of the wondrous magic of competition. The ultimate value, it is understood, is economic growth, wealth, accumulation of resources, directly or through the metaphor of money. One would be considered a fool to insist that human values are not about cut-throat competition to be the king of the heap of vast wealth, that human values are about play, self-expression, relation to each other, relation to our world, relation to ourselves, doing work/engaging in projects that give us pride in accomplishment and let our passions expand.

I am not saying there are no values in using the economic tools propounded by the capitalist theory and practice. I am saying these are but tools, in a toolbox, to be used as useful, but not the project itself. I am saying that where competition, savings through efficient mass-production, monetary reward for investment, or other such ideas give us desired results, yes, these are useful ideas. They are not the only ideas, the only ways of developing economic benefits for the culture. The true underlying idea needs to be that the needs and desires of the community be met, each way of doing so to be subservient to that test of effectiveness.

Consolation

A glaze over my mind, my eyes out of focus.
There may be reasons for everything, but they are not mine.
The air so thick with lies, another layer will choke us.
Truth's shining angel, hovers outside the line.

When I try
When I cry
When I enter your room
The lights go out
The blankets divide.
It's not that I want to rustle your gloom.
It's that I want what's inside,
the fear you hold dear
the smile you hide.

Long ago I believed in a dream of the future.
I made a wish on the Moon, floating so free.
Rushing on stage, I still miss my cue, for
dreams jumble their meaning, wishes double their fee.

I had a song that I sang that once gave me solace.
I had a prayer in my soul I thought kept me on course.
But the poison we're fed to restrain and corral us
Has driven me hard and too far from the source.

I reach out in the dark
past the miles, past the years
I reach out for a spark
still burning despite the tears
I reach out for the words,
to make it all right
I reach out for a comrade in the night.

Cotton Paper World: A Myth and a Dream

A cotton paper covered world
for a retarded little girl
no sharp edges to cut her
no street wise punks to fuck her
a pretty little world
for a pretty little girl
all pink peppermint and
cuddly bunny toys.
She imagines daddy
tucking her in at night:
"No darling, don't take fright.
See, the dark corners are
nothing but shadowlands
brimming with stories of
faeries in flight,
angels of the night
to hold your soul for God
until morning
protecting you with His light."
And daddy and God combine
in her dreams.
She's safe in their arms
and their love.
It's so pretty here in my dreams.
Nothing to fear, here in my dreams.
My world rearranges itself
to suit my fantasy.
Here is love;
here is peace;
here is a big bright flying balloon
carrying me over oceans and islands.
Look at the wavecaps, frothy and white,
so friendly, waving above the rocky shore.
It must be like Heaven,
so open, so free, so inspiring.
Hello waves; hello rocks; hello me
flying into cotton paper clouds.
All wrapped up in a big red bow,
I open the present.
Is it a cotton paper dream?
Is it me, fully grown,
emerging, ready for battle,
from my own mind?

A Cure for Cancer

Consider the single cell microorganism
Motilely absorbing sustenance, senseless
caught up
in the acrobatics of immortality
growing, dividing, growing, dividing
accumulating ancestry
without reflection.
Life imitating life
accumulating complexity, diversity,
cells opening out from infinite regression
demanding expanding territory,
redefinition, delineation, demarcation.
Cultivation of domestication implies
devestation of the wild weed.
Pruning the power of the divine monarch
Poisoning the wellspring to discourage
unfettered proliferation of perceived antagonists.
If life is the disease,
surely death is the cure.

of days past

They were Republicans, Goldwater Republicans.
He was really a libertarian, and enjoyed explaining why.
She was a stay with our leader and prosperity
Eisenhower liberal wanna-be elite.

Broad labels to secure, to bind
little lives. Little ways of coping through the days,
dinner parties, backyard barbeques.

It's all about the vignettes, when no one's watching.
The mind's eye snaps a photograph,
pulls it out from time to time,
to remember
that we were
becoming
were believing and trying to understand
all the waves and illusions.

Something moves in my vision.
A wing, a wave of hair,
a blossom in the wind?
Something.
There is a wisdom and
a mystery.
There is more than meets the eye.
There is emotion,
brewing up a storm.

Staying,
curled up in a warm blanket
sipping cocoa
watching the storm outside.
Affixed to the fascination
of the flame dancing,
of the wind wilding,
of the window between.

Days when all I can do is listen.
I have no words with which to speak.
There are days when the bubbling stew
speaks to me,
and the comfort
is all that I
can bear.

Decorating

Pretty little images
But I don't reach the core
of sadness
of breaking shattered glass
of bitter calloused weeping
of dregs gone down the drain
clogging my arteries,
eating my memories,
etching out rotten stench
in my intestinal walls.
I would love to bleed for you.
Watch as the shattered glass
graffitis my windpipe,
excellent sprays of red
eye-popping splendour.
I would never want
to deny you the thrill.
My craggy dry old heart
laughs in anticipation.
Fresh wounds
always look so fine.

Dimensionality

Out of the scope of words'
static definitions.
Immanent realms.
Feel all around/within an expanding
amorphous frame.
Travel a chosen lightbeam,
branching out into
another and another.

No time, no space, no box.
Unfolding
Unbound
Unreasoned.
Take a little trip with me.
Loose everything.
Float, swim, tumble, dance.
Paint the image
Within your own frame.
Step back. Enjoy the perspective.
Step back into the painting,
Strolling past the point
The eye has learned to see.

heart breaks and bleeds
scarlet ribbons
dripping into vital organs
coagulating breath, thought, awareness
there is no promised land of peace
no safe harbour free of misery
no bed of fluffy clouds
foretelling happy dreams
pain radiates
a dark sun
blotting out any possibility
of light-hearted healing
while leaving a clear stain
bloody trails
pooling into dead ends.

Eclipse Dream

Jump! Jittery. Nauseous claustrophobia . . .
l e t t i n g g o s l o o o w
Whoosh in a leap faster than my breath can catch me
moving dizzily, half-blinded, out of focus
moving along a tree-shadowed path.
Enchanted forest?
smoke curling upward
gingerbread cottage in the woods
may I rest here, recoup my losses?
Savory soup simmers over the hearth fire.
Shadows fall over the corners
yet the center of the room
is surprisingly clean and polished.
I sit in mantra embraced
by soft silky wings.
Outside winter is falling.
When I awaken from my trance
planting season will begin.

The wild rains of spring
have caught me napping.
They catch me up in torrents
swinging me along
a cradle in the sea.
I am dreaming mazes
wondrous pageantry
woven into ivy walls.
The sea surrounds me.
I acquiesce to secret ceremony
believing the earth to be my home.

Enter Dancing

That liminal space
Between my body and the airwaves
Creates a dance.

There is fluid form
There is salvation,
Thunder from the heavens,
Tears and lightening,
A host, a feast, a conflagration.
There is laughter.

The dance takes me up
In her motherly embrace,
Holds me softly,
Listens closely,
Takes in all my sorrow,
Lets me fly.

Essential Direction

This little world cast
into timeless void
moment into moment
created anew with each
discrete act
each emotive scene
each random reverie
is all that is
for each self-organizing system
trophically moving
according to values and valence.

If we are to be
thrust into chaos,
madly stringing
experience into meaning
hoping some magic decoder
falls into our hands
throwing elusive pieces
into clear relief,
well-ordered place,
the plan most likely to succeed
involves leading from the center
experiencing, feeling, cradling
sacred fire, inspiration,
deep well of joyous
vibrant expression.
Touch the essence, gently,
strongly, reverently
bringing forth its ecstatic vision.
The map is not the territory.
Follow the root
to the place of radiant flowering.
The true mission of the seed
is to bear fruit
in kind.

fault line

Falling through my fingers like sand, like wind
Falling from my eyes like starlight
This image, this flickering film
I try to pick my way through the pieces,
Edit them into coherent form.
I am lost,
Wandering madly,
Unable to foresee the coordinates
Unable to firmly state my case
Or rehearse my lines.
You present me with choices,
Either/or; along a continuum;
True, False, Dependent Upon X Factors.
I float above, insubstantial,
Unable to surface.

Feudal Diffraction

It's not the color chart; it's the hierarchy.
Hoarders of permission slips for resources
thereby decide what gets done,
which brick gets laid, or even fired,
who lives well-rewarded,
who scrapes til they no longer get by.
It's not our dna that compels stupidity.
Perhaps it's a kind of manic compulsion,
depressive obsession,
mass psychosis,
St. Vitus line-dancing to a poisoned
caller's tune.
What to do?
Meme-web reconstruction in increments
paradigm warping mindwaves
realigning the pulsing macrosphere/microsphere
benign gibberish cyphoning through?
Take back your time.
Take back your right to self-valuation.
Take back your place
outside of the lines.
If our needs, self-fulfilling desires, greater
ecstatic glory and grace
are to be based
on solid infrastructure,
on fruitful interplay,
on free and freeing expression,
let us take hands in
an undulating, beatific dance
moving in multi-rhythmed
direction.
Let us be and do and feel
that which gives us permission
to be whole.

It's really a simple story Beings find planet. Beings treat planet badly. Planet goes about her business. Beings start to realize that they need planet, and had best learn to make friends rather than futilely keeping up enmity.

Gaea: A Ritual Performance

layers of imagery, music, tribal drums, futuristic dreams

Gaea was there, in the beginning. Gaea was all. Gaea was wise.
How could we not have seen, in the blindness of pride, of avarice,
of service pledged to false gods?

The journey was long.
The journey was cold.
The journey was lonely.

Asleep in a box with wilderness dreams. Or awake on the watch, wondering what was to come.

Thus it was those false gods bespake us: Out of the cold vastness of space and time,
out of the fear that was all the companion we knew,
out of a need to make it all Someone else's responsibility,
out of a need to believe all would be well for our kind.

Our planet was dying.
We did what we could to survive.
Survival we find
an appopriate end
to any means.
Survival will give us
the time we need
to find a better way
to survive.

The strongest of us,
the proudest of us,
the meanest of us,
would not allow us to die.
We took off in our ship with the barest of plans

to find another land
where our kind could live ...
expand.

Now,
hybrid children evolved
from refugees
fleeing a hostile star.
Skygods and Earth Mother of ancient lore.

It's time we relinquish fear and hatred, accept Gaea as partner and home
that we may all live and thrive.

The land, when we found her was so warm and inviting.
We felt safe, supported, encouraged to grow.

We ate of her fruit and her herds.
We built with her trees, stone and clay.
We drank from her cool crystal streams which we soiled with our waste.
Gaea was saviour and womb.
We repaid her with rape.

We didn't understand,
thought her merely land,
thought ourselves masters from afar.

Gaea sent storms to bring us to our senses, wild winds and seas.

Gaea tried to shake us off: Earthquakes, Floods, Famine, Plagues
sending us scattering into hiding. Intermingling with her primates, Gaea's children.
Without question or shame, we murdered what we could not steal.
Without honor or remorse, we laid waste to our host, to our adopted home,
then cursed her for not giving more.

By accident or design, chimera adapting to Gaea's marketplace creating
new ways to define our origins from outer space
We lied to our halfling children, denigrated their Gaean kin,
twisted their virtues into a false concept that we called "sin."

What Gaea did to us? Cruel, evil, in need of the whip.
we seal over her bounty
into mad parody of Mother Ship.
Unforgiving of the mess of living, the miracles of life.
In our ignorant pride we gave ourselves law to decide
propriety over fate
turning
in our minds
mother love
into a mirror of hate.

Frozen in fear and rage, children swept out in the storm,
trapped in a self-made cage we had hoped to protect us from harm.

Gaea, we cry, why do you treat us so angrily?
What will it take for us to wake up and see it is we who are wrong?
To hear and be aware of Gaea's song singing in our blood?
To learn the cycles, the seasons, the reasons for fire, wind and flood?

To redefine our race, to find out that our place is here among our Gaean kin?

The telling of new tale must begin.

Gaea opens to sunshine to ease our agitation
Easy winds, easy gushing of summer rain
Feeding the greedy young grains,
growing along the plains, the flowers of the storm.
Feeding the beasts of the field,
continuing the cycle, as all is revealed.

Love is the web,
craftily spun by great mother spider,
Gaea's familiar,
weaving magestic grace
no longer concealed. It was never our place
to control, nor others' to steal.

Gaea creates in intricate arrangements,
feeding us all of us all, a transformative stew.
So much energy wasted; painful lies to find our way through
our beings to create such beautiful
children, reaching out to become and be free,
enjoying our destiny,
as Gaea's beloved.

Arising in the circle, giving voice to pain -- grateful to Gaea's grace, dancing in her cleansing rain,
we sing in voice united:

It would be so nice (paradise)
You and I
Floating in the sunlight
Ready to break free
To be
Exactly who we are.

Generosity

Whipping the injured beast to keep it working
against its own interest
so poignant; so sad.
A loving child's gift -- paper cut-out stars
to hang over your bed
but your dreams are not what
you had hoped for.
You made this child, and
now it is a burden,
unwashed, unkempt,
ignorant and yet so willing to please.
You loved this woman,
and now she is too familiar.
You no longer want her looking at you
knowingly, with concern.
You want a paper cut-out romance,
a Sunday comics page life,
something safe with no sharp edges.
You want an antiseptic procedure
to cut out your heart,
replace it with a
state of the art
platinum clock.
You want truth and honor and justice
high ideals and winning hands
wrapped carefully and tied in festive ribbons
so there is no mistake
you have earned this fortune through your sacrifice
of what was never yours
to give.

I Am Geni

Imagine
I am geni
Lifting
a veil
between
endless time
and the boundaries
of the permitted.

Imagine
worlds unseen
craft them, weave them
create a design
a designation
to allow
ever new
images
comfortable access.

Imagine
an engine
of becoming.

Give and Take

Taking it all into myself
Thus has it always been so
Taking it all and twisting and tweaking
Making it all into a blessing
I see visions, I hear angels
Let me take you into myself
Let me bless you
Let me believe in you
Let me see through your eyes,
Walk on your legs,
Imagine with your biography.
I can but touch you. So poignantly.
What I do never matters.
What I say has no gravitas.
What I pray for
gets lost in the queue of prayers.
I am breathing
crisp air of autumn's evening
I am walking
mist obscures my view.
Lost in a vision, in a Van Gogh painting,
hysterical laughter, gut wrenching tears,
a vision of weeping, knees bent and falling
permission I grant me.
I am loving with open heart
a frightened child who once declared
I can take it.

Let It Glow

Go with the glow, the luminescence
lighting the inscrutable path:
Here a grove of ashes
Here a nest of vipers
Here a scented memory
leads to a tangled garden
of perennials and weeds.

There is fire here
glowing coals that never relented
keeping us warm in our restless slumber
feeding us through the famine on
burnt remnants, piquant renderings.
Cauterizes wounds, then reinflames
never mortal, never healed.
The glow screams: pay attention!

Let all our demons free
through fingertips, lips, oozing pores.
dancing macabre upon
open graves,
let them know the exigencies
of freedom.
Let them grow,
firm, strong, unafraid
into angels of light,
glowing,
like diamonds in the night.
Let the light shatter through
into rainbows,
pristine pallet
to draw strength,
honour, repose
glowing with ineffable
grace.

Good Night Prayer

Sprinkle my eyes with faery dust
Let me sleep forever
Dreaming symbolic images
So much more real than life.

Moving in a trance,
Magickal grace in the wave of a hand,
the easy turn, the arabesque
I don't even see you, just dots and dashes.
It's so much better this way.
No raging battles, no violent tears,
No wondering why you so easily
forget me.
Lost in the trance,
One foot in front of the exquisite other,
Like butter,
Like blessing.

They say the good die young
as if this were proof of injustice.
I say we each have our battles.
When they are vanquished,
we enjoy our victory
celebrate returning home.

Healing

Pedestals in intricate geometric arrangement
Empty
since the sculptured gods have run off
seeking glories and adventures
in less structured realms.
Petitioners never notice
leaving putrid mewling remains
sacred sacrifice
rotting stench to keep the altars
holy.
Out on the playfields
breathing in hearty exercise
laughter expanding lung strength
crying leaving damp rich soil
incremental mineral deposits
essential to health.

Hekate's Child

Child of Hekate,
sweetness and light?
Where is the mark
of your entombment?
Buried prematurely,
to strive for growth
in dark enclosure
striving for a breath
of the pompously negligent
Sun,
of the blushing Moon
of the squabbling sons and daughters,
of daylight's pleasures.
Striving, tenderly
twisting around corners
aching for an unknown touch.

"Tell me, sir, then, how's it going now?"
Looking up narrowly from a tepid meal,
all at once remembering
playfellows on the schoolyard
running, out of breath,
filled with pride
a jolly good game.
Always someone begging
my attention,
but it wasn't really me,
just a story to steam off
or a butt to joke on.
All the silly give and take;
only time is taken
and that in big hungry chunks
of no tomorrows.

One long day
now the part all groggy
waking from fevered napping.
It wasn't supposed to be a tomb
nestled in Transylvanian bloodlines.
It was meant to be a child's cot,
freshly laundered cotton lace.
But the rats got in,
once the cats had been slaughtered.

Slowly wakening
I strive again to find my footing.
Learning to walk
was never as easy
as forgetting to fly.

In a Moment

Who am I to become
when my stories are obliterated?
When I awaken
naked and unarmed
upon a shadowed
rocky trail?
It's not that I want swaddling cotton fantasies.
I want the armor
consistent with my role,
both the lessons in the real and
the comforting warm arms of happy home.

It's more than I can bear.
I crack wide open.
The scenery means nothing,
I hide inside my wound.
There's nothing left to bind the bleeding.
I am open to the world
while intently blind to it.
I sit upon a hillside counting
rainclouds
waiting for the lightening to strike.

In corporation

I am that I am.
You as my servant are charged
to make certain I never want nor
encounter less than the best,
nothing to sully my arrogant expectation.
And so for my children,
so long as they
do not question my authority.
Yes, snake, I hire for my utility
uncovering hidden treasure,
slithering into the low places,
heralding my majesty
hissing into corpulent ears
my requirements.
Never were you meant to
usurp your station, to
slither into my daughter's dreams.
Rebellious children cannot
be countenanced.
Out I cast you, into the wilderness
stripped of your privileged ignorance.
Live or die on your own cunning.
I have no time for your precious pleas.
I have worlds to sculpt and fortunes
to arrange.
Out on the plains
multi-colored cotton candy spins
woven silk butterflies
dance on marionette strings.
Wondrous worlds appear
floating inside soap bubbles.
My prodigals, you forsake me,
creating a carnival of bliss
never anticipated in my prospectus.

In Formation

It's all information.
Sensory input synthesized
with lessons past
building contexts, meanings,
strategies of behaving,
expectations and despair
or expectations of repair
of lonely poverty
of guardian spirits
of co-creating deities
of comradely community.
A story being written
page by page,
edited according to
the going rage,
electro-chemical data
setting the course.

Scientist, mystic, mage
data manipulators all
reordering configurations.
With art invisible renderings
take on a scheme
breathless with beauty.

Liberty and Justice for All

I was living a simple life, survival plus contemplative creativity being pretty much the content of my days. Just a little bit of fertile land, clean water flowing, sticks and stones with which to build shelter, my books and writing gear, a simple wooden flute and hand drum for dancing, not much more required. When they jailed me for thought crime, I really didn't expect incarceration to be a hardship.

My fellow political prisoners were an odd lot of anarchists, conscientious objectors, pundits for peace, rabble rousers, visionary artists, blasphemers of the official faith. We were crammed into a large concrete cage secured with razor wire encrusted with sharp broken edges of metal. There was a spigot from which to obtain clean drinking water, but no way to wash, so the stench of sweating terrorized humanity continually built. Nutritional pellets were also provided, as were chemically treated latrine holes. They weren't trying to kill us, but to entrap us in a living hell. On occasion some of us would be taken out to participate as guinea pigs in psychological warfare experiments, or as test subjects for developing weapons. On rare occasion some of those taken, the ones who survived, would be thrown back in with the rest of us, more broken than before.

Amazingly, I was able most of the time to keep myself internalized with my meditative exercises, able to move my consciousness into a beautiful, serene fantasy. Some of my fellow inmates would become curious about my seeming peace in the midst of all our pain and horror. Some of them took lessons and learned to join me in our spiritual escape. It seemed to be the best we could do, much better than our captors had ever expected. Taking us from our homes, our seats of influence, systematically and gruesomely destroying us, was meant both to make us ineffective and as a warning to anyone who might think they could make a difference to the rulers' plan. Yet here we were, still finding ways within and among ourselves to make the best of whatever we were given.

Raw, crude power will find a way to win. Our cage now was daily flooded with gaseous neuro-chemicals designed to agitate, disrupt thought, insinuate intensely painful nerve signals through our mind/bodies. The only defense I've found is to convince myself it is all a dream. Someday I will awaken, renewed in purpose, stronger from the extremities of spiritual experience. For now I need to learn to envelop my fellows in a dream of possibilities. Perhaps, with perserverence and practice, I will learn to move that envelop to embrace the guards, their superiors, all of us, and we will all be freed.

Karmic Stream

Ripples
along the lazy stream of time
crossing the whirlwind of space
rippling crevices
in the contours of my mind.
Expecting miracles.
One day precedes the next.
I am reminded of a
faultless day in spring.
Next I know I am hauling logs
in winter
cold, icy hands and feet
dripping nose
exhausted and wilting.

There are no promises.
None to hold them to.
There are no changelings of the night
not even aliens to remove us.
There is energy
There is form
There is shadow receding
into substance.
There is here and now receding
into there and then.
There are the promises we keep
never knowing we have made them.

Ripples
shining in the sun
colours of a thousand worlds' rainbows.
Ripples quietly receding
infinitely regressing
first cause
last effect.

Liberty and Justice for All

Juxtaposition

There is no end or beginning.
A circular multiverse enables
all manner of being.
It's just that, the same old song
recirculates, enamors us again and again
without sincere justification.
The question becomes
would something entirely new
be capable of acceptance;
can the uniquely beautiful
be taken in, appreciated, given its
deserved place?
Look deeply into the eyes of
a nonhuman species.
Do you feel diminished,
empowered,
understood,
alone?

Let It Be

Don't panic
though the world-eating fog
encroaches
breathe in the miasma
rotting from lung to core
it is not worth panicking
gasping for something clean
to inhale, to cure
cancerous, leprotic release
ooze gently
into nothingness
no trace of panic
or ill will
around which to coalesce
seeds of fear, malice
let all pain bleed off
into airless mist
devoid of restless thrashing
sinking bit by bit
into silence
now, wasn't that easy?
slowly, without emotion
watch the fog roll by
easing into serene skies

Liminal Spaces

Twilight, the wee hours,
the dark of the moon
liminal spaces,
places where magic reigns,
crossroads, crises, cusps.

There is static on the radio.
A song
my voice was singing
taking flight to surround me,
the sound of music,
a comforter of down
to ease my soul.

I've been trying to define a taste,
a sense of bittersweet and salt.
I've been trying to find a trace
a footprint in the desert,
a sound, a scent,
a memory.
I've been trying to find a trace of me,
a piece to fit the puzzle,
my contribution to the grand design.
Seeking in the shadows,
the space between
myth and matter,
those places words
cannot define.
On those insubstantial plains
of myst and awe,
the stuff of dreams,
threshold of wonder,
creation begins.

Love as a Mirror

Old habits
infected
with malevolent memes
tell me I'm crazy
I have no place
mucking about with the
human race.
As fascination leaves me
brilliant haze
transcends
oh! look! at the wonderfulness
of me
dancing, prancing,
laughing
no consciousness
but of fun and beauty
no pressure, no expectation
light as air
practical as rain.
I am ambition to be realized.
Not a yoked beast,
but a child,
wild and free,
turning the conundrum in
a whirlwind
euphoric
to be of service
to the muse
of my own creation.

Manifestation Ritual

Create the vision.
Move into it.
Live there.
Feel it growing through you.
Play with it,
seeing it from a wide range of perspectives.
Delight in it.
Laugh, dance, weep.
Sing it out loud.
Sing it softly as a lullaby.
Now, slowly or quickly or however it feels right,
create a stairway.
Name each stair.
Give each a folder of possibilities,
more and more complete, concrete, living.
Live out the life of your stairway,
allowing it to lead you to the promises
you would have made yourself and your vision
as you became lovers entwined.

Meditation

Sitting, meditating
on self-hallowed ground
surrounded and succored
by the spirit of life.
It isn't easy
turning on the tide
being the talk of the town
the laughing stock
the example for errant schoolboys,
don't want to end up like him.
Yet no thing is easier.
Moving with the rhythm
natural, unafraid.
Beat by beat,
sometimes a song appears.
It sings with me and the crickets,
the cicadas, the bees and birds
and chittering creatures.
We dance a little jig,
breathing, breathing
inspiration, exhalation, exhilaration.
Bit by bit the sunshine
enfuses with my cells.
I am opening. I am learning.
I am being made new.
All it takes is total dedication,
not a renouncing,
not a denying,
not what one would call a discipline,
just total awe and gratitude
for sweet layer unto exquisitely beautiful layer
as each is revealed.

Missionary Positions

Three nuns and a rabbi were chosen as delegates to a newly discovered human-like species on a fairly distant planet. This, of course, meant that Sisters Christina, Angelica and Mary Margaret, and Rabbi Daniel had to first endure a long space voyage. After landing on planet, they spent many Earth months ministering to the sick, the poor, the spiritually questioning, to great acclaim. Their mission was marvelously successful.

As it turned out, the humanoid people of this planet were all female. The result of their unique biological evolution was that they reproduced by a complicated and private ritual, highly intimate and enjoyable, which resulted in each member of the mating couple becoming pregnant with biologically identical fetuses.

Thus the natives had no surprise or concern when two of the nuns started showing evidence of pregnancy. Rather, they were more inclined to take the human women into their social network, especially showing regard to Sister Christina, who was not currently blessed.

As time and circumstances progressed, Rabbi Daniel realized that he had better contact Mission Control back on Earth and apprize those in charge of the emerging unanticipated developments. He went to the ship and made use of the interplanetary communications gear installed there to call home, with some trepidation about the likely response.

�Well, it�s like this,� he started, �Sisters Angelica and Mary Margaret are about to become mothers, and Sister Christina has asked to be allowed to stay here and make a permanent ministry.� Having gotten this all out at once, he wiped copious sweat from his brow, and waited for:

�Mothers? Have they gone native? Is there hanky-panky going on with these people you were sent to start negotiations with?�

�No, no,� Rabbi Daniel assured them, �nothing like that.�

�Make your report, Rabbi. Just what has been going on there?�

�Well, as you know the sisters and I had to endure a rather long voyage.

As you know, we Rabbis are not required to be celibate. As you may know, our training involves learning much of logic and persuasive argument.�

�Are you saying what I think you are, Rabbi? Did you seduce the nuns during the voyage out? And what about Sister Christina? Is it that she is so pious you could not persuade her to break her vows? Does this have something to do with why she wants to create a permanent mission on the planet?�

�Well, in a way. You see I was able, over time, to persuade Sisters Angelica and Mary Margaret to cheat on Jesus, but Sister Christina is consecrated to the Holy Mother Mary, if you get my meaning.�

� May 17, 2006 Laurie Corzett

Mother Night

Darkness is not about
the absence of light.
Shadow does not demand substance.
Darkness is a place of germination.
Mixing water, air and earth
to create the fire of life renewed.

Quiet here,
enclosed in silence,
a tiny heartbeat starts,
sending out waves,
reverberations
rippling through the earth.
Under water caves
feel the pulse, the beat, the becoming.
Time, space, and impulse converge.
Innocent and ancient,
taking up the tune
to play riffs,
singing the structure of images,
moving through the night
eerie demonic counterpoint
to pure essence
straining through.

A thousand petals open
to reveal the heart of the lotus
luminescent
mother of pearl.

Necronomicon

What have I to say?
Absolutely nothing.
The words rumbling around
my mind are not
for you
or me.
They are for
rotten, besotten
bastards of the ill-begotten
forgotten
but never forgiven.
I cannot even name them.
Their power over me,
it's what kills me to me
gives me words like insanity.
What can I say?
Words are not my enemies.
Those who daily slay me
remain nameless,
wordless,
powerless,
except for that place
I've reserved for them
deep in the core of me
known forever
as
hell.

Nocturne

Red wine
white russians
the blues
a dark bar cafe
in the rain; in the snow;
in the freakin' blizzard!
You w/o me; me w/o you
writing in our journals
separately
"let you see mine, if you let me see yrs"
No, I don't say that out loud.
I watch you
surreptitiously
between frantic scribbling.
I imagine the contours of
your life,
the one you fade into
when you're not here.
Is there someone there
you share journals with?
Laugh with over secrets?
I drink hysterically
laugh uproariously
within my inner ear.
There is something about me
tragic, sweet, and true
that wants to know your story
be witness to your life.
Please, let me read yours.
Please want to read mine.

Yet again,
we each leave alone
to witness others' lives
on the tv screen
and make magic love
in our separate dreams.

Nostalgia

Once Life and I have divorced
After the estate has been divided
(I playing noble disdain
have thrown it all to her)
I shall find a villa upon a hill
To paint my masterpiece
Discarded bodily fluids
Upon the walls.

Murals carefully sprayed upon
Bohemian brownstones
Sauntering down the city street
Aglow
Lighting oily puddles,
Intellectual cafes,
Art houses,
Freak show casas,
Anointing the effervescent night
Playing to the jaded,
The amputeed,
Outcast drifters.

There is a sweetly drifting tune
Meandering like wisteria
Is it a dirge?
A sassy New Orleans carriage ride?
Is it the beating of my heart
Spraying a trail of bleeding homage?
It is a wedding march,
Played slowly, out of time,
Beat by beat, more slowly
Rewinding.

Nursery Song

Scooping up the cornucopia of experience
gently nestled in moonbeams
at peace in a lullaby
easily descending
into the world of lights and pain
too bright, too loud, too cacophonous
to embrace whole.
Whisp whispers shhh, whispers
of ideas, harnessed light,
well-structured challenges
ease into bits by bits
hypnotic meme streams
world stories
of clearly constructed grammar
sharing common tongue
that we may ease our fractured
anxious turbulence
in chorus of soothing nursery song.
See, we are the progeny of heroes.
Hear the laughter of the Almighty
among hosts of angels
here we are home.
Sweet, splintered home.
Here we learn to serve the giants,
give piously abased homage
to the slingers of arrows
that could rend us
bit by bloody bit.
No wonder we sing louder,
dance jerkily on starched,
bleached strings.
Wouldn't we agree to anything
that we be allowed
to sleep
just a few aeons more.

Sacred Prey

�Old man rabbit feels the call. He is not so spry nor sharp of sight as he once was. It is good that he is called; better than the young ones with much life and potential still in them. Old man rabbit is not afraid. More curious than anything, what is this will that calls me? I am a rabbit, burrowing in the earth, gnawing on roots, nibbling on leaves, ever wary of the predator in all his mighty forms. I am quick and sensitive, enough, if I am lucky, to survive and become old -- too old to count on luck everlasting. I have never felt a call such as this, overtaking a will I had not been aware of possessing. What is an old man rabbit to do? Thought is a foreign concept. Action, reaction, that�s what I do. An overwhelming power pulls me closer. Without thought or emotion, I follow the pull. Am I to be eaten by a mighty foe? That is, no doubt, my destiny. I am to be honored by assimilation into the great mystery of life eternal. In this way, prey becomes predator, becomes mulch, falls back into the cycle, becomes the essence of life.

Come to me old man rabbit. I call you, with deepest respect, to offer me your lifeforce that I may continue to have the strength necessary for my mission. I enwrap you in a happy, peaceful dream as your life recedes. I consume your remains with reverence, feel the essence of your sacred sacrifice.�

Thus Caela bespoke the creature in their conjoined fields of consciousness, binding it to her will. A special kind of hunter, conjuring the prey into view, into giving itself to her need. A very special power must be tempered with love, compassion, humility. It is well that such power be discovered in a time of liminal contemplation, that it be honored and addressed appropriately. It would not do to be overtaken by fear or bravado, or a desire for self-aggrandizement. All of this Caela understood as she sat there, in what seemed the beginning of the world, in a state of reverence and awe.

She prepared and ate the old rabbit. It took a bit of stewing, in a pot of water and greens over an open fire. It was clear to her that what she had gained from this lesson was much more than a full stomach or added strength and vigor. It was clear that her strength and will, her gift, were much stronger, subtler, more powerful than she had dared to imagine when she had lived as part of a bustling community.

It was clear that this knowledge was now being revealed so that she could hone her skills for the adventure ahead. Whatever was to fall across her path to be overcome, this time alone, learning the ways of her spirit, would surely give her the skills and confidence to do what she must.

Olympic Moment

Keep your eyes on the ball, your mind on the goal.
Is the lesson then that life is but a game?
Each player's part works toward the greater whole
Indifferent to who gets the greater fame.

But what of those apart, another voice
Who claim adventure, sparkle, endless thrill?
Those who spurn the rules, create their choice
Demand no greater ally than pure will?

We take our turn upon the peak to fly
Turning vision to our guiding star
Expressing what we mean by "I"
While discovering who we truly are.

Penance

For all the painful people
wondering why god has forsaken
hanging sorrows from a silent
winter tree
entreating penance.
Still your blood does not flow
pure.
Never cleans the wounds.
Festering. Poisoning.
How can there be clarity?
Peace
is only equated with
silence.
I can not reach you
through your pain
through my pain
through the loud, piercing
blows, the cacophony
of cause and effect,
ruined fields
seeded with glass.
Beautiful prismic spires grow here.
Someday awed children will play,
sing, tell tall tales in their splendor.
All we can see
is razorsharp teeth so tender
to bleeding flesh.

Prometheus Descending

Stealing fire from the gods
was but part of a process.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
Long, complicated tales.
Heroism, challenge, reciprocity
stamped into squirming dna,
appearing again and again
through the generations.
My father's father's father and yours
farther and farther into the mists
of antiquity
words were said, positions taken.
Complicated tales unravel
knots in temporal rewind
we see the hero and villian
rearrange, reverse, reverently
bow each to the other.

Who is the thief? the victim?
What is this fire that it is not
equally shared
among the initiates
who understand the requirements
of its power?

Quite Insane

I am quite insane
I speak in rhyme that often doesn't
expecting to find reason.
I live in a world of ritual
and season.
I make plans like mad
then go off and free or freeze them.
I hang my pride on a carousel ride,
tell tales of horror deep inside
it's heaven or hell, but I can't decide
Tell me you love me
Tell me you need me
Tell me you'll hold me and never free me.
Tell me the time, and make it snappy.
Tell me I don't deserve to be happy.
It's not that I love you or want you or care
I just want to know that someone is there.
It's better than the alternative.
If this is where I'm gonna live,
I don't wanta be in it by myself.
Because
I'm quite insane
and dangerous.

Renewal

Faded jackolantern,
darkened eyes obscured;
blooming trees
branches swaying,
picking up the tempo
dancing 'n' jivin'
in merry celebration
of Spring.
Look at us flounce our skirts
rolling our hips
licking our lips
ready to rollick,
enticing pregnant play.
Let the goodtimes roll
on down the verdant hillside
winter's sorrows
spilling out like seed
cleansed free
singing in the
flowing rain
recombinant flowers and wildlife.
Stories hidden,
tangled and mired in
tired decades of dust and gloom
taken,
swept into light by chance,
unobscured in the gently falling rain,
taken up, given honoured place
singing now in the ritual chorus.
Timeless chanting,
calling in the vibrant winds.
Moving, re- and un- engaging,
ever changing,
never wholly new.

Re-Valuation, Part I

Crying with love, overflowing affection
Embracing, embracing the child in dance
If only I look in my own soul's direction
Taking that leap, unlike taking a chance
If it's me that I see, so lovely and willing
Sparks of a fire that burns brilliant and wise
Challenges, quests, not daunting but thrilling
When I move through my body, look through my eyes.

Have you seen that dancing child?
Starlight, moonlight, shadows
at peace rejoicing free and wild
receiving grace to be restyled
scooping up facts to be refiled
with no need to beware
except for that need to share.

Where is my medicine
for the thoughts that are killing me?
It's not that I never win
It's that I can't let me be
safe inside
a disney ride
happy and free.
It's all about them, you know
the ones who agree
who I let control me
because of that need to share.

River Night

Her eyes opened. She had felt the swaying of the boat. The darkness of the moonless sky blended into the inky mystery of the river, so opening her eyes showed her nothing. She could smell dank, pungent organic odors, feel surrounded by the river, the forest, the moist air. She could hear the splashing, slapping of the water against the boat. Insects, the occasional nocturnal hunter and hunted, breeze moving through the trees, all added to the aural ambience. Her senses assured her that she was present here, without human companionship.

There had been a party, she thought, maybe. Loud music, laughter, jocular outbursts, smells of stale smoke and booze, vague memories, but sensually distinct. Were there drugs? Was there an argument? Loud anger, breaking glass, sharp pain, indistinct, receding. There may have been pain, but not now. No post drug wooziness, but memory vague, without certainty, a broken thread drifting away. Like this boat, untethered, drifting in the slapping water.

She laughed briefly at the thought of living in a metaphor. Strangely, having no idea of where she was or how she had gotten there was issuing no concern. Perhaps this was a common occurrence. Images from movies about memory disorders randomly flashed into inner view. Still, no fear, no concern. She felt calm, relaxed, at peace. Breathing in the night air, cool enough to invigorate without chilling, enjoying the sounds and smells of a natural order, she let the thought of memories drift away.

Perhaps when it gets light, I will see where I have come to be, she thought, or heard in a gentle voice not truly recognized, seeming to come from both within and without. So she drifted through the night, content, serene, laughing at silly little private jokes, singing wisps of songs as they floated by, making up fantasy landscapes and stories from the shadow shapes as she passed through.

As dawn approached, shapes became more distinct against the color infusing sky. She understood that her journey was over, as the memories returned in one last burst of clarity. She understood that she had come home, her old black dog greeting her affectionately at the gate. Her eyes closed as she gratefully embraced wet fur, welcoming presence.

� May 15, 2006 Laurie Corzett

Road Trip

Each mundane goal but a task along the way
to defeat the foe, find the key, break the code
struggle, triumph, advance into further fray
but to reveal another turning of the road

No shining gift of gold, heroic finish line
with flashing camera glory to proclaim
that all the work, pain, delay, daily grind
gets paid back in fortune, friendship, fame

The view at the mountaintop is surely grand
Inspiring, energizing, pure and true
Emerging from learning to revise, replan
embrace the ambiance of each moment passing through

Taking in each fragrance, texture, haunting tune
Juggling into balance jolt by jolt
Moving closer into wholeness with each healing wound
Enjoying adventure, a creature of the road

Sacred Geology

Rich earth
decomposing life
imbuing myriad layers
of sacred spirit
Memories upon memories
scarred into the land
making it holy
a bounty of beauty
irrigated by tears
and less voluntary bodily fluids
living loam
revitalizing
luscious fruits
giving back what was taken
Partaking of the feast
we are blessed
renewed in holy essence
in the fullness of time
the cycle reclaims
all that we are
that we may become
yet more richly
layered

We met at Sanctuary.

She was coming off a bum relationship with a man. I was coming off a bum relationship with a drug that had ruled my life to the point that I had none left.

Sanctuary was cool. We got to chill in a little island of basic comfort, tea and sympathy, while we figured out who we were. Well, actually it was tea and oatmeal, stew in the evenings. And we were assigned chores when we registered at the front entrance, after being frisked for weapons. The chores were reasonable, and would take into account natural aptitudes when they fit with immediate needs. The late night talks were optional. If you were in, you let it hang out exactly as far as you were able. That was respected, especially if you were able to shed light on common issues. So Sheila and I turned out to have a lot of light to share. And, after awhile, a lot of dark as well. But that was later. After Sanctuary had served its purpose in our lives.

I had been raised in one of those corporate towns down South. The daily lessons of propaganda didn't take properly. I took off for more liberal climes as soon as I got my citizen's share. But the cognitive dissonance didn't work out either. I fell into the proverbial downward spiral, until down started to look like up and I truly smelled like despair. One foot in front of the other just wasn't cutting it anymore. At one of the places I was being thrown out of, the proprietor told me about Sanctuary. He told me that was where losers like myself belonged. He wasn't being cruel. He was right. Sanctuary had been set up as a safety net for anyone who needed it. It was paid for by contributions from the community, because everyone realized it saved a lot in costs for law enforcement and who knew when they might need it. It certainly saved my life. And Sheila's. It's a shame things didn't work out for us; but that wasn't Sanctuary's fault. Some things just aren't meant to be. Or maybe they are, but only for a while, only until something gets worked out that started long before in other lives.

I came home one day, and she was gone. Gone to another Sanctuary, in another town, leaving a note asking that I not try to find her. By that time, I didn't have the heart to try.

Secret Language

Moving into your music
Imagined emotion lilting, lifting, aligning.
Two children sharing secrets,
giggling
shifting about in our starched clothing,
hard, separating seats.
In our secret language
buzzing bees are harnessing wildflowers
dragonflies suit up blades shining
roaring into magnificent heroics.
A gentle stream, caressing
slick marbled stone
and faery moss
catches up glints of
pirated treasures, ice sculptures,
fossilized fire.
Our tongues lap easily
over silly syllables,
tricky consonants
clicking, tickling our teeth.
Inside our innocent eyes
laughter ignites memories
unembraced by words.

Shadowland Blues

Been there. Done that.
Wrote the song.
Sang it on street corners for change.

It's a true song, a blues song
about making plans
for the fates to rearrange.

I'm not saying it's all been bad,
though I'm certainly tired and sad
so for now, my friends,
I'm back in the shadows again.

Some say the blues
is illusion
imbalanced expression of mind

I say it's accumulated
disillusionment
from endless trying and crying

Oh to be contained
in delusions'
magical chalice so sweet

No longer a slave to
battles that
always seem to end in defeat

I'm not saying it's all been bad,
though I'm certainly tired and sad
so for now, my friends,
I'm back in the shadows again.

Shamanic Prayer

Interceding heaven and earth
dancing the chasm between
oh caste of my dharma
soul of my destiny
riding out on desolate plains
skies of colors, dark, forbidding
sending rays of electric
necessity, intensity, urgency
leaping my heart, my loins, my essence
grabbing onto the giver of lessons
my liege, my lord, my spirit guide
my lips parched, fever rising
every time, every blessed day
spirit demands, demands, demands
quivering answer, conduit, lightning rod.

There was a river, winding, singing, running free.
Groves of trees worshipped by wild flowers
graced her shores, deep roots feeding
on the energy of life.
Beat of the forest running through
each seed, each buzzing bee, each tadpole
finding its exquisite form
rushing through its seasons
they whisper to me
quiet strands of symphony
speaking directly to my blood.
I am changed, charged with a mutant energy
building through my veins and sinews
pulling me into a sacred tradition
reason insists doesn't exist.

Test me.
Give me your pain, your sorrow, your utter despair
give me the very essence of your disease
give me the ugly unacknowledged child
hidden in the basement of your soul.
I have seen worse, done worse, been worse
in my days of schooling.
The fever has blessed me. Burnt away the unholy
castings of the curse
the sacrifice
leaving me ready
unembarassed, unafraid, unencumbered
moving to the liminal rhythm
conjoining heaven and earth.

On the Threshold of Silence

In all the noise my quiet voice isn't heard.
How can it matter what I say?
A fool, I leave recorded written word
to speak my truth to some, someday.

Realize that my eyes see uncommon visions
that my mind seeks to find unlikely decisions
my style seems reviled, but it's not that on purpose
what I know doesn't show on my nondescript surface.

How can I tell
in words that you can hear
what isn't always clear
notes of refrain
jumbled with pain
I must be insane
voices
within my inner ear
keeping me guessing
burden or blessing
of course you don't care

Just more notes on the air.

Weaving into the aether
absorbed in the atmosphere
inspiration I'm aching to share
is already everywhere

You never heard it from me.

Sister Scorpio

Black as hate; white and bloodless
shrieking Fury
punishing Saint.
Your patient, erratic torture
has left me broken,
bleeding torrents of pain
unable to move
forward,
unable to sleep
or engage in
polite discourse.

Yet you were never satisfied.
It was not me you wished to sacrifice.
I was merely inconvenient,
or too convenient.
Dressed in a goatsuit,
queued up to be driven to slaughter,
how could I expect compassion,
fellow feeling?
But it was the Executioner's blade
I expected,
not frenzied repetition of
back stabbings, epithets,
steel-wielding rage.

We could have been sisters,
giggling secrets in the schoolyard,
smoking pcp in the girls' room,
shooting up the classroom,
dying in each other's arms.

Soldier's Veins

"You have a soldier's veins." The doctor chuckled as he explained the very good biological reason for my deeply recessed blood vessels, which always caused such a problem when medical professionals tried to take my vital fluid. Apparently I was made to fight medieval wars. The hard to reach veins, the slow metabolism keeping down the need for feeding, the ability to block out pain, hunger, thirst, discomfort of any kind, by focusing on the goal and getting there by any means necessary, good traits for those who must endure such hardships for a greater good, or simply to survive in battle.

However, here I am, a 21st century city apartment dweller, fighting mostly in the arenas of traffic and office politics. The old flight/fight adrenalin rush that wants me out there in the fray has to instead be pretty constantly quelled if I am to successfully fit in to modern civilization. So, the fight naturally comes to be against myself.

I am pretty well protected against the razor blade. My overzealous gag reflex keeps out the obvious poisons. I have found a way, though, through incremental poisoning of my soul with a fairly constant drip of despair. Slowly, insidiously, it eats away at what had meant to be protected, dissolving those veins from within so that I may succumb to internal bleeding.

Star Light

It gives me chills.
That multi-layered image
of the stars' great message.
We, antlike,
small and unimportant
look to them for meaning.
But, of course,
the meaning for us to
recall
is that stars,
creatures of combustion,
do not, as we do
live or look for
a meaning beyond
molten fire.

Storm System

Storm clouds
oceanic anger
as below, so above
gentle rain cleansing
corneal soot and cobwebs
refreshing, unearthing
fertile soil
seasons singing their litany
open emotion
forming new configurations
into the meteorological mix

Straw Sky

Straw sky
Westerly
Moonless, Sunless, Starless
Leaveless trees pointing gnarly fingers
to the heavens
deepening into darkness

Frayed and tattered dreams
Lucid praying
A feeling beyond touch
Beyond fear or sadness
A feeling unlike hope
Without reason
Formless
Yet delineated
Like constellations.

I make motions with my hands,
Move my skin into contact
With ineffable realms,
Move with the oozing miasma
Creating signs in faint luminescence.
Bit by bit they encompass
the night's horizon.

But there is more.
It comes to me in dribs and drabs,
Droning, encircling, swooping in and out.
I organize a study chamber
Pull out maps and rulers,
Set my quill to taking notes.
Images engaged in excited conversation
Pull me in to their heady company.

I can feel the sky breaking around me,
Bits of colored prisms falling.
Make a wish.

Summer Again

movin' into summer
wind into cloud formation
drifting into deep emotion
sun rise
blossoming into a
rhythmic peak
sending out, sending out, sending out
energy
reflecting in the summer skies

I need to tell a tale
of fantasy and languid
leaning into tall grass,
fruited trees, languid leaves,
brilliant sunshine warming
soporifically
melting dreams
the tale unwinds in brightly
colored ribbons
dances gypsy comedies
of lazy, dappled romance
bathing in silken perfumes
sweet and scandalous
deigning to smile
the laughter bubbles out
bursting into raucous music
filling summer eves
glistening in firefly light

tell a rollicking tale,
we demand of the piper
we have paid all the long
seasons of darkness
it is time to reap an early harvest
of dreaming into dawn

Take Care

It never occurred to you
that you were allowed.
You thought it was up to someone else
to take care of you.
You didn't get what you needed
when you were a helpless child.
Too bad.
You're not a child anymore.
That's the thing about being an adult,
you can take care of yourself,
if it ever occurred to you to do so.
So what do you need?
A good cry?
Endless deep-seated weeping
to bring up and out all the grieving
you've swallowed, kept festering inside,
because it never occurred to you
that this excrement needed processing
and elimination?
You know, the processing
where you take the nugget of golden
nourishment
from all you have taken in,
and send the rest out to
fertilize the common pasture.
It's not so much that you are
what you eat,
as you are what you take
from your experiences.
Did you take what you need?
Did you think that you were a
naughty child deserving of punishment?
You didn't really want that gooey
sweetness, tooth-decaying
empty calories.
You want to be spanked
until you cry
and swear you'll never
do it again, then
hugged and taken in,
with all forgiven.
You want to matter to people
who no longer exist.
You want to matter to figments
of your imagination,
who natter away all the damned day
about your shortcomings and sins.
Let's begin again,
at the beginning.
You can't win for losing if
you've taken the loser's face.
The world is the world,
whatever you make of it.
You do need to be cared for.
You need to care for,
to take care of,
you.

tidal attraction

Is the tide coming in
to wash my footprints
from the shore?
I must dance up a storm
harness the last of my power
to manifest
hedonistic abandon
enticing Poseidon

Thought Screen

It's just a silver screen
a way to rationalize my being
a dialog along
the agonizing day
it's just a way
to carry on.

Why should my well thought out scripts
be anymore well thought of
than any salad of words?
Why should I expect
attention or respect?
Why should my loving words,
or thoughts, or thoughtful actions
result in any sway?
Has it finally been proclaimed my Nobel day?

What must I say?

There's a point in
all this farce?
That the fool on the precipice
dances wisely?
No matter
what the cost
there's a prize worth the price?
There is good advice
in the stars?
There's a lucky star,
and it's ours?
There is magick,
to believe in?
There is hope and life and grace?
There is more than we imagine?
There is gold in inner space?
There is danger; there are dragons?
There are knights and righteous cause?
There is more than we imagine --
There are underlying laws
that we obey?
(Why would you listen, anyway?)

It's just a veiled screen,
computer coded dreams,
what we see, based on
what we've seen.
It's just our timelined place
stored in inner space,
packaged in paradigmatic memes.
Accepted ways of being
interfacing realtime streaming
moving in and out of order
on either side of mind.
So what I see inside
is what I find.
But I haven't got a clue
how to reconcile with you
with language
self-reflectively
designed.

Tick Tock

Another clock, another tower
sketched out in the sky
long-bearded sage telling me secrets
in cloud-talk as I strut by
as clouds roll by in the wanton sky
no matter, no mind, no bilious spirit,
no sense in these days, of these ways,
of the wise

'round midnight
witches wander out in
heathens' woods
"up to know god, I tell's ya"
it's all in how you arrange to appear
scraggly hobo, ascetic seer, abomination
or a-bomb a nation,
or take a well-earned vacation
with the points-of-view in your
mindbank. Mind blank?
I'll tell you why.
It's all been prearranged.
Nature and nurture combined
in the misty trails of time
in a daring tryst with fate
and hear you the tale, my dear
of how you've wandered here.
Now, don't be late.

traffic jam

flying scarf maroon and grey
miasma-blue sky, swallowing reality
in an eyeblink
exacting change in lieu of judgment
a hill slippery
orangey magenta leaves
while theater neon insinuates
bright flashes
distant lightning
winds whipping out
chaos
prophecies
anxiously scanning the shoreline
waves break
reveal snaps of treasure
once walking barefoot over
city glass and excrement
twice made to kneel in pain
disguised as genuflection
thrice cautioned against
river crossing due to corrosive
poison
no clear, well-lighted path
presents
enablement, empowerment, entitlement
words conveying images
up the hill,
over the horizon,
through the crowded thoroughfare
caught up in fleeting thought
stopped in a clog of traffic.

signpost in the fog
thick dry-ice blue billowing formations
liminal portals
taking it back before time
out of context
into searing bright light, brutal pain.
quiet, so that high-pitched sonic
memories
badger through, bleating, repeating.
Hungry dogs of shame,
howling, mewling, sickening
taking sly reprisal,
swiping regurgitated anguish,
taunting, trolling for
every rotten, filthy projection.
it could all disappear at any moment.
or appear quite differently.
rising or setting
magnificent colours explode
that painted backdrop
setting the stage
each prop in orderly procession
direction given
the lines move forward
as the next random impasse
coalesces.

Transformation

Transformation is not about butterflies
flitting about, capturing our awe.
It is the heart of my pain
you cannot feel for me.
Searing cauterization
what could be called unethical treatment
of secret wounds
bound up in tattered consciousness.
Bit by bit, then all at once
loosing the thread,
spacing out the conversation
not quite catching the gist of
why I am here and now.
Did it ever make sense?
How could I believe my lies?
That papier-mache world
that world I gave my soul
to suck dry
in enduring service
was never true.
I would cry
but that would be too easy.
The pain would dribble down;
while fascinated by the rainbow glisten
I would count my misfortunes
watch them spin
pennies falling into a rose-glass jar.
Filled with resolve,
I would go back out into the fray,
fight another day, and another
until by decimating degrees
I might fall defeated, dead and gone.
But death is only an act
of transformation.
The whole play depends upon
the spinning out of the tale.
First you love, then you lose,
then you do hard labor
stoking the fires of Hell,
breaking the rocks of Eternity,
cleaning the rotting sewers
of collective untreated waste.
Stench, pain, nausea
beyond bearability
wrenches, renders, discorporates
transforms.
Not like changing
into a bright, enchanting costume.
Changing utterly
because no other choice
exists.

True Romance

The choices we fall into for romance
Must be why they call the moon-touched lunatics.
We let all sense escape us, give in to chance
Seduced like junkies into hunger for a fix
Belief, a bedfellow strange to reason's well-trod path,
In fairytale ever after love song refrain
Well-schooled, trained in logic, adept in math
Yet we shed it all to hop that mythic train
And expose our tender souls to cruel deceit
And maybe violence, maybe wounds that slowly kill
Yet we run into destruction, foreswear retreat
For the chance, the hope, the ecstasy, the thrill.

Twilight at the Dark of the Moon

Moving inward
spiraling about
into my deepest silence
feel me here,
oh my most darling
here is the freeest flowing
river of tears, the bounty
of years of silence,
of incrementally moving
swirling colours,
deep purples,
fair magentas,
sky-eyed blues.
There is ancient music
in silence,
so layered
by incremental years
as trees remember
ripples of soundwaves
stirring wisdom
not yet condensed into words.
Stories upon stories,
woven in different fabrics
different voices joining
to create universal mythology
a world story
reverberating with
silence upon silence
striving for that clarity
that must open into
an eternal spiral
up, out, in, through.
Come, dance with me.
In that brief eternal interval
all clarity
coalesces.

What Is Truth?

My understandings come in bursts of light
Illuminating an expanse of imaginal plane.
My theories come in synchronicities and
instinctual leaps.
My truth comes in different shapes and sizes.
It is not free, but fluctuates
in tone and price.
Pretty butterflies may morph
into pre-archaic beasts
of mechanical flight
then fission into visions
throughout time and space
or coalesce into a perfect face.
Is there Truth?
A million tiny fire flies dance.
Packing up my picnic
I head on home to dream.
On my way
a willow tree
swaying magestically over open water
opens to a glimpse
of the frozen moon.

unviable

no longer safely cocooned
allowed to twist and turn
poisoned dreams out
through sweating pores
secured on my thick
sure branch
oblivious of storms
not of my own making.
not flying,
free to be amazed by
each blossom,
each sunny ray
blazing beatific energy
gracefully flowing
in the breeze.
not sure, secure, or
unleashed and aware.
standing, staring,
without leaping
at the precipice,
decomposing,
limply falling,
ripped, torn
by each rock
along the way.

vacation on Neptune

comfortably floating
encompassed in
dreamy soft cloud formation
whisping gently along
enjoying
gorgeous panoramic landscape
a simple smile
of relaxed repose
beaming down.
streaming down as rain
soaking into welcoming soil
swirling into
muddy exuberance.
serenely dreaming
breath drawing in
bright fantasy
eager sprites dancing
into emergent oceanic flame
caught up in the game
mirror glints of illusion.
snuggling into
luxurious abandon
fulfillment
breathes out
singing.

War Games

More and more
get less and less
the best sacrificed
to great God Success
Anger
building
brick by bloody brick
Is it a surprise
("Look! Into my eyes!")
when the peasants cackle
resurrecting the guillotine
Raw power
hot metal shooting
making unmistakable mark
burning ragged skin and guts
and glory

Tell me a story, daddy
about before the war
when water flowed
in abundant freedom
when the air was pure
of the stench
of progress
when everybody had
a sacred right
to feel
and believe
and dance in the moonlight
when we could afford to be
young, untried, open
to possibilities not cut off
by a sacrificial knife
repeatedly deeply severing
vital organs
without regard to the waste
with no respect for place
or the people for whom that space
holds stories

Weapons forged in anger
built up shattered layers of
desperate pride, disrespect, grief
create festering wounds
poisoning the populace
unto the Seventh Generation
caught up in some grotesque
morality play

Yearly Review

Drinking my visions
from a multi-faceted crystal goblet
encrusted with multi-faceted precious jewels
inscribing powerful symbols.
Spirit sprites dance merrily akimbo
iridescent smoke
wafting out into they sky.
Moving out of form to kiss me
gently, teasingly,
licking my lips, brushing my eyelids.
I am tickled into foot-slapping laughter.
Rising to the occasion,
I quaff in toast to the spirit
of merriment,
balancing into a whirling grace.
What fun!
Carrying graceless leaden sacks
across my still lacerated back,
taking my sustenance from weeping,
how can I reconcile?
Vivid vivacious visions
come calling for my friendship,
offering vibrant love, heroic adventure.
Knowing nothing of formal arrangements,
they giggle and tease,
plait my hair with rainbow ribbons,
urge me to race out with them
in play.
To whom did I make those promises,
and why,
that keep me back
in the dusty, noxious warehouse
dying of the poison thorns
embedded in my golden chains.

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