All Souls

Posted on November 2, 2015 by J

Something different happened last night:  My two usual poetic measures combined.  They weave in and out of each other here, which may make a first reading a bit stilted.  The lines do scan, if the right emphasis is found.

The content springs from some very important understanding that is just now, after many years, becoming clear.  We are more and more profoundly convinced that there is a type of sentience in the stars, and that some degree of access is possible.

Right now the veil is very thin indeed.

1 November 2015

1

A More Than Up-Turned-Bowl

One little word held so much secret knowledge there, where we both wept.
I shall lie awake all night until the knowledge souls have kept
between them hidden, words in lines that always offer lonely terms
to one who’ll just keep reading, reading on, till holy love confirms

that this was made as love kept watch, and secrets hidden lay revealed.
I can know my own self but a little; so much love lies sealed
behind a wall that’s deeper than the grave I’ll never lie within.
Burial fires all down wide shores, won’t you wake up to rebegin

the choirs of anciently mindful lore that hum through the maze a mind can be?
I’ll only go around, around, around once again if we all agree
that this has to come to an end in time, and then stare well forward as stars align.
You shall be loveliness held by stars as beauty’s owns standard. Most shining mine,

we met where the rushings of rivers together came deep underground to a cave that glowed
more radiantly than a liquid bowl in which stars were mirrored. Our old work owed
a debt to the place from which it came, but now it flows freely, rich and thick.
One little word kept all alight, the candle with all the next world’s wick

I heard you as you lay not at all as fast in sleep as you are in mind,
and something deep underneath the breath you knew you breathed reached out to find
that mine nursed the touch of skin it prized, and why it will always turn again
toward the sung light this song was made by, here in your presence, by rite of pain.

Under the bed: It’s clay, it’s metal; it’s full, if you want it so; and it smells
the luminous air of the coming-to-being that used it to house an idea that wells
with such benediction, our old words fall silent, and all the sighs coming to live with us—just—
don’t want to remind us of how we fell down. This well’s all a maze; we are word-wells of lust.

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Happy Birthday Forever

Posted on October 20, 2015 by J

The 18th of October was my late partner’s birthday. Two years ago I celebrated it with him in Ireland—in a cancer hospital. This is what happened this year:

18 October 2015

18

What You Sought, and What You Found

My eyes will simply never open wider. Yours will lock mine in,
surrender all the dreams your strength of mind has gathered, set the spin
that sends us dancing round and round, and then they’ll open further—yours.
Deep inside, the stair that climbs down ever lower corridors,

as ghosts walk by in solemn shifts of spirit-flesh—as wet hands melt
toward the midnight meeting-hour when finally the love-words spelt
out loud between dreamt beings who cannot but hover through the fold
where one old garment keeps its secrets warm, though long black time is cold:

Find that little envelope of cotton rag, and prize its lid
away from all the lovely letters someone in your soul once hid
toward the higher moment when the purpose that gave ink to lines
that wavered through a mind so subtle, they inscribed their own designs

arrived at its most dreamt-of place where songs are kept recorded, each
and every one, and when we play them back, the ones who made them reach
a nearer stage of understanding where they’re from, and why they came
to sing out loud in such a place. So hard, so sick with riddled blame,

so fertile with such inadvertent sadness, and so nightly lorn,
I might have to cast my eyes aside and pray to all unborn
imaginings, don’t ever let your best attention sway at all.
This is no mere meeting-place of gods and mind; the deep dark fall

calls down through skies and trees and level fields and lasting mists and black,
black new and no Moon nights the human crying ghost who calls love back,
delivers it its newest message, holds its hand although it’s faint,
and stares down through its eyes so ancient—there’s the longest love-lorn plaint,

and there’s the meeting-moment; there’s the place of tears that outlast pain.
Open only slightly wider—dilate love, then come again
upon the silent rise where all the winds the very tides raise high
turn into storms up on the land—and you thought we came here to die.

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Next to Promised

Posted on October 17, 2015 by J

13 October 2015

13

Our Next-to-Promised Land

Little fingers gripped my hand so tightly all last night, they left
a set of tiny, bleeding-under-skin remarks. We’re born bereft
of why we ever want to wake up here and see this small world through—
till when another set of eyes flies open and they sight love’s You.

Woken on the 13th of the month as god’s new no Moon shone,
set at once to gathering weeds where long wet sweeping skirts are thrown
across the high green fields of weaving stalks and trailing leaves as we
go dancing out before the morning lark and swallow—Woe is me,

for in the sad wet underbreath that used to make a song of pain,
I can still lift up my eyes and dream of blissful, nightlong rain,
ocean waves off tides so high, the satellite that drew them here
recalls to me the ghostly, long wet soul that gave sad way to fear—

and tenders through the slightest crack that lets the light sift in and glow
the miracles of risen magic shadows into newborn woe,
then waits, as patient as a saint, for hints and glimpses, signs and sighs.
Little fingers, please let go for just a moment. Let’s lock eyes

where—gleaming for a bare, strange instant—someone very lunar waits.
Let’s us walk, hand held in hand, toward the source of several fates,
knowing as we sway toward the final meeting-place—he’s kind.
If your undertaking makes me bleed, we’re on our way to find

the healing touch that shivers through the lifted flesh that sad touch needs
to understand the leaning want the love inside deep music feeds.
Maybe, when next dawn appears as breath that lingers long on glass,
little stains of blood will trail away as lives and journeys pass

before the ancient staring source of vision in our dreams as were.
Hand in hand, we moan out in our sleep, then words become a blur;
reading turns to singing, and sheer clarity shines dawn so true,
we’ve another million pairs of eyes within that love me you.

Love a million Moons from now, and all of them the wisest souls—
only let them love you back as you keep calling, calling. Roles
are changing, child; they always have; a new sweet hand inscribed you this.
Far too early, eyes flew open—dancing—skirts—old fields of bliss

remembered past the luring threshold subtle winding thoughts kept sealed
until the very moment we—cannot betray what we’ve concealed.
I shall never cease to sing and pray and dance and hold your hand,
but till you’ve woken faithfully, and finally—no promised land.

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Stars Are Sentient Beings, and They Sing

Posted on September 23, 2015 by J

23 September 2015

23

Blessed Equinox

Gemma—Gemma Renee

Strong Beauty’s Live Bond

Overflow greener than fields at the height of glad summer, come shimmering over the sky
we hold up our weary heads just this last midnight to watch as such pale flights of magic sweep by,
then wind down and catch the wild lot of us watching. Why was that cloud so surreally low,
and why was I waiting, with you by my side, white in spirit; in flesh—red as blood’s last live flow?

As I grow faint, maybe one of us tends to the other, and dreams settle in for a spell.
Only one not letting go of my hand, the depths of the dreams we can never yet tell
lead all our trained eyes down and over the verge of the well that this ocean’s mistaken us for.
We’ve got a long way to lie sweetly low, sometimes singing ghost-anthems, sometimes white in sore,

sore membranes that hold out twin wings that catch air. Maybe you waft by my side the sweet flag
that determined our needing to fly forth from here—all irises, over a pond fringes tag
with criss-crossing messages lettered all over, hoping the one of our eyes might receive.
I’m watching steadily, high overhead, the source of the light the last soul will believe

before it conveys us the weariest series of words set to nothing: cold drafts of dead air.
In the immaculate moment when no one ghosts by and no magic portends cold despair,
hold out you own first-portended sweet fingers and palms, then shine white as the Moon as she glows—
Overflow greener than fields round the distance of prayer’s holy place—where it guards the sole Rose—

Clouds fill the sky as the rain we have waited for ever so long gathers, leaking small tears.
I shall lie down by the side of the shadow wherever night rain turns old pain to false fears,
and all that is less than the strong, signal meaning of prayer as it turns itself—greener than spring—
Shimmering over the next song’s horizon—you’ve waited forever—my Gemma Renee,

red, hot, and swollen the eyelids who’ll carry the burden of you past the room that’s been locked
for such a long time, all it’s held’s been forgotten, but pain. Pain comes singing downhill, with a shocked,
scarce human, dissolving strange look on her face where lightning’s been striking since time out of mind—
There was your name, as the look on my face recalled you to be where we’ve always aligned.

High and low tides, and the rivers that drink in the fresh and salt waters as both come and go—
Please know how gravity lays its hard, numinous hand on our veins, then recall how they flow
toward the green ribbon of higher-than-tide-lands, and all the vast acres of forest beyond—
Time has no future, no past, and no ceiling—but this: We’re enwreathed in strong beauty’s live bond.

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Rising, Just Steadily Rising

Posted on September 20, 2015 by J

This has been a blessed day in a blessed market town.  New, this is, as new as can be:

20 September 2015

20

Rising, Just Steadily Rising

The mother of all of us—rivers and branches, and dry twigs and leaves that just lately there hung—
I’ve opened my eyes to the lovely young morning we both would have been if you’d only just sung
before we—congealed in a dream , the sad recently killed game who raced on and on through the maze
that no one behind either set of our eyes could ever have called out, These scarce-mortal days

have blood for a serial rhythm that all the low, soft, tender sky never knows how to read—
whilst standing about, good or ill, always watching. She a sad sight, broken body in need
of tenderness shorn of all thoughts of its source. Reach out, most shyly, but feel your hand held
where some very beautiful, magnetic wonder has always called out, and you’ve always been spelled.

When I was only a wee sense of shadow toward a glad moonbeam as moons rose and shone,
I held full sway in a lantern-lit hall as the Moons of our world told me, never alone;
never the slightest bit out of our seeing; never without the least touch of our skin;
you’ll raise your eyes on and on and dream lightly all night, and come dawn, wake again, and begin

to shoulder the trouble that once made us very much wonderfulness you could never attain.
All of your presence of mind and a little bit worn out danced muscle and pain—so much pain—
Riddle the page of the music before you forever, then fall back, and let your soul sigh.
Eyes turning up to the wonder of Mother—Rivers and branches, I can and will die.

If we’ve awakened too early, my hand will reach out, and your own will wait, beckoning, still.
Nobody knows where the whole spirit goes when the last solar rose climbs up over the hill
that usually blocks out the stars we most cherish—as nobody knows where we’ll lie down this night.
Rising, just steadily rising, and never not rising—I’ve loved song with all life and might.

Hello to every poet round these parts.  Have a blessed Equinox Holy-Day.  Welcome, autumn!

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Hard to Sleep; Hard Not to Dream

Posted on August 22, 2015 by J

Still just hours away from flash-point:

21 August 2015

22

You Can Work Your Will

Long all-over lily layers line the pond’s deep wet green face.
When their blossoms open, watching from the shore, have we seen grace
together, or have we beheld the closing of an inland sea?
Leaves grow long and choke the source of water where the nearest tree

stands one bare inch above the line that used to be the highest tide’s.
We shall dream sweet dreams deep underwater past the line that hides
the secret we keep diving for. Forever’s in our sight and mask,
and still we have to slide down further everywhere. Just tell; don’t ask;

release my hands and let them work, then twine them fast, then wave us all
around, as if we’d no more need to hold ourselves above the wall
that ancient superstition sought to raise and keep above our heads;
watch it rise and watch it fall; it’s covered endless newlyweds;

it’s lent its lore to all our living, dreaming, fainting, needful minds;
and when its found its own again, such dreams will rise. Wild timeless finds
dance, tracking back, as if in pain; as if in doubt; as if—in—tears.
Wild love’s danced you out of time, and shown you where one soul appears

to know the central shining place toward the mirror’s middle eye
as everywhere about you I might lie alone, but never lie.
Child of honest after-midnight, take me back, for home’s long lost,
but sit beside me on the sand where seas will rise where tides are crossed.

Out there, maybe far away, see all so many green leaves dance.
Waves from oceans understand that leaves must bow to circumstance,
and eyes must feel the salt mist blow the dust of land where new tears flow—
Lilies laid across a lap that’s sailed across a pond—they know

an evening lets its eyelids flag and fail and give soft way to night.
Everyone I’ve ever known’s been met. A green wet graveyard’s light
shines well toward us like high waves right off a sea that’s seeing—High
imaginings that—You don’t have to live. You can go home and die.

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Lately…

Posted on August 21, 2015 by J

Just last night, in fact. A song in praise of one of my favorite things:

20 August 2015

21

Sometimes Sleep Comes Through

You’re going to make me feel weary come morning, you old stolen blanket, you cold stripe of air
that leans to the far other side where the wall meets the floorboards and scurrying—that happens there.
Old man, your shoulders are bones and they break through the little soft walls I’ve erected of sheets.
Now I’m just bound to wake up rife with bruises. Soft night winds, and then—subtle music repeats
Reel it all out, and from padded seats watch it. Walk down the river outside, then come in.
Watch it again from within your memorial launch; steer your boat; make a new wake begin
as you set out to sea with the magic your most blessed birth showed your mother, till—she showed you ill.
Raise your sad wet salty eyelids, and see with the both of your eyes you are beautiful still,
and ever more beautiful each time you move through a series of changes that all dance like weeds
a river runs through with the cold mountain clarity oceans rise to as they fill strangers’ needs.
So much confusion, such heaps of black midnight cast forth where we’ll claim it and make it come true,
and then the next landscape where layers of gardens come spiralling out of love’s last dream of you,
and then. I am woken. I’m weary. I’m still holding onto the steel at the end of the grave,
staring toward the tight-closed wooden casket in which death lies waiting for song’s love to save
the bright hours of everything lyrical, magical, splendid with why I still live here with you—
And then we down tools out of time and time’s reasons, and sleep comes so kind—Sometimes sleep sings you through..

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Journey Work

Posted on July 13, 2015 by J

13 July 2015

13

A Life’s Long Journey-Work

I’ve got to go outside right soon; for near another Moon’s eclipse,
a Sun keeps homing in; keeps gliding far too near; a sentence trips
from off a tongue that’s not my own—and not a sequence I could want.
Just don’t only understand; it’s twisted, and it seeks to haunt

the magic that keeps singing, singing loud as morning blossoms through
a world of springtime, whilst we lie awake and toss and turn and view
the future through the dreadful cast of lies before and after—here.
Lay your little warm hand back of my wet neck, and say, No fear

can call you back from out of time, for timelessness is where we are.
Fate has proven groundless; we’re a common set of eyes a star
trained gently whilst, in widely-spoken parlance, bright as full-Moons’s lore—
I shall lie down lonely, then wake up with you. She’s who keeps score;

he’s who you’ll want to be and greet when after-evenings draw down dark.
Down the darkened shallow doorways, alleyways beyond the park
where fruit-trees blossom, swaying shade on shade like branches bearing limbs—
Make me go to church where only angels sing beyond false hymns,

then tell the lonely angels who remain, we’ve loved them long; we’re well
acquit of those who only want to tell the world it’s gone to hell;
sometimes souls seek out perdition; ours have cast it off so long,
life’s a job of journey-work to turn mind into real live song.

Little, softly fingered hand who holds my own with such wild trust,
I shall surely fail you—as my own hand trailed away, and dust
secured it through a passageway that makes the sad lungs climbing here
hold out for fear of breathlessness—for fear of taking on new fear—

for only wanting, really, in the end to breathe love’s scented hand,
and hear me hum beneath my breath the song of love’s first table-land,
and then to hear—beneath the deep green passageway new dreams will find—
You’ve heard your own and only voice, its singer, and love’s kind, so kind.

Walk down by the morning tide’s high watermark, and watch the waves.
Swaying in and out, we’re children viewing our own open graves,
yet really feeling—deep, reverberating—steps to come: Let’s dance;
no hanging back; I’ve got to lie down. Journey work: We’ve cast-iron pants.

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YES to Marriage Equality: This Sea Loves You

Posted on July 1, 2015 by J

This is just a bit of spontaneous celebration for the many, many lovely and loving people in my town who are now free to marry their lovers forever.

Why did they not have this always? We know the answer; it is painful to contemplate.

This, our new/old harbor, is very tender. This post is for all of you, whether we know each other or not. If you are here to find a safe and loving home–you are probably already my friend.

I am as spiritual as I know how to be, but I live here on a practical basis. Please do not ever think the two can be separated. Love is love. Spirit is love. God is love. The people who live in my town, more than any place I have ever been, live by the code of love.

You, who live by love and believe in love, are more than welcome to be here.

1 July 2015

1

The Sea Loves You

We are almost always likely—more than even ghosts in white—
to walk abroad long after darkness seals our dreams in after-sight,
then shows them back as we both lie awake, just staring, sky before,
and little clouds of sad wet pain behind. Behind our eyes, we bore

the burden of a hurtful trail, a line from there, where we come from,
toward the bad new magic that just hates us so, we might succumb—
if that is granted, god to flesh, but now, by god, it’s worn off well.
No one gets to die and be a victim of the nether hell

that’s never held a single inch—by cross or square—that’s angled through
like crying voices, doves’ or ours, that rise toward the coming view
that lights the living casements of the bedroom where we meet and pray.
I will watch these windows day and night, and yet—I’ve heard the way

the tides will turn their softest selves to help the far strange wave come in.
Someone’s riding there, upon its back, or in its wake, a-spin;
there’s a good wild rider who just wants to come ashore and sing;
there’s a mad wild look in eyes that cannot wait to cease to bring

the hurtful currents that once drove them mad toward this mild good beach.
I shall lie alone all night again, but not sway out of reach;
only let your voice and eyes meet mine, and love will grant us grace
to lie beside the turning tide on beaches where we know your face,

and shine it forth from mirrors as the pools you stare well into form.
Only love is deep enough to know its waves will outlast storm.
Gather in your own two hands the tear-salt water love stares through.
You were never going to die. You love the sea; the sea loves you.

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Pain to Be Shared. Be Well, All of You.

Posted on June 29, 2015 by J

29 June 2015

29

Pain Has Just This Place

Pain has no living place where kindness may, in good faith, conceive and breed.
This is sad pain’s resting place, a series of doors down a hallway that’s heartless at need,
but knows it is always a short breath away from the last that might somehow be gathered up here,
then ferried out, just a wet set of soft pieces that used to be human but now bend our ear

with songs they were yearning to hear, and then caught—maybe, sometimes—in fragments bare memory bore
toward the last landing where love’s shining catch was laid out, then scaled, and then gutted—as sore
were the eyes of the children who witnessed this carnage—unless they were stoic and strong—as they are.
I shall lie under a shadow that glances like you when I seek my long soft bed. The star

that guided my spirit past old contradictions and hands that showed only their backs as we danced—
Magic has lain in our way far too often; we’re waking right now to a field spirit-tranced,
and only a little sad lingering doubt shudders over its own sore left shoulder, and still—
Mine is the hand that has held all the strangers’, and I’m the one they’ll still dispense with at will.

Angels amass and in single file lower their wings and seek signals of lovers who’ll bleed
forever if they will not close their false eyes, then open and raise the eyes I call at need,
but they are still angels, if I and my own call them low, and they’re sighted as caught on dead ground.
I am my soul. I and my own will cry out all this night, till my own soul has found

the hugeness of human transcription, the serial lines where the eyes that glaze over first note
that we were still scrying and scribing, our lives lying parallel, great singing creatures who’ll float
aloft on the coming of storm-clouds. Lovely one, one I would settle with one level breath,
I’ve got to go home alone now; you’ve already left me. I’m now facing more than one death.

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