New Book of Poetry: The Tree of Life

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7N1A8E

My second book of poetry is live as an ebook on Amazon. These poems have never been published, not even on this blog. The paperback should be up within the next few days - expect another post!

Poetry, Songs, and Enchantments in Paperback!

My first book, Poetry, Songs, and Enchantments is now available in paperback! Just in time for Yule and all the solstice holidays!

Poetry on Kindle

Poetry, Songs, and Enchantments: A Pagan Sourcebook

Just a reminder for upcoming Samhain celebrants - I have a book of poetry which includes a section on the Wheel of the Year, among many other offerings. Free if you have Kindle Unlimited, only 2.99 if you don't!

Taken - Not the Road

A yellow wood, in two roads, diverged -

sorry - 

I could not travel, be one traveler,

looked as far as I could, long I stood - 

and 

down one, both,

where bent in the undergrowth

to it, the other, just as fair,

took as having about the same wear,

and - passing there

(perhaps the better claim)

because it was grassy

and worn -

and wanted -

Though as for that

the morning lay trodden black

for another day - 

had them really, and that both equally,

I doubted, knowing no step - 

should I ever come back?

Oh, I kept the first

in leaves.

Then if I be telling this,

how the way leads in a wood,

traveled by 

with a sigh

ages and ages hence

and had - 

shall - 

yet somewhere

all the difference

diverged

and I

took one less,

and that has made 

two roads

on I 

to way.

(All words clept from Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken")

Inspiration

Invention is a tricky task, but
Nonetheless I
Seek out some new idea, new forms of
Poetry and new themes.
I want to transform myself into something beautiful,
Redefine what beauty can mean,
And question
The necessity of the category
In the first place.
Only when we are open do the Muses speak, yet
No one is wholly immune.

Need

In summer, sweat:

the hot wet wait

to bet work, time

against clime and

the crime of one's idleness.

Save; rainy days

come soon. Laze not.

All praise goes to

workers who trudge

and do what must now be done.

Life is not luck -

know to duck and

make buck; we need

to proceed on

to feed those who hunger here.

Horizon

The air is tense, a muscle

at the edge of a starting line, waiting

for the gunshot.

You cannot know it is 1914 until

it is 1914 and a man dies, murdered,

setting off a chemical reaction

of treaties and troops and armaments,

and then when you know the year again

you and the world stand naked

on a battlefield rich with blood,

drained of life and identity and meaning.

We are going to get war again

and again and again and again,

so often we wonder 

where did they come from,

these memories of peace?

For we have been at war 

for as long as I remember.

Over the horizon light emerges;

only time tells whether it brings 

a new bomb, a new death,

or a new dawn, a new day.

Monsters at Play

Whenever monsters come to play,

magic begins to rule the day.

We are not free:

if we are now fighting the fray,

our children are not safe to play

by park or sea,

no one can be happy or gay;

when soldier-cops do as they may,

we seek to flee.

Protection spells to stay away

the hunt, by predator, of prey;

"Please let us be,"

to the Goddess we must all pray

whenever monsters come to play.

Bend not the knee

to those who would be bloody, slay

all who can or do not obey;

learn how to see

thousands of shades of brown and gray.

All of us have feet of clay;

we are all wee.

To survive the tyrant's broad sway,

everyone must have their say;

kindness is key.

You will learn the price you must pay;

magic begins to rule the day.

Meet 'neath a tree

and seek always war to delay,

the loss of innocent lives, stay;

end killing's spree.

On our own paths let us all stray;

no one ought to serve as a stay

nor enslave thee.

Guard the gate and ward well the way:

amulet, talisman, and nay

to show cruelty.

Magic begins to rule the day

whenever monsters come to play.

Apologies: Internet has been shut off due to my financial struggle; I'll be posting from phone for the foreseeable future. 

Donations may be sent to PayPal by way of vonsalome (at) gmail, or you can just suffer the vagaries of my phone until I work out some solution.

Piecemeal

When white male

Americans

send us all back

where we came from

they will carry

most of me

to Europe

send a foot

right or left 

to Africa

and leave a toe

behind here.

Relationships

We usually begin in fire, the hot hours of hot days of hot months
in the hot, late summer of a long year. We
stayed up late, smoking and talking, singing in
too high a key, too low, too loud. You stayed
all night and slept on the floor, too
drunk or tired to make the drive at all.

I have always been poor; you all were always richer, drunk
with your own power, intoxicated by your own beauty, and I
fell for it, for I am a fool and greedy. I repeat the pattern with
everyone, every love, every friendship, every person turns fell
when I love them - because I turn suspicious, not because everyone
is truly sinister, malicious, cruel, fierce, malevolent, deadly. When
paranoia takes me over, the only solution is
to cut myself off; only isolation quiets the voices of paranoia.
There could be a need for tribes, for those of us who fear to
be alone and unwanted. Perhaps there
love is more tangible, accessible. Some can be
truly themselves only when they are full of love.
But I have not felt so, not really, truly
been loved or loving. You appear otherwise, I think, but
you all feel the same, needing love. And it has been been
months, years, since I have seen you.

Friendship

My wealth is in my dear friends:
all joy, love on them depends,
as spring flowers on warmth, light,
as morning fog on cool night.

Always fiercely me defends,
as banks of river that wends.
Ever more do you delight,
as do the stars shining bright.

Through your gifts my self transcends;
your forgiveness makes amends.
Join me as my fellow knight;
help me to keep up the fight.

Through the other, each ascends;
as chicks from mother who tends,
as the wind uplifts the kite,
through you I reach greatest height.

Affective Fluid Dynamics

A definition: emotion is water.
Fear is deep and dark, icy cold on your skin;.
Anger boils red with the blood and much hotter.
Grief is slow and stagnant, burns with poison, sin;
Disgust is a seiche wave standing much tauter.
Surprise erupts from below with a great din!
Joy, rushing river, tributary daughter -
Love is the wide ocean; return home again.

Hymn of Praise

Praise the Goddess for all good things!
From her the font of life e'er springs.
Never starving, seek to love her;
Dancing worship as we once were.
In low valleys creation sings.

Only through her may rise true kings,
Lifted aloft on divine wings,
Leading without the whip or spur -
Praise the Goddess!

Beat of heart and breath she brings;
She heals all wounds, and soothes all stings.
To her be faithful, never stir;
Worship her with incense and myrrh.
Upon high mountains music rings.
Praise the Goddess!

Enlightenment

Misty morning fog veils the Southern trees,
which peer at fingers of dawn's light
as it breaks through shadows to make
all our sins visible under the sun.

Things Abled People Say

Depression is laziness, or lack of things to do -
why haven't you snapped out of it yet?
Just try to be more positive, you:
a little exercise would help, I bet.

Why haven't you snapped out of it yet?
It must be because you aren't trying hard enough -
a little exercise would help. I bet
you just need to stop sweating the small stuff.

It must be because you aren't trying. Hard enough
to get over every thing that has happened, every morning, every day -
"you just need to stop sweating the small stuff,"
like coping with abuse, or rape, you say.

To get over every thing that has happened every morning, every day -
depression is 'laziness' or 'lack of things to do,'
like coping with abuse, or rape - you say:
"Just try to be more positive." You.

Apologies

I must apologize for the hiatus. I can barely keep my head on straight. Hunting for a job every day for two months is exhausting.

If you would like to contribute to this poetry blog, or want to help out otherwise, please consider purchasing my poetry book on Amazon. Still within the top 1000!

Alternatively, I am now selling my paintings - all original work in acrylic on various surfaces. One of these serves as the copy of the above book of poetry and another serves as my profile photo (slightly digitally altered). All offers are encouraged, but I have suggested prices for several of the pieces on canvas - stretched canvas or canvas boards.

And if you don't want the book or a painting but still wish to help, please let me know. I can easily take PayPal.

Hiatus

I have to take a hiatus for financial reasons. I do not know when I will be able to return.

Meditation on Liberty in the 21st Century

Freedom should be for all or none,
lest "Land of the Free" be a lie,
we by hypocrites overrun,
for nothing our fathers did die.
None are free in a land of slaves,
nor where mascots are made of 'braves';
nor yet if guilt depends on wealth,
nor on your skin color your health.
To show you all lives matter not:
see land, women, and children raped,
the psychopath's virtues are aped,
black men, women, dying, poor, shot.
Try, improve your lot if you can -
but beware of the "free"-est man.

Retribution

When one is first quite down and out,
When you are sick and full of doubt,
Then someone comes, ready to spout:
"Be sure your sins will find you out."

Even though you received the clout,
Despite the fact they hurt your snout,
They decide you have been the lout
And chant, "Your sins will find you out."

Though you may starve amidst the drought,
Though to your gods you are avout,
They will your every hope rout;
This is how "sins" will find you out.

But, lo, there is no need to pout:
You will survive this ugly bout.
And to them you will someday shout
that their own sins will find them out!

Decisions

Uncertainty rules
high kings, and low fools,
and me.
Fight life's many duels
with all of your tools:
study.
Gather your heart's jewels
before the flesh cools:
be free.

Kyria, Eleison

Those who say summer is easy
Know not poverty is queasy;
If only all would let me be!
Goddess, please have mercy on me.

Nothing left to pay up the rent.
No groceries, money all spent.
Just enough to feed the cats wee.
Goddess, please have mercy on me!

I cut myself off from all friends;
Bridges are burnt, be there no mends?
Where is there help? I cannot see -
Goddess, please have mercy on me?

I am my own worst enemy;
I need to learn how to be free.
Get it together, then maybe -
Goddess may have mercy on me.

Isolationism

Fear of immigration
and nativist policies
(ever at the expense of the native)
drive the world towards war again.
There is suffering,
there is suffering,
there is suffering;
and no one wants to help,
we all want to help ourselves.
The land cries out,
"What did I,
to make you forsake me so?"
But those who listen
are unheard.
Though the sky roars
with wind and storm,
the words of the heavens
fall on sealed ears
and stone hearts.
Though the earth was like
unto our mother,
nurturing our peoples
from our inception,
we have violated that tie;
we did not merely cut apron strings, the umbilical,
we bound and gagged her with them,
we are slowly strangling her to death.
And what of peace?
What of kindness?
And what of our humanity?
When did we decide to become animals again?
When did we forsake ourselves
and each other?
What fault do we find in
our better nature,
that we have strayed so far
from what is humane?
Mourn, O stars,
for the degradation
from sentient beings
to mere pleasure-seekers,
lotus-eaters;
man has become like unto a bacterium
traveling along a sugar gradient
automatically from birth to death,
towards the greater immediate reward.
How can you say
"We are not defiled;
we have not run after Baals"
when you wear hypocrisy like a crown,
and meanness lines your eyes?
Petty, foul creatures,
all the worlds can see through
your paltry pretenses at probity
to the tiny, dying, drying hearts
gasping with self-absorption;
for the waters of life long retreated
from such listless, stagnant estuaries.
How skilled you are at pursuing yourself
to the exclusion of all else!
And that exclusion,
that separation,
that cannibalism of the soul
will be our downfall,
my fellow abandoned, anguished, despairing beings -
our lack of couth, our philistinism,
our coarse vulgarity and provincialism,
our sectarian insularity and parochial
homespun bigotry, boorishness, baseness -
this will only lead to our downfall,
decadence, the rot from within
because we cut ourselves off
from all that nourishes
and beat each other to death
with the still-bloody bones of our ancestors.

Pandemos

Woe are the abandoned, the betrayed, the friendless,
And woe are those who abandon, betray, and hate,
For hate only leads to more of the same, more pain,
More suffering for all, no love, only despair.

In solitude one may avoid this abjectness,
At the expense of the loss of joy from one's fate,
We may have total control over our domain,
But when alone there is nobody there to care.

On the contrary, love is endless:
The more you give, the more you create,
Love those in need, it is not in vain -
for you, too, need love; it's only fair.

Regular price again...for now

The Kindle Countdown is over now, but you can still get Poetry, Songs, and Enchantments for only $2.99 whenever you like! I won't post about it again until I can offer another deal of some sort. Thanks to my readers (and bots) for your patience.

Thank you again to my buyer! I hope you enjoy the book!

Unsympathetic

One person has received good news and expects all others to pretend happiness for their fortune.

Fat birds spring with joy:
"We are fed!" - but those who starve
have fragile, thin songs.

Countdown ends soon!

Thank you, readers, for your patience while I run my Amazon promotion. The countdown ends in 9 hours, so today is your last chance to purchase Poetry, Songs, and Enchantments: A Pagan Sourcebook at a discount! Tell your friends! Or strangers! Or don't!

Lament for Lilitu

The heat of the sun does not warm my chill sorrow:
You have abandoned me, alone to ill sorrow.

Belovéd woman, goddess of light in the night,
I pray for your aid to conquer this hill, sorrow.

My mind swells with madness now that you are away,
Nothing shall be left behind by the mill, sorrow.

I seek you only, I wish to immerse myself,
But of your waters there is not a gill - sorrow!

I would dance to your music and sway with delight,
Yet the only sounds I hear are of shrill sorrow.

Queen of the crossroads, bright bearer of the lantern,
Guide me to you that I may again still sorrow.

It is only when I am in your arms, white ghost,
That I truly feel anyone can kill sorrow.

Thank you, first buyer!

I don't know who you are, but thank you to my first buyer! I am very excited that someone has purchased my book on Amazon!

I've been convincing myself that no one would ever be interested in buying a book of my poetry, and here you go proving me wrong - thank you so much!

I'm pleased to report that this single purchase has dramatically changed my stats in the Amazon store, too: I was well below #500 in my three categories, and now I'm at #19, #73, and #122 (oops, those have already fallen) above #200 in each!

Well, okay, maybe I shouldn't be so excited. But this is only my first purchase ever.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Like a Fairy Tale

Love and friendship are like a fairy tale:
Everything is better when you start,
But lasts only until they break your heart;
O! help me believe in love that won't fail.

Once was a maiden run away from home
Who fell in love with a thief in the night;
But then the man revealed he was a gnome,
Pretended dismay when she took a fright;
And then, when she would have tried to take flight,
He tried to hold her down with chain and nail.

Love and friendship are like a fairy tale:
Everything is better when you start,
But lasts only until they break your heart;
O! help me believe in love that won't fail.

Tell me not of your friendships that are true,
For she had some friends as well, it is said;
But these for the most would not even help you
If you were dying; wait till you were dead
When they would say it was all on your head
That you could not break free, that you were frail.

Love and friendship are like a fairy tale:
Everything is better when you start,
But lasts only until they break your heart;
O! help me believe in love that won't fail.

None run away when happy or in love
Nor cease needing all those considered friends;
Nonetheless I seek out what is above,
The caring which can heal where my heart rends,
The consideration that within mends,
The love and friendship from beyond the pale.

Love and friendship are like a fairy tale:
Everything is better when you start,
But lasts only until they break your heart;
O! help me believe in love that won't fail.

Countdown Change

The Amazon Countdown has three days left until the return of the full price. It is no longer 99 cents, but you can still save a dollar - only 1.99 for now!

Anti-colonial

Whites claim Madoc came across the ocean -
O, shame! Might he not doss
with native maid, not be boss?
The false claim - a greater loss.

Social Larceny

Cultural appropriation
cannot be appreciation:
imitation is flattery,
perhaps, but theft flatters no one.

One Day Left!

Only one day left to get Poetry, Songs, & Enchantments: A Pagan Sourcebook for 99¢ on Amazon's Kindle Countdown deal!
After this the price will begin rising again, so don't miss out!

Inundation

I wake, sleepy
to lightning shrill;
the room is dim
and I am still.

Summer brings storms
sweeping unceased
the countryside
from west to east.

Soon it will bring
unwelcome guest:
the hurricane
from east to west.

I turn over
as the rain teems,
lulled back into
my fretful dreams.

Sunlight

Sharp golden daggers:
the hot sun stabs flesh and eyes.
The Buddha teaches
that the body is prison,
life lies in the vale of tears -
but beauty can give me doubts.

Storm Passing

Thunder rumbles across town

Before rain falls down;

And the lightning flashes bright.

Purple and blue are her gown,

Grey and gold her crown,

As she moves through the dark night.

But you need not a sad frown,

We will not yet drown;

The passing storm reveals light.

Countdown is live!

Check it out! Only 99 cents for the next three days!

Kindle Countdown Starts Today!

I stayed up late to make some edits to the book!

In approximately twelve hours or less, this link here will take you to the new and improved book, Poetry, Songs, and Enchantments, now including a new chapter on the Zodiac as well as new cover art.

Kindle Countdown Deal...

...starts tomorrow!

Banal

No one cares that stray cats are thin.

Politics

The gun lobby does not care about your rights,
but only having the biggest guns in fights.

Emotion

Three days to cool the fires of anger;
Three days to weep out sorrow and grieving;
Three days for 'friend' to become a stranger.

Despondency

Why is it so difficult
To retain motivation
When silence comes after a
hopeful interview?

Communication

Now
wanted:
someone who can listen
to the words I speak and not those
unsaid.

Desertification

No one there to give you a name with care;
But no one outside either to care not -
There is something cleansing about this air:
I want to desiccate rather than rot,
I wish I could lay under the sun, bare,
to brown and harden, but soft is my lot.

Sevenling (Building Walls Again)

You ignore me when I say I need you,
when I am in pain, aching, in sorrow,
when I am alone and afraid and small.

Yet you want me to attend to you now,
because you are bored, sighing, just for fun,
seek me as a source of entertainment?

I fear I have deleted your number.

Antiestablishmentarianism

This world that everybody wants to rule
Seems so far away from everything good
Because everyone wants to be so cruel
And to claim more than they really can or should;
When generosity shows one is a fool,
When care and kindness are criminal and hood,
Then let me a wicked child be, feral, bad:
If this is sanity, God, let me be mad.

Semiautobiographical

Every generation is much

similar, trying, striving not

to be the same, mother's twin,

never to be like her,

to correct the wrongs

each mother has

repeated

before

her.

Kindle Countdown Deal

Ten days until the Kindle countdown deal on my first book of poetry, Poetry, Songs & Enchantments.
The countdown deal offers a time-sensitive discount for the book - and mine starts on June 21st! If you don't feel like shelling out 2.99 for the book now, look forward to this promotion!
In the meantime, Poetry, Songs & Enchantments is still available on Kindle Unlimited, and you can read the whole first chapter for free in the preview, just to get a taste!

Psalm: Personification of Supraphysiological (the)

She
sprang forth from the head of
her
father, king of the gods on high.

Athena,
Minerva,
Lady of craft and cunning and skill,
pale shadow born of the heavens,
she guides us in battle and war
but also in peace at home:
Weaver Goddess,
spider, serpent, raven, wolf, and owl,
spun on her threads we tell our tales,
fables, myths, legends, stories, and lies.
Hero Maiden,
giver of purpose and meaning,
bears victory
towards our comrades; the faithful
love her.

She knows the paths
through forests and stars
for she sees the ties that bind all,
whether ley lines or fate;
charioteer holding the reins;
healer with
bandages and
threads to stitch
together our war-wounds;
she is the keeper
of all mysteries and
beholder
of all secret crafts of the wise.
Pure,
whole,
holy queen of the heavens,
greater than her god-father
as he was to his father
before.

Medusa -

no one understands her supposed
curse;
but she is impervious
now and forever to rapists all -
praise her, Athena Parthenos.

Insomnia

Incapacity
(drip drip drip drip)
to sleep, perchance to
not tossandturn
(a cat runs down the hall and back again)
The most pleasant nightmare
I have ever had of you:
a day of mild bickering
before the explosions
before the tears
(my eyes are so dry
they weep and water
but I am not crying
no)
I flip over,
my leg aches,
I flip over again;
cold sweat trickles
(drip drip drip drip)
between my shoulders
between my hips
and it is entirely too hot
to use the blanket
and the sheet
weighs me down
lest I float away
propelling myself upwards
with each toss
with each turn
(the phone is on silent
because no one calls)
A cat lands on the bed,
nestles on me
and purrs
so I drift sleepward again
until the lack of warmth
announces her departure
and I flip over
to heat the cool
(a child is crying downstairs
why does no one listen to the little child)
but my leg aches
and I flip back,
itchy with dried sweat
or sheets compacted into wrinkles
I turn again, pull them straight
kick out the feet,
heels hardscrabble against daylight
peering through the window
(a cat toys with the curtain,
the blinds flashing sun at me)
(drip drip drip drip)
If I sleep all day
If I am awake all night
and I sleep all day
how long until I
flip back
adjust again
Too cool without the blanket;
the sheet barely exists,
a plastic layer of air
Too hot with the blanket;
the sheet is a stone, shale;
my pillows are made of broken glass
and my bed is made of thorns and gravel
(I have to pee)
(don't, just ignore it)
(no, get up, come back)
(drip drip drip drip)
Perhaps
if I could repair
the faucet
I might be able
to sleep
one day

Fib: Fib

I'm
fine,
okay?
Just leave me
alone like always,
the way you usually do;
abandoned to my own devices again, I fail.
Worry not, I assure you, I will not injure myself - no self harm this time, promise.

Why Fear

WHY

FEAR

BLANK

PAGES

fuck them       yeah

fuck them

Song under Door

Write a poem
Write a song
Song of hope
Song of peace
Peace of heart
Peace of mind
Mind your manners
Mind your charges
Charges onward
Charges out
Out of time
Out of patience
Patience is a virtue
Patience is a mark
Mark my words
Mark the time
Time enough for love
Time enough for you
You mean the world
You mean nothing
Nothing is good
Nothing is pain
Pain is fleeting
Pain is permanent
Permanent problem
Permanent solution
Solution for ills
Solution for chills
Chills to the bone
Chills while alone
Alone at home
Alone and prone
Prone on the floor
Prone to lie
Lie athwart
Lie abed
Abed and sick
Abed asleep
Asleep and dreaming
Asleep and turning
Turning off
Turning on
On the horse again
On to the next
Next to you
Next door
Door ajar
Door to the stars
Stars
Ajar




[Thus I begin a new set of poetry experiments. I have not yet organized a new set of themes, but I will strive to work within a wide variety of forms over the next x months]

Creation

I had a childhood image of artists:
these creators knew exactly what they
were making, drawing, painting, sculpting; and
if they were any good, they could match up
the precise structure, texture, color, form
which they held clearly in their genius minds.

Maybe that is how true masters work, but
in my experience over the years
I have yet to encounter this kind of
true master or real genius of any art;
instead we all are journey-level here
or lower, apprentices in training.

Thus have the years wrought change upon us all:
all feel the impetus to creation,
but only those who devote themselves to
improving their skills, strengthening talents,
sharpening their eyes, may produce works which
finally stand up to their high standards.

Image

An image flashes by, much like a bird,
swift on its wings, rising and fluttering,
the moth drawn to the flame, the butterfly
dancing freely across the sky, alive
and joyful - but still an image only.
It is a shadow, a ghost, a phantom -
similar, yes, in outline, in broad strokes,
but wholly incomplete in fine details,
where the devil lies (for he cannot true),
where the substance substantiates the  rest.
This is all anyone ever has, just
a wisp of our essence, spread thin over
some loose framework, greyed out in the middle,
filled by memory, imagination,
and the lies they like to tell themselves.

Change

Everything changes so rapidly:
we are wandering far afield from home,
we feel lost and alone, in no small pain,
we are afraid of what will happen next.
We go through the changes at first with heart:
eager to seek out new ways of living,
new places, new fashions, entertainments,
because what is new is at first quite sweet.
Then, suddenly, it pales, becomes cloying:
we start to long for the comforts of home,
wish for the presence of friends, family,
someone familiar so to rest our eyes.
In such a state we are vulnerable,
we are capable of receiving wounds;
because we do not know how best to cope
with the unknown nor the unexpected.
When you are a stranger in a strange land
or feral, alone, in the wasteland wild,
remember always that this, too, shall pass
for change carries away both good and ill.

Nothing

What happens if
you reach the end
of the tunnel and
the light is on,
but nobody's home?

Moment

low tide in the waves
  of traffic in the
large artery which
  courses past
    my neighborhood -
a sudden stillness
  of sound,
    even the children
and bickering neighbors
    are quiet
    during the pause

Yourself

Know yourself
Express yourself
Love yourself
Heal yourself
Please yourself
Free yourself
Lose yourself
Be yourself
Choose yourself
Drive yourself
Teach yourself
Breach yourself
Help yourself
Serve yourself
Muss yourself
Trust yourself

Is

(with apologies to Parmenides)

To not be
Or to be
Being is
and cannot be not
But nothing
Cannot be
What is not
IS not
And being
IS.

Endless Lives

Death liberates the living
Allows us to go on becoming
Permits one to continue changing
Destruction being necessary for creating
Dreaming for doing
Desiring for loving
Despairing for caring
Delirium for delighting
And Destiny for choosing
Death must be for living

Interrupting poem: Divisions

Winter of my discontent
Springtime of my life
Summer of my dreams
Autumn of my madness

Midnight of my soul
Dawn of my awareness
Noon of my receptivity
Eve of my confusion

Resurrection of my desires
Birth of my confidence
Life of my wildness
Death of my pity

Conception of my needs
Youth of my creativity
Maturation of my feeling
Senescence of my origin

Structure

Frame, scaffold, support; I feel amorphous,
a shapeless blob, uncontained and spreading
across surfaces like water or oil,
or melting freely in the heat, ice cream.

You pin me down like a live specimen,
preserve me with ether or with camphor,
a drop on the head, chloroform inhaled,
I stop moving; my structure is clearer.

What is this shape here? What is this color?
Can you see the breathing apparatus?
Make out the form and function for each part?
Is there a purpose hidden deep within?

I refuse to resolve things as you like;
I remain intermittent, even so,
I flicker in, out of reality;
I exist only to continue on.

Impetus

Through no fault singularly my own, I
am propelled forward through time and space; and
I do not know what to do with myself,
yet I do not have time to figure it
all out. I must press on, I must keep on
going, keep on trucking, no time for me
to sit around worrying or to try
and make sense of last night's dreams, nor for you
to complain or tie me down again; no
time for games, no time for whining, no time
for anything you might have left to throw
at me. I must be moving on, I must,
I must, I must, I ... I don't know what
I am supposed to be doing or where
I am supposed to be going or who
I am supposed to be, but I must be.

Becoming

I become myself slowly, seed sprouting a tendril of green towards the surface where light and warmth aid more growth; I unfurl leaves and stretch them out beneath the sun. I blossom; I bud; I flower. I am radiant beneath the sky, gleaming and glowing and glistening and glorious; I am a madcap marigold, a dancing daisy, a regal rose, I am the delightful dandelion, the shy snowdrop, the bountiful buttercup; I am a flower, I am a flower, I am a flower; ; ;
I become myself slowly, seed shearing off into similarity towards the repetition of self where water and particles aid more growth; I unfurl crystalline structures and stretch them out beneath the earth. I nucleate; I divide; I coalesce. I am scintillating beneath the light, flashing and flaring and flirting and flaunting; I am a quintessential quartz, a dazzling diamond, a resplendent ruby, I am the elegant emerald, the amazing amethyst, the stunning sapphire; I am a jewel, I am a jewel, I am a jewel; ;
I become myself slowly, seed starting forth into the wild towards the unknown where space and energy aid more growth; I unfurl rays of light and stretch them out beneath the galaxy. I burn; I fire; I shine. I am refulgent within the cosmos, blinding and blessing and blowing and blanching; I am a natal nebula, a daring dwarf, a grand giant, I am the pretty pulsar, the succulent singularity, the notable neutron; I am a star, I am a star, I am a star;

Symbol

a symbol is a line, twisted and bent upon itself, full of significance, but meaningless to the uninitiated; a symbol is an aperture into a world of thoughts, ideas, concepts, a symbol is a gift and a poison, a pure tool and a means of contamination; a symbol is not just a sign, it is its own source, it shows and is shown by itself, it is what it is, it is nothing without the symbolist; a symbol is a thin percussive instrument; a symbol is a baby lion; a symbol is the sun; a symbol is a circle

Pattern

I I I I I I I I
I don't know how to handle reality; this is my pattern, I repeat it. I don't know how to handle reality; this is my pattern, I repeat it. I don't know how to handle reality; this is my pattern, I repeat it. No one knows how to handle reality; this is our pattern, we repeat it.
Get up, make coffee, eat breakfast, eat lunch, work all day, party hardy, go to sleep, get up make coffee eat breakfast eat lunch work all day party hardy go to sleep getupmakecoffeeeatbreakfasteat lunchworkalldaypartyhardygotosleep gtpmkcfftbrkfsttlnchwrklldyprtyhrdygtslp
Until you vomit forth your own dizziness and sorrow with the pattern and go around saying to people
You You You You You You You You
You destroyed me, and you betrayed me, and you abandoned me. You destroyed me, and you betrayed me, and you abandoned me. You destroyed me, and you betrayed me, and you abandoned me. We destroyed each other, and we betrayed the world, and we abandoned ourselves.
Because this is the pattern: self-blame and passing the buck doesn't work because I am You and You are Me and if I blame Me, I'm only blaming You, and when You pass the buck to Me, You are only passing the responsibility back to Yourself.
And we all see this in rare instants, and we forget instantaneously and we go back to the pattern, reinforcing it, in self-absorption.
I   I   I   I   I   I   I   I
U U U U U U U U

Essence

In essence, I mean, essentially, what the core of the matter is at heart; its base, its foundation, the building blocks, the atoms, the structural scheme, the vision - this is what the author saw, the director imagined, the primary, the gist. The kernel, the acorn, the core, the old block off of which you are a chip; these are at the center of the thing, the hearth of the home, the distribution point, the throttling choke point, the lens. Eau de something, I know not what, je ne sais quoi, ineffable, inestimable; the being which must be perceived or perceiving, fruit of the womb, fruit of the loom, fruit of our labors, fruit of change. And yet it changes not, is permanent, persistent, eternal, unending, the absolute, standing behind and beneath all things; it sustains, supports, includes, is the whole of the part, is completely untouched, like a sail or a day or both in essence.

Force

once there was a girl who did not understand force until it was used against her repeatedly; she had to learn she was not culpable when force was used against her, only when she used force against others, especially if she used force against those who forced her, even if she was only using force in self-defense; and most people think they understand force, think they know how it hurts, how to resist it, what it looks like, but they do not know that the man least likely to force you is the one everyone expects, the man in the bushes, they do not know that the man most likely to force you is the one no one would guess, the husband, the boyfriend, the best friend, the friend of the family, the family man, the uncle, the father, the brother, the cousin; they do not understand that women can force men and women but do so fractionally as often as men force men and women; they do not understand that force might never leave a mark where you can see it, but it always leaves a mark on your soul, and sometimes those marks accumulate until you are just one big walking scar; and they don't understand, and they don't care, and they wish you would just shut up so they can believe that it is the end

Existence

Being is becoming.
Becoming is being.
Essence is existence.
Existence is essence.
By definition, no-thing cannot be being,
but all depends on what the definition of 'is' is.
To be; I am, you are,
he or she or it is,
we are, y'all are, they are.
To be; I was, you were,
he or she or it was,
we were, y'all were, they were.
I have been, you were being,
he or she or it has been,
we had been, y'all will be,
they shall be, should be, could be.
To be or not to be;
to become or to stop becoming -
to cut of what has been
from what may be
by the sharp blade of what is now being.
To be, to exist,
to do, to act,
to happen, to become,
to grow, to change,
to persist, to ensue,
to endure, to abide,
to prevail, to remain,
to continue, to last,
to live, to stay,
to obtain, to rest,
to stand, to inhabit,
to breathe, to hold,
to subsist, to survive,
to move, to go on.
Why is it even a question?
Life lives,
that is its nature,
that is its essence,
that is its being.
Is it necessary
that to be there must be a not-being?
Is the contradiction
required to make the mechanism work?
Is there a kernel of not
inside every is?
Is there a nut of being
within nothing?
If there were not
an endless cycle of
is-not-is-not-is-not-is-not
could there be anything at all?
And what is the third option?
I don't believe in dichotomies,
nature is too multifaceted, multifarious
for things to simply chug along
one-two-one-two-one-two-one-two;
girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy;
in-out-in-out-in-out-in-out.
I've seen rainbows,
I know better than to believe
in just black-and-white.

Surface

Superficial, they say,
that's the problem -
not looking deeply enough
into the murky depths of things,
avoiding the real source of the problem
by sticking to the surface.
What is depth,
but one surface piled
upon the next?
And when you cut through
the layers of an onion
(crying all the time)
and get to the deepest part,
the core -
it is still 
just another
piece of onion. 
The surface is where things happen
quickly,
where life happens,
where two worlds meet,
where you can touch and kiss,
the surface
is
what is.
You skate on top of the ice,
not inside it.
Everything on your surface
is indicative of whatever
supposedly lies deeper:
your reactions,
your expressions,
your very clothing,
your grooming habits.
Someone skilled at surfaces
can read your image and know
what kind of person you are,
how you appoint your home,
how you treat yourself,
how you treat others.
Are you worthy of hire?
Were you raised gently?
They evaluate your shoes
and inspect your teeth.
Are you kind to others?
How do you treat the help?
Shakefeel the hand and up close
a quick whiff of the breath.
How do you choose to present yourself?
How do you see others' self-presentation?
You select a picture,
you make remarks.
I stare at my navel,
you ask me
what am I thinking
I answer
I am contemplating void
and you say
that's deep,
but it means
that I'm thinking
about nothing.

Form

Socrates taught of ideas
which Plato wrought into forms,
claiming they were the perfections
of the things we encountered
in our every day lives:
tables, chairs, trees, bowls, and the land -
but more to the point:
justice, virtue, beauty, love, and the good.
But let us not forget to ask:
what of man and woman?
what of the elements, fire and water?
what of the least things, hair and dirt?
And let us also not ignore the problems
of distribution or composition.
And let us also not merely accept
that if there are objects,
and they have a form,
that if there are forms,
that they have no third greater.
And let us not balk
at the infinite regress
of thought or its objects.
And let us not become too dizzied
by the wildly indiscriminate multiplication
of likenesses in similar regress.
And let us not be too baffled
by how we may know them,
nor how the gods may know us.
For:
if we are made in their image
(or if we make them in ours)
we are of the same clay
and like understands like.
And all patterns converge on one pattern,
this is no mystery
and the greatest mystery.
And infinite regress
is the stuff of which
the universe is made,
it is how creation has always worked.
And there is always something greater,
and there is always something smaller,
and anyone who claims to know all
is more arrogant than those who say,
"Here is where I know not more."
 And learn to capriciously switch
from whole to part and back again
for the logic is our lens
not our fabric.
For if there is a thing,
there must be a something
which precedes the thing,
even if that something
has to be a nothing.

Flux

Nothing lasts;
this, too, shall pass;
the only constant is change.
In the beginning,
everything began to change;
in the end,
everything shall stop.
I get dizzy with the swirl,
the up and down, to and fro,
back and forth, in and out,
and here we go again
over the top and
around the bend,
over and under and through.
And as if that breakneck speed
isn't enough, there is time
for a breather, a pause, a break;
and then
back on the horse,
back in the saddle,
gee-yup and go,
on the march,
forward all,
nauseating with the whipsaw
of stop and why are you stopping,
be polite and don't waste time on manners,
do the bare minimum, why didn't you do more?
It cannot help but be nonsense,
when the rules depend on who you are,
where you are from,
what you did before,
and not what you are doing
within the current context,
too little, too late
(a day late and a dollar short)
(don't short me)
(come here, shorty).
Nothing ever changes,there is nothing new under the sun,
a tiger cannot change its stripes,
nor a cheetah its spots;
and the more things change,
the more they stay the same.

Energy

Boundless bounding,
the whip-crackle of static
and the twitch-tail speed of an agitated kitten,
ricochet from beginning to end,
from top to bottom,
from floor to counter to cabinet to ceiling
and back down again, creeling,
cavorting capriciously, comically,
before wheedling for more food.
Capering, careening, colliding,
I encounter one wave of energy, breathless,
only to be swamped in the wake of some vessel
sending out crossing waves
where I founder, flailing, until
a new wave carries me forward again,
laughing with the unexpectedness of it all.
Build enough momentum
and you may carry yourself forward
away from the familiar shores of waking
deep into the seas of dreaming
where you may face small players full of fun,
predators and prey whom prayers save not,
great beasts of the imagining
who rise up and burst through
the quiet, unsuspecting surfaces
without warning, without precedent.
Just so: all energies may be quiescent
for a time before the potential activates,
becomes kinetic, bombastic, dynamic,
radiant, glorious, mechanic, organic, and wild,
unpredictable, wholly chaotic, haphazard,
governed only by the laws of necessity,
triggered, and released explosively
until all is transformed again.

Singularity

Look across the great skyscape and there see
all the fires of creation alight;
look with closer eyes, for dragons here be,
though seeing them requires second sight,
a second glance from the left and not the right,
that allows you to see empty spaces
scattered through the pattern of dark and night,
that only exists as faintest traces.
What exists beyond the stars' blank faces
and those of their inverse twins, the black holes,
is seen as in string theory's laces:
equators vary far more than the poles.
But the further we get from the first trend,
so the closer must we be to the end.

Planet

Mother's breast, broad bosom of rocky earth,
the birthplace of all mad humanity,
a thin veil separating her from space,
variegated body of colors
swathed in white clouds, blue oceans, swards of green.

There is such a thing as unhealthy green:
we see such in the pollution of earth.
Poisons create vibrant toxic colors,
the by-products of sick humanity
pouring relentlessly out into space.

Now see our halo of garbage in space,
what obscures or discolors blue and green;
these are the sins of long humanity,
generations failing duty to earth.
See faces blush, shame burns in all colors.

Pestilence hurts worst the darker colors;
theoretically the rich have space -
they can flee to the sky and escape earth
when she is no longer strong, hale, and green.
O! think of each other, humanity.

Can new planets survive humanity?
Or will xenophobia kill colors
of strange species whether brown, grey, or green?
Do we even deserve to rise into space?
Have we not earned our burnt, bleak, scorched earth?

Perhaps new earth teaches humanity,
gives us space to love new colors of green.

Sun

Four times we celebrate changing seasons,
Four times the changing state of our day star;
Though planting is the oldest of reasons,
New holy days replaced them, times afar.
Sunshine and starfire bring light and joy
To all who work at the earth for their food;
Though a queen, she quickly became le roi
When men proclaimed men the source of all good.
Golden orb of liquid amber burning,
you light the day and fire up our hearts,
you mark the passage of cosmic turning,
you can strengthen or damage human parts.
Everything is good in moderation;
Including immoderate vocation.

Moon

Gleaming disc of silver, please hear my words:
O! see the lovely moon who shines so bright,
She guides the way like a torch on dark night.

I send my prayers to you by night birds
Who fly on wings of shadow and of light;
Gleaming disc of silver, please hear my words:
O! see the lovely moon who shines so bright.

Please guard the solitaries and the herds,
For we worship you in depths and at height,
You who bring guidance, love, and second sight.
Gleaming disc of silver, please hear my words:
O! see the lovely moon who shines so bright,
She guides the way like a torch on dark night.

Stars

Deep in the inky vastness of the cold
of dark space, far from others, burns fire
that sends a power into the wild black,
a power which shines forth exquisite love
despite the star's sharp internal hunger
for the love of others, for their clear light.

Even in the dark of night, there is light,
though the stars give no heat for they are cold.
Starlight does not satisfy most hunger
because you cannot cook with their fire,
yet starlight satiates many in love
by the contrast of day's bright and night's black.

There is nothing more beautiful than black
of night scintillating with shining light
of fixed and wandering planets of love,
strife, and luck, maneuvering through the cold
as they burn with exotic hot fire
which has unsatisfiable hunger.

A star is overtaken by hunger
and becomes singular, a hole of black
which consumes all light, heat, sound, and fire.
You may see it by a nimbus of light,
bullet-hole dimple within metal cold,
like betrayal or desertion of love.

There are many who cannot tell their love
is any different from their hunger;
their love is sickly, wan, and even cold,
pale, having drawn no nurture from the black
soil nor any nourishment from the light.
They cannot see the meaning of fire.

The most pure flame is found in star fire;
the cleanest passion is within star love;
the finest shine comes from tiny star light;
the all-consuming maw is star hunger;
the deepest darkness comes from stars gone black;
the iciest frost chills from stars gone cold.

Only in vacuum finds one cold fire -
ever in adversity find black love -
always poets, we hunger for the light.

Astral Projection

I close my eyes, rise up, and start climbing
out of the gravity well towards space,
towards the heavens, towards the Goddess,
further up and further in to myself.
(This is a metaphor: we have seen no
deities floating around in vacuum
as we maneuver back and forth from the
moon or satellites and return to Earth.)
(To cross the boundary to the next realm
is also to go deep into oneself;
astral projection is travel without
movement to other more Platonic worlds.)
I see electrical clouds which sizzle
past and through me as I rise and move on;
I pass through organic fractal walls and
thread my way through mazes of carbon seas.
There is a sparkle of starlight in the
deep darkness beyond everything, yet
the stars are already passing by me
as I move towards the source of all things.
(I never quite make it but I always
have to try going forward, upward to
whatever it is that draws me, I must)
So I go on to the light without end.

Invisibility

You cannot see me, no matter how hard
you look, for you do not wish to see me.
You wish to see me as you like, and not
when it is inconvenient or my need.

You keep your first impression of me like
a mask or veil you wear before your eyes,
and you see me only through that, as you
have always seen me, how you always will.

I am hidden, I am concealed, I am
anonymous, I am obscured, latent;
I am nameless, and inconspicuous,
I am imperceptible mystery.

I do not appear only because there
is no one who wants me to appear there.
If I could hear one voice explicitly
speaking to me, I would reveal myself.

And then everyone would know that I am
no different, no better, no worse, nor
any more of a genius or a fool,
savant, idiot, than any of us.

As of now I hide waiting quietly
for explicit, direct invitation;
these are their most rare when you are wholly
and completely invisible to all.

Flying

In olden days when witches flew, they say,
two theories explain what people saw:
either people imagined everything,
or someone actually saw women
somehow high in the sky without any
hallucinations or any madness,
and the simpler of two explanations
is supposed to be the better  of them.
Is it simpler to believe people saw
what they say, or to believe that all must
be liars, or crazy, or subject to
mass hysteria, dreams, visions, devils?

When I was a child, flying on airplanes
cross-country between one parent and the
other, I would peer out the window to see
the fairy-land of clouds above the small
world of humans, doll-like, tiny, and laid
out like a patchwork of ego and shape;
when my sight was obscured by clouds, my eyes
focused on the clouds themselves, all fractal
like the rivers and coastlines and postage
stamp farms, like the ant-sized roadways branching
arterial, until the clouds closed in.
In the grey blankness of clouds, I learned how
to see the floaters in my eyes and past,
to swirling fields of probabilities,
electrons or pixies darting quickly.
Clouds are cold and wet; just walk through a fog;
were you to sport among them, the image
of fairy-land would melt - but from the seat
of even the smallest plane, you may dream
of flying among sunset ice cream clouds.

Rendered baby fat recipes were an
invention of the Inquisition; so,
what oils and herbs, what minerals, you ken,
permitted flight must have gone up in flames.
When pigs fly we will know that they have found
a stand of the right plants and such, and need
only to look for where mother sows are
guarding their fledgling piglets near the copse.
Until then we must suffice ourselves to
fly in machines, or fake it by falling
in special suits, or trick our senses with
virtual reality, or not fly.

Psychism

The dream eye, unfocused, turns to the light
of day where the sun shines sharp, blindingly;
images tumble relentlessly through
the mind, jumbled together as if in
a stew or casserole, rich broth steaming,
streaming hotly as the light spills cutting
through thoughts and memories, unexpected.
This is not how it should be happening:
there should be slight but obvious changes
in the positions and players today;
I remember it quite differently,
I remember it exactly the same.

You may seek to perform any act of
divination with no especial gift,
but psychic talent is like balance or
rhythm or perfect pitch in that you are
born with talent but can choose to learn skill;
as such, psychism is like any in-born
native ability - we all sing and dance
but some are gifted where others are not.
However, some neglect their own talents,
and thus never achieve the great heights that
their devoted, persistent peers may climb,
perhaps because privilege expects no work.

In meditation, you clear the mind but
in trance you open it wide to the wind,
letting fly in what may, sifting, seeking,
panning for gold in a cold mountain stream.
The rocks are slick, it is easy to fall
and then you become one with rushing wind,
you are the river, flying down the side
of the face of the planet until (if
you are very lucky) you find your way
back down to yourself, your own mind again -
you climb back to shore, swim to the mossy
banks, and kiss the earth, thankful and breathing.

Divination

Books, cards and crystals, planets, stars, and stones -
I can smell herbs, incense burning, hot tea;
soft bells are chiming, the room is stuffy
and closes about me like a soft cloud.
The I Ching, Urim and Thummim, and poe -
religious divination is calling;
we communicate with the gods to learn
what the future might bring or steal away.
Horoscopes, sortilege, and sikidy -
each system is different and the same:
determining one's fortune or favor
in society, in labor, or love.
Haruspicy, scrying, and casting lots -
they say the gods help those who help themselves,
so let us help ourselves to the future,
let us learn how to predict what may come.
Palmistry, Ouija, numerology -
peace comes with the knowledge that you have done
all that you can to prepare in advance
whatever is necessary to thrive.

Yet because all other gods become imps
under any One True God, all attempts
to speak to them become necromancy,
demonolatry, black magic, evil.
Such gods only want sorcerers controlled
by the church, not hedge women, not witches,
no illicit family tradition,
nothing outside what priests can understand.
High ceremonial magic is theirs,
makes sense, requires pomp, patriarchy;
low magic, ditch divination are not,
allow madness, feminism, other sins.
So they suffer not the witches to live,
always saying it is for our own good,
the fires will cleanse sins from our spirits,
save us from the worst, the fires of Hell.
I might like to think that in the next life
they will learn what it feels like, the burning,
and that they will never repeat again
such cruelty as they reincarnate.

I read my horoscope this morning with
my coffee and it said that decisions
can be daunting right now, but thankfully
I have a little more time to relax.
I find it difficult to slow down, rest;
I hate waking up, cannot stay asleep,
so perhaps I could learn how to stop and
really smell the roses once in a while.
Another source stated I was ready,
which is good because I do not have time,
contradicting the first astrologer,
which could be somewhat confusing for some.
However, I know that when I look at
a table from one direction and you
look at it from another perspective,
then we must see different shapes, colors.
Interpreting oracles is much the
same, because we are all learning to see
the otherwise invisible with our
sixth sense from multiple odd angles.

Love

Love is the greatest mystery to me:
I am still not quite sure what it entails,
or if love without pain can even be.

Love stories all read like false fairy tales;
love: the monster at the end of the book -
(why if you talk of love she always pales).

I could not recognize it at a look;
perhaps I have never seen it before,
perhaps I have only seen what it took.

I have seen the results of keeping score,
and what neglect does, what abuse does, too:
reduces love apparatus to gore.

Yet each stranger, I wonder about you,
whether you could teach me to love again;
so far there have not been any who do.

Thus all I know of love has been much pain,
no matter from whether maiden or swain.

Wisdom

Wisdom is not about all your knowing,
just how you use what you think you may know.
The only thing I know: I know nothing.

Ignorance is not bliss; it will not slow
injury or worse - so it exhibits
just how you use what you think you may know.

Foolishness into sagacity fits,
unless you see what good the results be;
injury or worse - so it exhibits.

It bodes not well to build goals you can't see,
especially not rewards after death
unless you see what good the results be.

Work for what you can while you still have breath,
but waste not time for imaginaries,
especially not rewards after death.

Fantastic thoughts be luminaries,
but waste not time for imaginaries.
Wisdom is not about all your knowing;
the only thing I know: I know nothing

Healing

There are some deep wounds that never quite heal;
even those which you cannot touch or see,
you have to at least admit they are real.

Whether left upon your heart, mind, or heel,
whether they cause you greater pain or wee,
there are some deep wounds that never quite heal.

Perhaps you think you have learned how to deal,
yet even if you come through when it's key,
you have to at least admit they are real.

Without real healing, from yourself you steal
energy, strength, and power; and thusly,
there are some deep wounds that never quite heal.

Though conflict throws you on uneven keel,
ignoring pain does not mean you'll be free;
you have to at least admit they are real.

The soul must sport an emotional weal,
if the sole answer is the facts to flee:
there are some deep wounds that never quite heal;
you have to at least admit they are real.

Poetry, Songs, and Enchantments now available on Amazon!

This is my Kindle e-book!! You should buy it and read it and tell other people about it!

Courage

Courage is not having 'no fear,'
but continuing in its face,
acting under fire with grace,
let wind dry your eye of its tear.
Perhaps you act, future unclear;
maybe you win any foot race;
probably you have little fear -
which needs not much courage to face.
Or you could hold safety too dear,
never make effort, try to brace,
only giving danger much space,
behind others who hold the spear.
Courage is action in fear's face.

Strength

I found I had weakened in my body;
this brought a disturbance to my poor mind,
and caused arrhythmia in my shocked heart.
I have been so unprepared in spirit;
I must learn to steel my spine and my will.

Bend to the task of self-strength with a will,
but learn to empower more than body:
how does one seek to strengthen the spirit?
Only thinking will fortify the mind,
only loving will reinforce the heart.

Thus change is the best solution at heart:
If time heals then as it passes so I will.
In the meantime it weighs much on my mind:
I must toughen and harden my body,
I must shake up and challenge my spirit.

Resilience, plasticity of spirit,
forgiveness, love, and mercy for the heart,
endurance and potency of body,
perseverance and control of the will,
celerity and keenness for the mind.

These are prescriptions for strength to my mind;
strive to uphold both letter and spirit
of this law, if overcoming I will
for health, power, and hardiness of heart,
for prosperity of soul and body.

Neglect neither your body nor your mind;
control heart and spirit with healthy will.

Holy

Enthusiasm - the intaking of deities,
the indrinking of the Goddess,
the revelation of divinity within -
now reduced to mere excitement,
interest, or even fanaticism:
the thrilling skirl of thousands
shrieking in a higher key
than any of them can sing,
directed at the false gods and prophets
of far-away lands called holy,
Holly Wood and Silver Screen and Small Screen
and Live from New York on Saturday Night,
places you either become a god yourself
or some universally-despised monstrosity.
It is quite possible to intake the false deity
instead of some truly divine being;
in such a case, your enthusiasm becomes
- like a false pregnancy -
a hollow swelling, purely psychosomatic,
the mind telling the body what to do
because the mind is the true believer
in the deep subconscious where
we make temples for the gods
whether they are false or true.
Let us build an immune response
against these phantoms,
that we may know their pseudo-divinity
for what it is, by how
it makes us sick, nauseated,
we break out in hives
if we try to consume their
fake miracles, false prophecies,
curses in disguise as blessings,
by our inability to breathe their bad air.
Thus, when we face true
Holy Spirits, Divine Beings,
Faces of the Goddess,
we know Her and Them by
the health They bring, the joy,
the clarity of lung and sinus,
the glow of the skin,
the flow of blood,
the enthusiastic dancing of feet.
Let us inscribe new sacred spaces,
delineating a separation of the
divine from the mundane;
and let us enter consecrated ground
with bodies and minds clean, purified
with devotion, and let us receive the
Holy Spirits of the Goddesses and Gods
with the blessings of true enthusiasm,
and be full of the divinities,
our bodies inhabited however long
by beings of light and purity,
of shadow and play,
of darkness and healing;
and let us worship true gods,
be they old or new,
but let us avoid the demon, the imp,
the lying, malicious entity
who seeks only to damage, to harm;
and let us know them by their smell,
by their nauseating rank odor
that we may avoid their stinking charnel-houses
dressed in furs and clad in ivory and called temples,
to hide that they are built on decay, of rot.
Let us serve only the Goddess,
the Sun, the Moon, the Earth,
the Starry-Eyed, girdled by the Zodiac,
multi-faceted and aspected,
but always Herself;
and let us know Her by sweet fragrances
of flower and fruit and furrow,
rich with growth and life, living;
and let us lift up Her Thousand Names
in song and charm with art,
sweetly spinning from our lips like honey,
crying "Holy, Holy, Holy"
in ecstasy, standing outside of ourselves,
for we are the enthusiastic ones,
the ones who take the Goddess within,
and none are so blessed as we.

Messenger

Come, traveler,
rest your weary feet,
let down your tired wings.
I have soup in the pot
and the kettle is on for tea.
Hospitality is my duty
and my pleasure; be easy,
for until you are on the road again
I will provide you with all
the comforts of home.
I do not know
what angelic spirits eat,
but you are always welcome
to my earthly repast;
whatever I have is yours,
for all I have comes
from our mutual source of origin.
I know you cannot linger long,
it is your way, the way of your kind
to always be on the move,
shifting from one dimension to the next -
but for now there is a quiet moment
for you to drink in the warmth of my hearth,
for me to drink in the radiance of your countenance.
In the time between your sudden entrance
and what will no doubt be
your startling exit,
I am content to abide,
to be here now.

Elemental

Underwater
after lunch with the sirens,
I found myself discussing politics
with a mermaid
who was none too liberal,
being motivated by the conservation
of the oceans and their life-stock,
but far more so than the trolls
and ogres beneath the mountains,
in caves and crevasses
where little has changed
in hundreds of thousands of years
except for the size of the stalactites
and the stalagmites
and maybe the occasional shift
in the tectonic plates;
I had more luck with the sprites
and the pixies,
but the wind was too fast for me,
and I could not keep up
with the wild hunt,
much less persuade them
to slow down and listen.
The djinn and the dragon
were largely inscrutable,
so I left their fires
with little hope.
But when it became time
for the election,
the whole fairy host turned out,
all in their best glamors,
to vote in the biggest landslide win
for the fae Queen in all history.
Normally the fair folk decline
to engage in mundane electoral rights;
but each knew who best
would protect their realms:
the fauns their forests and fields,
the oreiads their mountains;
the bean sidhe their rivers,
the undines their oceans;
the phoenixes their high places,
the bluecaps their low;
the griffins their aeries,
the sphinxes their deserts.
Only the fey and the feral
care to conserve the wild world -
but this often requires breaking
with destructive traditions;
conservation of the elements
requires real progress of character.

Nature

Beneath a high verdant canopy
the wind stills for a minute,
the clearing holds its breath
and we all anticipate the arrival
of we know not what.
Perhaps some dryad
will emerge from the forest,
or some naiad will
arise from the spring;
maybe Artemis and Pan themselves,
the horned huntress and her consort,
the feral man of the woods,
will come crashing through
on their wild hunt;
it is just as possible
that Demeter and Dionysus come forth
to correct us in how we apply their gifts
of agriculture and civilization,
so that we may once more remember
that even civilization,
agriculture, and moderation
must come in moderation themselves.
They will teach us the joys of the maenads,
the ecstasies of the mysteries,
and the secrets of life and death.
Probably Titania, Queen,
and Oberon, horned consort,
are here taking their
forty-second honeymoon,
and if they do not take insult
from our boorish, common ways,
perhaps these nature spirits,
these gods, these fair folk
will take a liking to us
and feed us strange food and wine,
and carry us away to a place
where it is always summer.
The wind picks up again,
and the animals resume their activity,
and I awake from my reverie;
the gods did not bless us
with their presence
this time.

Ancestor

Grandmother's grandmother was not
who I thought she was
in broad strokes, wide outlines,
the basic gist: she was less and more.
And I do not know how to tell
which tales of her are true or false.
How close or how far
are your family myths
from some semblance of the real?
Perhaps your visions, like mine,
reach back farther than you thought,
to two or three or four
generations before
is where the source of our images lie:
not doubly great but quadruply
or quintuply or more.
Then again:
maybe our visions of the past
have nothing whatsoever
to do with the facts
but rather with
some psychological truth,
some personal issue or ideal or illness.
They say disease,
like heritage,
runs in the blood,
traceable from dam or sire
to the young, and thence
to the future generations.
I know madness runs in mine,
though I presume not about yours;
but our very acquaintance
makes you suspect, stranger.
After all, ideas are contagious,
whether those come from family, from friends,
from strangers on the internet,
from strangers in the media,
from celebrities who might as well be
family, friends to their followers;
and madness has spread for generations.
It runs in the blood;
it streams from my mind,
unspooling over all I produce
from some source hundreds of years
and a thousand of miles in my past,
from some hole in my head,
orifice or partial trepanation,
from an ancestress
or ancestor or not
who survived long enough
to reproduce at least once
and thus achieved 
evolutionary success.

Mountain

The shepherd boy turned and began to speak:
"A diamond mount at the end of all stands,
a day to climb to the top from the lands,
a day to circumnavigate the peak.
A small bird flies in to sharpen its beak,
once a century; and when down to sands
the mountain reduces, then the clock's hands
one second of eternity will creak."
That's when the shepherd gave us all a wink:
"Now I cannot know what you each have heard,
that's impossibly long, the time is absurd,
I can see on your faces what you think -
but let me politely tell you the word
Personally, that's one hell of a bird."


Thanks and apologies to Doctor Who.

Cliff

Seven days and the winds are calm,
no storms this time of year.
We all pay a price in the end;
halcyon days come dear.

Once there were two loyal lovers
who parted with no fear
so he could make the rising tide;
halcyon days come dear.

They were the envy of the gods,
Ceyx himself had no peer,
Alcyone he thought divine;
halcyon days come dear.

Hera, he flattered her in love;
Zeus, she replied with cheer.
Even the gods above were jealous;
halcyon days come dear.

But even lovers have journeys,
leaving wives behind here,
full of wrath, the gods sent a storm;
halcyon days come dear.

The storm capsized the little ship,
Ceyx called her name once clear
before drowning of his hubris;
halcyon days come dear.

Alcyone waited cliffside.
In a dream she could hear
her husband's shade was lamenting;
halcyon days come dear.

She woke at dawn in deep despair,
her answer all too near -
she threw herself down to her death;
halcyon days come dear.

The gods finally relented:
like dragons to their weyr,
on the sea kingfishers nested -
halcyon days come dear.

For seven days in mid-winter,
the sea is calm and clear,
while the sacred bird is nesting;
halcyon days come dear.




(Pronunciation Note: Properly Ceyx should be "kay-ucks" but everyone says "seecks" instead, so I have preserved the monosyllable here; Alcyone should be "al-kee-oh-nee" or "al-see-oh-nee" or even "al-sigh-oh-nee" [think Hermione] and I have maintained four syllables here also).

Stone

When I am soft and weak, in pain I ask
the Goddess to make me into a stone,
for a rock is never taken to task,
nor ever is gravel truly alone.
Every crystalline structure connects
to its own twin, and this twinning protects
from the echoing solitude of night
and so the creeping, crawling, prickling fright.
Water like love; in the desert I eke -
the Goddess comes and tells me in the light:
hard places contain the fortune you seek.

My features are stone, my face is a mask,
my wit as sharp as a knife I must hone;
Never in love am I welcome to bask,
I work to maintain an icy cold tone.
It seems that I belong with the rejects,
along with all the usual suspects:
those filled with sorrow, with pity, or spite,
and all who lack the means or any might
to stand by whatever needs that they speak.
Life is not fair, and nothing seems all right;
hard places contain the fortune you seek.

From a distance life looks rich as damask;
under the flesh you cannot see the bone
until you approach, proceed to unmask,
see that the maiden disguises the crone.
Wisdom is needful for when one detects
diamonds in the rough - so one prospects
among rocks only with most careful sight;
if this is so, then even at great height
it is possible at gems one will peek.
No faith without initiation rite:
hard places contain the fortune you seek.

Harsh, coarse, and dry, never wick but hask;
under ordeals you will shake and will moan,
stripped sore from within as if from the lask,
weeping and flailing, then on the ground, prone.
Only through this, that character corrects -
pressure gives rubies their many aspects,
sapphires grow when the stressors are tight,
emeralds blossom only at that site.
Endure whatever destruction will wreak
for you must learn how to put up a fight;
hard places contain the fortune you seek.

Be merry as yet, joy is in the cask,
we have memories of days that have shone;
when there is plenty, then fill up your flask
to imbibe in an intemperate zone.
And therefore some misery it deflects,
some of the aching and anger bisects,
if one might wish to ward off the dark wight,
one must become one's own shining white knight.
Even if it makes you some kind of freak,
fear not the straight, narrow, common to slight;
hard places contain the fortune you seek.

Fight dirty, learn how to kick and to bite;
be wise, accept not the cheap or the trite;
forget to always turn the other cheek -
lest an explosion within you incite;
hard places contain the fortune you seek.

Interrupting poem: "I Asked"

I asked
the universe
- whether it
would live
or die
and a great
and terrible
silence
answered me.
And I went
happily mad,
reeling with
the possibility
of a quiet
maybe.

Dirt

I sink my hands into the rich, dark earth;
mud pies and gardens are all that we need -
I long have wondered what it is all worth.

A mound of dirt is heaven for a seed;
plant the body so it may be reborn -
mud pies and gardens are all that we need.

We sprout and we die, just like the green corn;
from ashes to ashes, from dust to dust -
plant the body so it may be reborn.

Or burn them, or do whatever you must;
far be it from me to judge, I am dirt -
from ashes to ashes, from dust to dust.

Living is with many boundaries girt;
no one of us can escape in the end -
far be it from me to judge, I am dirt.

However high you rise, that far descend;
I sink my hands into the rich, dark earth -
no one of us can escape in the end.
I long have wondered what it is all worth.

Sand

Foundation slips beneath my feet;
the sand below is soft and dry.
If unstable, I am awry -
unsettled whenever we meet.
And yet how I dislike concrete:
it jars my bones, my skin will fry;
at least sand gives under my feet,
it hurts less whether wet or dry.
Beaches are where we beat the heat,
milling of classes low and high;
deserts are lake beds, time gone by;
sand, whether a nuisance or treat,
remembers the press of all feet.



(Note: the Roundel is the English 'round,' while the Rondel is the French.)

Sky

Heaven above stretches forward, above,
further out and further in, further up,
to the dark brow of Ishtar, wrapt around
with her bright diamond star-studded girdle.
One day I shall kiss her face, lips and eyes,
I will reach up into the sky and grab
for my piece of paradise up above,
I will go with my people to the stars.
Until then I must take great care down here
of the broad bosom of the earth who now,
even now, presses me forward, up, out,
to seek my fortune among gods and men.
Though each morning the sun rises, blots out
the stars and heavens, the map to heaven,
each night they all emerge shining once more
to point out the way to our bright future.
Let us not scorn her blessings, let us praise
all that she offers to humanity:
a way off of this lonely piece of rock,
the quiet boondocks of our galaxy,
the womb of our kind, interstellar rubes;
many paths towards the center of all,
many ways to achieve union with all,
trails of breadcrumbs made of stars and planets;
all that we have lost and all we have now,
all that came before, comes now, and will come,
and everything of which we can dream,
all these are her gifts to us, her peoples.
It would be blasphemy to not attempt
to make the most of her blessings, or yet
to keep them all to ourselves: we must share,
we must fly, we must love, we must be hers.

Cyclone

The sky has begun to swirl above us;
it is time to run, to hide, seek shelter.
The hurricane evacuation route
stretches silently, ominously fore
and aft, as mothers and fathers drive on,
tense-lipped, tight-fisted, eyes glancing up high
to calculate how much time we have and
flickering over the shoulder again
to the mile-marker, how far to safety.
Even the children are quiet here now,
feeling the pressure, the waiting, the fear;
all families must race home if they can,
to protect the homestead, the house, the farm,
or race inland, out of the forecast path,
towards the protection of some school gym
or basement, or some cafeteria,
where the fright echoes all the more loudly
in the hushed silence and thin wails of the young
too small to verbalize, seeking comfort.
Wind that blew now roars, shrieks, whistles, and groans
with all the weight of the world on her back,
pushing forward, crashing through obstacles,
dragging along trees and rivers and bikes,
and spinning off tornadoes in her wake;
one twister eats up a large trailer park,
another just dances across the top
of a forest without even touching,
without even setting down there at all.
Have you ever stood in the quiet eye
at the center of a small hurricane?
Even a tiny tropical cyclone
is devastating on the rough edges,
but nothing is so eerie as silence
at the smooth heart of a wild raging storm.
In moments we plunge back in to the wind
again, the rain, the storm still whipping round,
still battering, still flapping, fluttering
branches and road signs falling from her skirts
as the tempest pushes deeper inland
to vent her spleen on the land with a will
until she tires herself out and sleeps,
or returns to the sea from whence she came.

Wind

A whiff, a huff, a puff, a chuff, and then -
the breath becomes a breeze, gentle zephyr;
a wisp blows by, whisked along, a-flutter,
dancing by in the ebb and the eddy,
the draught and whinge and wheeze of the current.
The clouds begin to scud across heaven,
blown along the jet stream in a flurry
of light and moisture, of heat and motion;
the blow becomes a blast, the gust a gale,
and the whirlwind blusters as it musters
itself to fly snorting across the sky.
Ventilate, anemoi: fan forth, freely.

Breath

Inhale: heart beat, eye blink, skin sweat.
Exhale: heart rest, eye still, skin feel.
In with the good, out with the bad;
get what you give, give what you have.
Expand and contract, stabilize,
metabolism regulate;
iris expand, pupil contract,
stretch limbs as far as you can.
The tide rises and the tide falls
as the moon rises, as it sets;
blood surges forth, rich with the air,
systolic, and then diastolic
as the heart rests between the beats,
between the breaths, between the tides.
Inhale: the world rushes forward.
Exhale: everything recedes back.
My brain is constantly churning -
respiration sends air swirling -
I must remain mindful of the
gem in the eye of the lotus,
keeping light on in the attic,
running on all cylinders,
hold contact with the mothership
hold tight the silver cord within.
Every breath within, without,
pours into me, pours out of me,
spilling forth and taking back in,
whole galaxies born and dying.
Breathing connects each of us to
everything in the universe.
Inhale: take me into you, too.
Exhale: always free me again.

Aura

A nimbus of light surrounds you, shining,
crowning you with rays or horns curling up
to embrace the sky, stretching out to all
other life in the universal whole.
The air around you courses, shimmering,
alive with color and movement and heat;
your aura flexes, fluctuates, and bends,
driven by gravity, magnetism.
I can see the rainbow of emotion
slither, shimmy, playing across your skin,
simmering beneath and above surface,
betwixt and between physics and magic.
When you are angry, I can taste copper,
smell pennies in your wake as you pass by;
your unhealthy hateful lust stinks of rot,
your fear like flop sweat, urine, and decay.
When you love, breath is laden with roses,
sweet fruits, laced with poignant tang of forests
carried on the wind after the rainstorm,
weeping with joy, with fullness, and with lack.
You are all replete with you, feeling you;
you project your essence outward, breathing;
you are the size of the entire world;
you are so much smaller than a preon;
you do not even exist; you are all,
for you are tied into the web of life -
and I can see the strings, the knots, the whip
of cords through the air, and how they connect.
One line pulls you backward, toward your past;
another pins you here, to the present,
intersecting with all of the others,
lines of other forces beyond time or
family ties that bind, constricting, or
tendrils of hope, questing forth for food.
You overlap with all other people.

Sea

I should like to live by the sea;
it always feels like coming home,
like I am coming back to me.

A house on a beach would suit me,
where I can see the white waves foam;
I should like to live by the sea.

The shore is where the start of life be;
returning, however I roam:
like I am coming back to me.

From storms shelter under the lee,
watch the sky from under ship's dome.
I should like to live by the sea.

Nothing soothes like wind in the tree,
susurrus of wave, cosmic ohm,
like I am coming back to me.

Though hurricane batter the key
and darken the sky like the gloam,
I should like to live by the sea -
like I am coming back to me.

Lake

There are many myths about this here lake:
they say it holds the ghostly souls of old,
or young whom love and family forsake;
the waters below are so deep and cold.

The waves will not release secrets they hold,
the past will not give in; thus, you must take,
and if they will not relinquish, be bold.

The duck flirts her feathered tail at the drake;
the current passes over submerged gold.
The future over the present will rake;
the waters below are so deep and cold.

River

The river must never stop her flowing
for she is the one who brings us all life,
food, and water for drinking and sowing.

The waters teem with their biotic strife,
skipping along; and down in the mangroves,
the briny ocean kisses his fresh wife.

The fishes are running in flashing droves
ichthy-phallic, thrumming through the soft wet,
the folds of the beaches, eddies, and coves.

The bear teaches fishing to her small get;
the beaver, how to build a dam of wood;
the fishes, how to avoid hook or net.

All who can protect the wide river should,
for she is home and provider and blood,
mother for everything that is good.

All life evolves, growing up from her mud,
fed on her riches, in turn it will bud.

Stream

The water is downfalling from the sky,
coursing through puddles and passing me by,
trickling in droplets and filling the stream,
hydrating fishes which all dart and gleam.
Polliwogs kicking, rain droplets splash,
the thirsty approaching, timid or rash.
The children are waiting for their escape
to dance in puddles, to crow and to jape.
The roebuck bends down and then hesitates,
steals a few sips, but they've opened the gates;
the small deer flees before humans arrive,
cries of the young, and the strong, and alive.
The stream, she will fall, swell, and fall again;
a pattern repeating, to wax and wane.

Rain

When the rain begins to drop
I sometimes pray it ne'er stop;
I should maybe like to drown
all the sins of this fair town,
and all the pain in my mind,
all constricting ties that bind.
And when these are washed away,
learn another lay to play.

When the rain will start to fall
on ev'ry home, hold, and hall,
no one knows what it will bring -
neither priest nor royal king.
Those who do not learn the past,
doomed, repeat in future vast;
consequence from sin depends,
the ark against floods defends.

When the rain can plunge about
urban fervor it will rout,
rural torpor it will cease,
barren wasteland will increase.
All beneath the flood shall lie,
water not distinct from sky,
'til a covenant is reached
through the dove we have beseeched.

Ash

There is an ancient bird perched,
perhaps she used to be red and gold,
now ashen and smutty
on the dead tree in the desert.
She gives one last croaking call
before collapsing to the ground
beneath the twisted black branches
and bursting into flame.
When the phoenix dies
and rebirths herself,
she lays two eggs,
one white, one drab.
In her fiery demise she passes
from this land to the other world, briefly,
to sojourn until she has renewed
her youth and her plumage.
The bright egg cracks open,
the phoenix-chick emerges anew
as the sun rises from the horizon each morn,
her face freshly washed by the ocean waves.
(In the beginning,
everything was female,
for only mothers can give birth,
and first did so of their own volition.)
(The phoenix is not a symbol,
the sun is not a simile,
nothing is a metonym,
everything is not a metaphor.)
The phoenix is alive, aflame,
red-gold with burning, crowing,
singing in liquid syllables of immolation
the joy of movement and light.
From ashes to ashes,
she dies and is reborn;
in soot she conceives herself,
in soot she eliminates herself.
These are the mysteries of the firebird,
who emerges from the white egg,
flaming red and brilliant,
only to subside into charcoal and black.
She flies brightly across the sky,
increasing or decreasing in luminosity,
always to return again from one
of the two eggs, light and dun.
So the mysteries speak;
but always note where one is silent:
despite the awesome truths they reveal,
all is quiet on whatever happens
to the dark egg left behind in the ash.

If there is a bird of light,
we may propose a counterpoint:
as night follows day,
and the small light the large,
so the firebird has her opposite.
If she grows bright and then fades,
so the darkbird must start pale
and then enrich itself with deep shadows,
cool nights, quiet obscurity,
and the tenebrous potence of the unseen.
In the passage of time she consumes
herself, conceives herself like her sister,
the same two eggs for the twins each cycle,
for we always reproduce ourselves
and in so doing produce our complement.
Fire generates ash; ash preserves fire -
just as one banks the coals carefully
to keep the embers warm until morning,
so the firebird and the ashbird
keep and preserve each other together.
A light bird and a dark bird,
mother sister twin, self and weird,
flame and shadow, cognate and contradiction -
she grows so red she is blindingly white;
she grows so green she is impenetrably black.
So let us name the sister
of the flaming firebird, purple-red,
according to the inky green-blackness
if the firebird is the phoenix
then the ashbird is now the chloerix.
Tyrian purple and deepest forest green:
the royal red of monarchy heated
until it burns white with illumination,
vegetative chlorophyll absorbing all light,
so the deepest jungle is darkest night.
Neither bird belongs only to the sun,
contrary to popular belief:
these are moon birds, two faces,
the full and new aspects,
the facets of our most treasured gem.
Phoenix and chloerix, fire and ash,
the torches of Hecate who protects,
who gives us light in the night
when we most need it (to see)
and the safety of darkness (of not being seen).