Category: Poetry
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falling horizons
today I stand on the horizon
beyond the vast, known spaces
my steps tracing a Moebius membrane
as the white sea pours through my heart
no there, no past, no unwanted memory
–all swept lovingly into the waves
seeds for waiting oystersdid you know that I could fly?
I didn’t either until the wind caught my wings,
and the rock’s weighty tomes fell ponderously away
like the unexpected removal of an atrophied, forgotten limb
the only thing between my life and some great heightit was the sound of the air rippling behind the gulls wing,
the inevitable pulsing call of invisibly present stars
–shining. always shining
and I eagerly askwho is singing the song that calls the fruit to bud?
what whispered word ripens them? why must our ears be so ignorant?
does not silent nature speak with my mouth?
touch with my porous skin? cry these salty tears?nature, like an atrophied, forgotten limb, has been removed
–or perhaps I am the limb of nature,
which, only newly awakened, cannot yet know its mother
for I usurp her ears, her skin, her tears,
assume them like a mask stretched taught over this shifting body
while I forget how my wings lift me up
though their rhythm ever flows onwhich is why I am here, cradled by the rocks and wind
endless waves spread out before my dangling feet,
waiting to reach the horizon
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the world, seeking
shadows fall on shadows, aghast at their own darkness
times keep falling out of place, surprising themselves,
trailing numberless atrocities like the dust of a comet
sweeping ominously across a shrouded, weeping planetthe forces are arrayed, the engines started
words have been spoken, in earnest, in fear, in foreboding
the percolating matrix of desire is abroad
spewing the churned filth of age upon agegrasping through coated vision, sickly sweet with unknown blood
mine? or is that just the fading of words in the rain
a forgotten calligraphy of music and coincidence
swept into the tragic dust of memorywe are all the friends of death
we have slipped our milky white hands in his
threaded our fingers into the dying bones of the future
and now hold on for dear lifeknow then benevolence, you royal heir, the polarity of spirit
awakening with the sound of inversion upon inversion
every coming forth speaking through white knuckles
shaking your being, lighting it on firedeath isn’t waiting for you
you are the one who shall transform
you are the one to phosphoresce in embrace
while all the world casts off from your shoreunshackle your breath
unmoor yourself from the known
take wing, rise up,
you are the gift -
dreaming
sole to sole, my mirror image and I
striding above and below the deep waters
curious, I dip beneath the surface
stare back up at myself, asleepdidn’t you call me? i ask
have I not come and knelt at your side?
the shadow grasps my hand
with a solidity I could never musterand bursting into flames I can only weep
and touch the pierced hearts around me
singing the ageless songs
flying deep under the waveswhile some inscrutable gleam flashes below
I follow, but it only laughs and disappears
but never does it wander far
always flowing from the futureand when my breath grows weary
with the day’s long images unfolding
it comes to me, or I to it
and we rise together -
swallowing the sun
what spirit speaks the heart re-echoes
its lofty chambers with choric ringing
twist and fold in timely rhythm
the fountain’s deep moods springingunshadowed now, revealed and waking
all forge and fire, veils rent aside
the swallowed sun, see! – beaming again
‘cross the rivers, stride in stridethe call’s heard round from distant shores
the ferryman’s change cast far away
for the light, in the light of what must come
all self’s entreating sleeps this dayfor no ‘troth be had ‘cept to purest gold
with transforming beat of future’s time
sounding now through wordless Love
the spinning forth of spiral lineseen from above, auricles embracing
hearing blood’s poems shouting alight
the heart, this heart, carries forth the sign
and the eye awakens in the nightThe Swallowed Sun
