The Grey

Posted on December 17, 2020 by J

The same poetic form recurs, but the story inside varies across its domain. The lovers are parted or in desperate straits, then comes a sudden realization just when all appears lost that seemingly permits a view from the other side of the trauma and pain. Having fainted (among other altered states) many times, I have learned to focus on remaining an aware observer throughout, and have witnessed the shift into different aspects of consciousness quite plainly. As with those who have had near-death experiences–NDEs–one gains a totally different perspective on what’s been happening. It’s always peaceful there. And no one need be alone.

Then again, it’s not our lot to go to the bright world now and stay there; we pursue our work in the grey in-between.

The following piece is recent, and one I am fond of:

26 November 2020

26

The Grey Side

The side of your face, with your head on the pillow, its lace edge caressing your cheekbones and chin–

so leads me away to a shimmering break in the inclement weather where journeys begin

the hard work of a terrible cause being challenged again and again, till the weary tears fall

and it all goes to pieces because when you sigh the soft light in your eyes sends a gleam to the wall

where old warrior-shadows once passed–their own faces as grey as their dense grizzled many years’ beards.

Each of them plodding along, seeing nothing but hoping to end with the cloud-midnight wyrds

who first whispered them wakeful and ordered them, march on the land like the times when you rowed for the shore

but were never to find either reason or plunder; it’s time now you learned what your journey was for.

Hoping forlornly–but counting on nothing–they sense a vague change in the air. The wind shifts.

Out of a low heavy sky, an idea appears like a lantern a lonely hand lifts,

and its beam penetrates the dim corners in each sorry warrior’s mind–if there’s aught that remains.

Well after midnight she’s bound to go riding and witnesses then will make lyrical gains

in the knowledge of lost incantations and how to create them anew from the most ancient source.

Hard as their lives must have been, they are harder by far for the distance they’ve plodded off course,

If they hie them around, there’s no past no go back to; and if they march forward–the cliffs are close by.

And then like a flash from a mirror, the same gleam of light from your eyes came as Hush, this is why:

In each leather garment there’s one secret pocket, so secret you had to forget it yourself

lest it be wrested from you–the likeness so precious, it stayed in a box on a high mantel shelf

till the orders came through and you could not abandon it, knowing its fate was precarious there.

So every one of you, all this long column of restless ghost-walkers, kept one lock of hair,

and a profile of her whom the rest of the hair was attached to last time she was present and real.

Now you’re so lost in your own lonely story, you haven’t the heart for the hard way to feel

how much need lives within you like–ghosts in a circuit completing itself but then starting again.

Don’t ever picture the side of her face where your fingers once traced a strange map sudden rain

dissolved into vivid, unreadable marks; she might turn away if your touch is too rough.

What will you do if you’ve found her the same way a very wyrd woman’s just spoken, Enough

cicumambulance, circumlocution, and circum-un-straight-line manoevers, poor warrior soul.

All the hard marching that’s cost one more lifetime, and still you’re caught fast where you’re outstanding goal

is one hand waving back across nearly no distance. She’s always been faithful; she’ll shelter your ghost.

Each time you set out to follow wrong orders has cost you, but midnight, she’ll raise you a toast

with a cup overbrimming with cider pressed here, the glad land you’ve arrived in at last. Why the face

she turned shyly away, the first time you approached? The grey side of your own was like alien lace.

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The Lovers

Posted on December 15, 2020 by J

The Lovers

Many years ago, when I was first really struggling to enter my full vocation, I had a vision. It’s been recounted before but, briefly, I was shown armies and then two individual soldiers fighting–who then they resolved into lovers, coupling. The Wheel was placed before me as a clock-face, with the numbers representing a soul’s journey from departure from the All to return–from amnesia to anamnesis. At the point of return, the soul and the home-love it was longing for are reunited, but even such bliss becomes stale after a while. Story-telling becomes their way of keeping each other in joy. Thus, no matter how terrible parts of the story, a satisfying ending is assured. So I was shown!

Last night as I lay awake, I thought of the vision, and how different everything is now than when it first came. I always trusted it, or tried to; now I understand it in a way I don’t have to think about. Work never required much effort, except for that needed to quell my own self-doubt. Once that was out of the way–I’ve always described the sensation as flying, or skating, or dancing, with word-flow. There’s no making anything happen; there’s only the letting it come through.

The resulting work has usually been met with a respectful but confused response from readers, so I don’t give much thought to anyone reading a piece after the fact. It is all addressed to the soul-home, and when it reaches its aim, I can feel it. Sending and receiving, to and from a place beyond clock-time–learning how to do this has been a story in itself.

There is one thing I can gesture toward as a sort of starting-point for readers, but it is controversial with me because that point is Rumi and I am not an admirer. He comes across to me as someone who learned the patterns intellectually first and then practiced using metaphors until he sounded credible, but mysticism as he represents it is similar enough to our source-garden to help with orientation here. The soul feels lost in the world, missing something–someone–and searches, crying out, until whispers in return finally get through: I’ve been here all along!

Be thoughtful of the simple dynamic that what you are searching for is searching for you, and so much falls into place. The kingdom of heaven is within, and here are some maps of the way you need not go because you are there. But have fun on the journey, because we know you’re going to do it anyway. Be sure to bring back some good stories! And remember–everything always means more than one thing. And retrieving true lore–every bit of understanding that is real and useful in more than one world–appears to be our ultimate purpose.

Here is today’s work:

Their Tales to Each Other

Sometimes, when they spiral around in the dance, they get lost in their thoughts for a moment, but soon–

alone on a platform, the coil of the rope like a crown that has fallen–no shadow at noon

when the signal is given and presto, she’s down, at the end of her rope, twitching out the last beat

of a heart so enamored of music, it’s waiting to greet her–in waltz time, and rose-honey sweet.

.Bees gathered over their honeymoon flowers and ferried them forth to the sea beyond shore.

This was a lyrical flight, exegesis not needed; they knew what they’d been sending for

when they opened their mouths, either side of the bee-loud divide between stations and serial lives

they had patiently prized from their earthly foundations and built into beautiful library-hives,

and they knew where they’d be when they’d reached it, the dreamt destination of all of those lives and their sleep.

Little by little tears falling from eyes become signals to follow upstream, where they keep

their best inspirations recorded forever in hope of the visitor each used to be.

Into the source of the fountain that warded off drought and maintained the arcane inland sea

where the sailors who venture are hardier spirits than these airy lovers, who float in mid-air–

down by the waterline, reach in a hand; if a sea-monster bites it–they won’t really care;

they’re infected already with far worse contagion; they’re bound to sail on till the lovers onboard

have been tossed off the side as a pair of dead bodies. Now pearls that were eyes line a sea-monster’s hoard.

They only remembered that passage themselves after feeling their own eyes roll back a bit far.

Rubbing a slow thoughtful hand on the scars of her sore rope-burned neck, she sighs, how fine you are,

and how blistered with infinite sunlight and rage and the flames of the pyre when my blood would not burn

my poor carcass would be, but for one healing salve brought from far overseas in a white marble urn.

There’s always a bit of residual magic that lingers where ashes have changed into dust,

the pain they once knew so entirely forgotten, the spirits they danced with can generate lust

with their most graceful motions and send it off flying with ribbons and pennants like petals and leaves.

They never look back–but sometimes when they have, they’ve been sad for a while for the lover who grieves,

having somehow forgotten he’s not in a memory now. She’s not absent; she’s not in her grave;

she’s not in the flames of a pyre nor the depths of a tearstorm at sea in her own drowning wave;

she’s advanced in the treacherous zone of red roses toward the broad orchards and gardens he’ll find

in a moment–the moment he’s slipped off the traces of rope-burn and salt from the pit of the mind

that’s been lining its library shelves night and day, making ready for such a strong spirit to light

that he’s finally sweeping the floor, throwing open the windows, and airing his clothes in the bright

new moonlight and making–arcane preparations for her, who is certainly present in more

than any one room–when at length from their bed they tell tales to each other–more love is more lore.

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On the 13th

Posted on December 13, 2020 by J

13 December 2020

Shhhh…it’s nobody…never mind the creaking floorboards. This place is still deserted–it’s just that something’s turned up that wants to be here, and we don’t want to have to listen to it moan.

More and more stories are coming through the lyrics all the time. They’re starting to make another kind of sense in addition to their constant uncanny aspirations.

This is new, although the core story is very, very old:

13 December 2020

13

Unmonstering

The story she asked for again and again was romantic enough, she was still on the swoon

when next time came around. She could not get her fill of the lonely girl lost on the very dark Moon,

a sad dancer whose spiralling footsteps left tracks in the silvery dust of a world you can’t see–

but I can, and before it’s all told, her own story will make sense to you as it always has me.

She’s in a particular mood, one she’s waited a long time to capture in essence to feel

at her leisure, or need; she’s about to decant a few drops. It’s effects are exclusively real

if the one who is wearing this fragrance attracts a keen answering interest from someone unseen–

and the strength of that answer, from which a whole future of music depends–she knows what it will mean,

and must not shy away from. She’s breathing in deeply. She’s steeling herself for a night of hard work.

Lighting a candle and walking alone through a maze of dark corridors–furred monsters lurk

with their hobnails extended to trip her and send her headlong to a place in a faint by the stairs–

which she’s now falling over, unconsciously playing a character based on the lurid affairs

it was rumored she’d oftimes participate in, with uncanny companions–no mortal knows who.

On the horizon, a small streak of light from the hidden but rising, most certainly true

memorial shrine only whispers describe to the rain as it splashes and washes away

what was never a thought-out design, but a bit of pure chance recognized as a grace that won’t stay–

but will faithfully, if you don’t wait for it, wind all around and recur like your one dearest thought.

She’s in a hurry to get to the mailbox and learn what the full Moon last month might have brought

to the distant one leaning across his own table with pages strewn over it, steel pen in hand.

Dagger in heart and thick blood dripping over the table’s rough edges. She’ll go on unmanned.

His last letter finally reaches her, tells her the deepest of lies, then tears every lie down.

Once a sad girl read a message so dreadful, she went to the field on the outskirts of town,

burned all the previous pages and scattered their ashes, then walked to the shallow green lake

silent willows protected and prayed to the Moon overhead and lay down there to die for his sake–

till there came in the night a faint grey visitation. His hands swept the altar of all objects bare,

including the small silver bottle of essence that spilled out its contents and filled the close air

with the memories faithfully waiting for one final moment when–free to be nowhere at all–

they met in the flesh on the Moon after death, where they danced with a spiralling wind at their call–

in that story. In this which, is never a lie but the truth lying under their tales like the rock

that provides us with pathways through mountains to caverns–she lay after fainting and almost in shock–

but she woke when she heard metal clatter and rag paper rustle and somebody clearing his throat.

He knows he’s about to get asked, and he’s ready: There once was a monster that nobody wrote….

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Dewi Sant

Posted on March 2, 2020 by J

2 March 2020

David is the patron saint of Wales, land of my foremothers and fathers, direct ancestor of our artery of song. His name is not Daffydd, cymbricized from the Hebrew David; it is Dewi. Dewi Sant is the patron of Wales, and March 1st is his feast-day. This is last night’s work:

1 March 2020

1

At Need, We’ll Show

Hearing–some sounds–from a far, muffled way–I fell from my place as the heavy horse swayed.

I slipped like an eel–or a wraith–from the hoof as it nearly came down on my face as I prayed.

Do you know who your friends truly are, in the end? I wish I had known I was heavy in mind.

Friends who are flagellants now, who attend a harsh, terrible church, send their letters unsigned.

The words tumble out of the falsest of minds when their speakers just sway in their tracks and fall down.

I woke up alone with my window wide-open, and what I heard out there was sorrowful. Crown

of the far northern skies where I first learned my own name, show me again in whose shadow I stand

when I walk out at night and stare up at your presence. The world I was born to was this living land,

and my hand, as it shadows as if from high over, was supple as yours as you taught me to read.

I used to wake up very early, but lie very late because dreams took so long to recede,

I had vastly extended dream-passages through and between the worlds reading had shown. And before

I was finally forced to leave off all my dancing and wandering–love brought a shining light’s more

contagious yet healing soft voice that I knew if I only would let it–would sing me free here.

When next I hold out my hand, and a horse is within reach of what I would cause to appear–

there’s an apple as red, and as green, and as round–as was once cast before the three goddesses we

have to struggle right now to recall because children are lying downhill where the roots twine to be–

The page in the old, painted book, one with plates from a workshop the artists who love us most love–

It’s just gotten torn into pieces, but don’t be unhappy; the ceiling lights shine from above,

and someone up there took a picture. So all the wild fragments that flew like wild birds in a breeze?

The powerful hooves–they must muffle their magic until we can bear it–When hooves part great seas,

just watch from your place on the shore as the wee tiny fishes shine up, as if looking at you

would bring them across the old land-water bridge. Some ghosts have to happen; some happen to view

the source of the light in all eyes as will see them–Fall back asleep if you can; I’ll stand by.

Down coat and shroud and long nightgown and vestments that serve an old altar–at need, we’ll show why.

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Gr’Mere

Posted on June 13, 2018 by J

She’s the Biggest Mama, the one I only go to when things are serious. This is what happened when I petitioned her on behalf of a friend:

29 May 2018

29

Gr’Mere Will See You Through

The mirror at the far end of the corridor shines like the Moon.
You’ve waited much too long to know there’s one like you who knows the tune
through all its changes, and will hold his end up till his final breath.
And—you also know—that this might happen only after death.

So—you walk accordingly, and dance, one hand out; mind your pace.
There’s a little riddle hidden deep inside this magic place
where you are both desired and feared—but love will win if love is brought
to meet itself with nothing standing in between but breaths so fraught,

the two who make them last by making song of every hint and sound,
hearing in between the moments we alone can find—have found—
an hour ago, and cannot cease to hear through all the night to come—
as clearly this presentiment is wise as I was once dead numb—

I wore my scarf around my throat to keep it warm and pliant, and
I stood inside the river, praying, Please Gr’mere—our house of sand
is threatened by the doubt that makes love never want to build to last.
I am standing in a current, holding on, but failing fast.

The tortured woman still awaits my gaze—the one who drowned and sank.
Whenever she takes in her hand my hand, I walk the brittle bank
that falls away beneath my feet, and then I feel her drowning clutch.
The mirror at the end shines like the Moon, but lacks all human touch:

I send to you through tears and rain the promise of my own Gr’mere:
You cannot lie unhallowed; you have sought the love of very air,
and found within it strength of purpose. We who hear you know your name,
image, and intensely told and written story. Find the fame

that seemed to be a curse within your telling of your hour of loss.
Lean toward the one who sings but very softly here across
the future from the days as were: You might still remember her.
She’s the one who sang to you—and found you where it’s all a blur

by waking day, but closely held in moments when dear dreams begin
to illustrate the images that fill the space where lovers win
their quarrels with their dearest one and dance at last with ribbons on—
She’s looking at you, bright as song itself—She says—Fear, get you gone.

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As Love-Poet Seems to Be My Strongest Calling…

Posted on May 8, 2018 by J

…what can I do but build upon my most loving recent work?

Syncope means fainting.  I have gone there too many times.  Everything physiological shuts down, if only for a few seconds.  It’s happened to me so often that I now stay present and awake, out of body.  Not only is that magic, but what it helps me be open to experience is as wonder-ful as magic gets.  I’m never alone–just look up.

8 May 2018

8

Syncope

You know you will go there. It might take some time. Time is right weak if you see through the lies
and wires of the mind that can’t help but turn over each stone in its path, yet cannot recognize
that they’re not quite a wall; they just mark the high tide-line. They’ve felt the touch of wet salt on their skin,
though they’re silent and motionless. Listen so closely, your heartbeat sounds loud—in between beats, begin

to lean into the rapt state of knowing acceptance that this is a process that cannot be told,
but can only be deeply experienced. Out in the summer before us, the sky turns to gold,
but there’s rain in the eaves—we’re our own mournful climate. Count all the creaking old stairs to the dark,
final hallway before we break through to the basement—because floors are rotten. Then, rise with the lark

from out of a faint we two fainted together. Nobody’s injured; we just dreamed a dream
out of body till pulse talked itself into coming awake through the black that was more real than seem
all the lights overhead in this long awkward moment. Hold out a hand; you’ll feel fingers entwine
with your own in a most friendly way, then please just try to rise to your feet. There’s a tiny thin line

of light we can follow—there must be a candle behind that blank panel of old wooden door.
Who’ll ever find us? It’s no use to wonder—we’re underneath many a weak ancient floor,
still dizzy, but trying to part the long darkness by willpower, using the light of our eyes
from within, like the warm source of dreams when the morning is frozen, like tears, formed when either one’s cries

become crystals that shatter. I can’t take you with me, the sorrowful echo recalls to our minds.
Shattered against the cold final stone floor where the dead were once buried and now—Window-blinds
fly open upon a glad morning where love waits beside you to watch you arrive on the shore,
practice your getting-on craft, tether soundly to one friendly pier, and let all your tears pour—

You know you will go there. The future leads—forward, beyond the last bounds of the best-sighted eye.
Through the unmist of the clearing where someone who lies by your side softly stirs—you know why
you are here; now the question is whether to stay or return to the creaking of stairs by night rain.
Slowly, a hand in your own—past the stones of the not-wall—we’ve fallen, but look where we’ve lain.

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Experimental

Posted on May 5, 2018 by J

Several days ago, I asked an interesting new acquaintance if he would care to try a literary experiment. He was game, so I asked him to provide several key words or images to focus on while composing. I get so much random psychic–usually precog–material that I thought to see if it could be put to some sort of use.

The piece below is the result. He says I got hits, that basically the whole thing is hits. He also tells me it got a bit amorous, but look at the key phrases he came up with:

Musk—False teeth—Secret path—Rabbit foot

29 April 2018

Hare Across Your Path

The Moon’s just risen overhead; the path is lined with shining shells;
you’re walking with a solemn will toward the place of untold spells,
selecting for the best amongst them all, the fragrant tuft of hair
you last saw trapped by sweet spring buds upon the branch that blooms more fair

for your appeal to secret understanding as you stand in shade.
For love of god, your heart attempted what it never finally made—
the music of the ruined place where shining shells upon a beach
gleamed all too brightly, till you felt yourself go under, out of reach

of why the quiet thrumming came persistently, like rapid feet.
There’s the shadow swift as air about to storm—will it repeat
the words you heard on first arising out of dream and into deep
and ever more intense communion with the lore of former sleep,

by which you waken in your dream with something wet clutched in your hand?
It’s a bloody rabbit’s foot. That’s crossed your path. You understand
the meanings of the scattered constellations laid along your way.
The last time live pain broke you, you arose from prayers you’ll never pray

again—to fullest recollection of the stars beneath your skin,
the path that runs as deep as blood where all new signs and songs begin—
the tuft of hair that reeks of musk because last rut was when it tore
away from such a gallant shadow cast by moonlight, wanting more

than any—words—a hairs-breadth finer than the strength they take to tell—
but mind you well, the hare is trickster everywhere he casts the smell
of musk and ambergris aside and bids you go along: The Moon—
what if she’s really lying, and a light you still can’t read by? Soon,

the breaking down of tiny shells beneath such feet as dance all night:
Why are you afraid to fall asleep? Hold you my hand so tight,
the tuft of musky fur against your skin, as all the visions grow—
When you wake up next, you’ll tell me secrets only lovers know.

For now, whilst you’re still restless, what the wild hare shouts all round this heath:
So, my foot’s yours, but still it’s real, not like your pointless seashell teeth.
True or false: the end’s in view, so it has ways to signal you:
Tonight, wild hare across your path; tomorrow—secret paths through dew.

Not sure I’m going to try it again anytime soon.  I got a lot more involved than I anticipated, and it was pretty draining.  It was also confusing for someone I barely know to receive.  He’s till speaking to me, but who knows what he’s really thinking.

Truth is, nearly all my work is amorous.  The book I’m working on now certainly is.  Can’t exactly apologize, as love songs are my calling.

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Lost on the ride

Posted on May 4, 2018 by J

This was a Very good night:

20 February 2018

20

Lost on the Ride

It’s a wet pillowcase ours will be, come the morning. A wet little hand leaves a wet little trail

as it traces the side of your face. Weather’s warming; it’s almost about to be spring. Without fail,

we’ll have wept ourselves into a new verdant season, dreaming with one mind, though sensing apart.

There’s a broad, lush green memorial lawn that will welcome us—long, long before we lose heart.

I sat on the swing of an evening with one hand held out, casting measures of seed far abroad.

Swing harder, swing higher! The seeds go out flying away on the wind of another world’s odd,

slightly dislocating and lonely plane till the pitch of it lands in my stomach. My flesh

goes weird in a way that feels lovely, and I want to feel it again. Then I measure the mesh

of the words as they run through my mind on the thin edge of sleep every night. I’ll be coming home soon,

I tell them with every sweet vision in which we are met with ourselves and our lovers. A Moon

rose over the worlds where our hearts were first vowed to be friends with imaginings so real and wild,

everything kisses from this moment on with its true cast and image and—bears its own child

from the mouth of the fiery inferno in which it took life amidst pain and the echoes of pain.

Down through the years, we were achingly lying where souls could not reach verdant places and rain

like the tears that are just on the fine verge of coming, the surface where wetness will run and run through

your fingers and mine as we twine them together and who is it now, is it me, is it you—

I’ve forgotten; this session’s gone on a long time. Curtains are swaying; the very walls hum.

Somebody outside is quietly playing a flute, or a radio. Love’s yet to come

to a solemn conclusion, but this much is certain: Storm’s on the rise, and the window’s cast wide.

Bound to be virtual lakes in this bed, but I can’t do aught now; ‘I’ got lost on the ride.

 

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Drowning, Pond and Pool

Posted on December 26, 2017 by J

25 December 2017

24

Down in the Drowning Pool

Draw down through a pair of hands, the Moon down through the pouring rain
that used to make us wait outside, but now it’s found its first-born’s brain,
and deep within it, one long nerve that’s used to its own way from where
it met its future and its fate and there—Your mirror paid your fare;

it found it in the beauty you had asked for and received all night.
Music used your face to make its magic serve the higher light,
but if it tried and failed to warn you—beauty is a hard soft road.
Never paved with gold, nor paved at all, yet it must bear a load

that ages everyone it touches, like fine grave-mould on a bloom
that has the will to open widely, yet will not; this too-dark room
cannot but help the shadows gather, mold climb up the damp dark walls,
and beauty understand the madness resting well within the calls

the hymns all bear within their secret heart of hearts. I hear them sigh:
Voices who would always follow, harmonies that moan and cry
but never once identify their sources or the selves they claim—
Deeply, badly known; frustrated; those who go without a name

because they bear so many not a soul alive could once make sense
of where they came from—We who love our ancestors shall recommence
the song from line one, syllable not sung yet, but about to be—
Eerie once occasioning a soul who’s flown from star to tree

to bring the message home on wings that shiver in the cold, but veer
toward the open window where the children gather every year—
the warmest, kindest pair of hands still waiting, as they always do—
the grey, grey angels waiting here at home to welcome loved ones, you,

and your imagination—child of heaven, light, and pain, and loss,
who’s swifting coming hard and sad of age, the hands held out will cross
with other strange yet softly shining roads that lead from flesh to soul
through endless crossing highways, as you hear the call that calls you whole.

You’ve been and gone and called out for another soul, a friend, to wait
beside you as the sky cries on—as overhead, each turn of fate
has stars to show—for us, below its shadow, and its influence—
It’s all our hands, all four of them, held out, and—How’s a soul make sense?

Down in the drowning pool, the bones all clatter as they reach the face
of sheer light on the blooming surface, clear spring water, Queen Anne’s lace,
and bitter roots, devotions, dried old medicines, and ponds in must—
Deeper down the final veins, the Ocean moves; love lives on trust.

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Evergreen

Posted on December 26, 2017 by J

My Teacher

Her Church

Christmas Eve, This Year:

24 December 2017

23

How Green We Were and Are

How green the veins of your very own valley, the one running downhill, your arms at your sides.

Children bestride a dead horse, we were told; get you safe home to bed; say your prayers; no one rides

the nightmare on purpose. She’s always hated the children she’s borne under—some say, duress.

That’s a long garment with skirts that go flapping about and fair trip her so much, she says yes

to the dead man who waits at the end of the alley. He’s hers all along; she just tries to hold out

and not be so sad she can’t answer the shadow he’s casting across her known path. She’s about

to grow worried and start from a far distant quarter to where even ghosts dance with terrible nerves.

Give it an hour till the Moon rises higher, then listen again: Angel nobody serves,

She’s had a sure sign in the interval since she was told she had often been seen with the likes

of a ghost or an angel, conjoined hand in hand, as the ocean rolls over the land and the strikes

of the birds with their beaks on the glass as the cracks fly across from horizon to starline to—this

little room lined with little closed windows where nothing and no one should be unless untimely bliss

was their calling. It calls on and on. It calls always. It calls us Forever; it calls us its friends.

Angels as light as a feather come over our eyelids and sigh to us, all that love lends

the souls it loves best comes repeating like heartbeats—so listen or not, as you will; it lends you

the long cast of its eyes through the darkest of mirrors where deep intuition knows how to come true—

but when waking comes hard and the morning too early, I feel my arm flex, and the vein is so sore.

How green was my underhill maker of dreams as I sank down and down to where cataracts roar,

and the ocean as was has become a fine stream that is littered with silver and gold in the rock.

I’m walking out with my angel by night, and the friends of my childhood—Lord, no common stock—

where we’ll all be forgiven for waiting for changes to happen that open the real door where shine

the eyes and the great combined weight of the ancestors, knowing their hearts like an old, swollen vine

that bears through the seasons and centuries—even the turnings of pages from leaf-mould to leaves

that Forever will find itself happy to shine from, a written-down salve for the wound that bereaves—

The veins of love’s very own valley are fertile with color no unhappy heart could provide.

Blue-green as sleeping through long restless nightmares, yet happy as riding—our loves all should ride

through the hours after midnight, then wake with the dew as the Sun scarcely dares show its face above land—

That’s bound to grant us an hour just to lie soft abed, each a dead man as was, hand in hand.

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