"Illumination"

Illumination

Upon my weary wayward way I chanced upon the ghost

Of all this life would never see, the lack of love foremost

A jumbled way of misdirections

Caused a host of missed connections

Howling like a wounded beast

The heart is cut, the dream deceased

The iron armor's melted in the fire of all that's gone

Exposing to the world at large in gentleness of dawn

The deepest caverns never seen

A vein of iron's always been

I see it clear as world is turned

And, morning sun through fissures burned

Past cavern's door

Right to the core

To burn through stone and empathize

To bring to light and emphasize

That light illumes and, now, I find

Hidden deep within the mind

That deepest core is not of metal

Something stronger still

The core is made of fire and petal

Burned into the will

 

"Stained Glass"

 Stained glass

The joys of life etched into coloured glass

Shatters into pieces as the demons pass

I lovingly, as heart releases

Bend to knees to pick up pieces

From anguish held so long

With caring hands I pick each shard

From barren ground of life so hard

The sharpened edges cut like blades

The pain less dire than bleak charades

I seek my will in song

Each chip reshaped within a dream

Each sliver casts specific theme

Broken pieces held together

By the will and loving tether

In forms that slowly build

So beautiful with crafted care

The coloured light bestows fanfare

No simple craft is this we dare

But, resolute with flame and flair 

The heart's phantasm filled

Stained glass as it is willed

w

This is one of the poems that presents what I have tried to explain.  I use my poetry to get out of the gloom, not to emphasize it.  It took a lifetime but the gloom is beginning to have its way.  I don't even know if it is worth fighting it any longer.  I will say that I will always try but ...

    It's funny, as I think about it.  After the incident that I nearly caused, in which Great Heart insisted, in no uncertain terms, that I stick around, I took a drive down to the next big city south (there are none north, until Canada).  The trip was to explore and set up for an upcoming event.  I was on my way back on a different route than the one to the city and I missed my exit.  I went just a little ways before I figured it out, stopped to get directions, and turned right back around.

    As I was returning, as if to emphasise what Great Heart had emphatically stated, I saw these two signs on the side of the road.  They said something like, "Stick Around" and "The World Is A Better Place With You In It".  I paraphrase since I don't remember the wording at all.  It was fewer words but the same intent.

"The Deep"

 The Deep

I wander, once again, on distant shore

Rising from the depths that I explore

I often wonder whether man will see

That I have wrought the truth for him to be.

The pressures of The Deep upon my soul

Sought to crush the meaning of the whole

Into those depths I wandered unaware

That in those depths resided every care

"Borderland"

 Borderland 

I hope someday you see the point of optimism

How the gloom and doom do preordain

How darkest rationale and dogmatism

Just bodes the misery we live sustain

Could not have broken through to find the note

If all I did was listen to the rote

My adoration is for real

Not of mist but tempered steel

Yes, it built as high as hope

But countered by a silent trope

Thatt failed to comprehend

And, thus, it did suspend

my life

"Shake it"

Time to shake that feeling that was lost inside of me
The sparkles and the fireworks that are crying to be free
The wind is wailing that it's time for the release
Time for all the aching and the emptiness to cease
The whistle of the train and further pouring of the rain
Have never left a mark that I can see
The spinning of the carousel is grinding to a halt
The lights along the canopy are witnessing the fault
Shifting sands of foreign lands are falling to the sea
Below the tide where sands reside that leave no mark on me
The tempest of the feelings and the crack of lightning's thunder
This time no taste of bittersweet but, slowly, sinking under

Is the vision but mirage I see
No, for then the bittersweet would be
'Tis miracle of heart in apogee
'Tis more than spin of tale as heart goes soaring free
Above the world, above the love, all vistas in the vision
The landscape is remaining one of lasting composition

w

how many friggin' times before i say i've had enough...i actually know the answer to that.

"Everything"

Calamity of life beyond the pale
Perception that, in all, this life will fail
Disturbs the voice of endless body blows
Acceptance of the misery that shows
Contends with hint that wonder can be met
Though past in reeling sadness has been set
The future, unrepentant, will defeat
The shadows of the past of hard concrete

w

"Breaking"

I will not break, get angry, voice a scream
My soul, though, knows, in fire, of such a scheme
The heartbreak that was evident encompasses much more
Than ache and pain so unrelieved, I beg and I implore
Please redirect the fire that forges steel
In heart and soul to form and to anneal
Releasing angst, reforming pain, create the sharpened blade
My arms out open wide create the bellows that will aid
To ashes with the anxiousness expressed
The hammer shatters anguish manifest
The beauties, not the anguish, now fluoresce
In glowing flame of colors you possess
The winsomeness is not a helpless theme
But, battleground to bring about a dream
The courage of transcendence you desire
That blade of flexing steel is forged in fire
The fire you burn is more than all the heat
Of Mount Vesuvius, the blade complete

w

Let two-twenty have her fill

"Work of art"

Crafted on immense cathedral ceiling
In palette made of wonder and of feeling
That celebrates the works of art all crafted by the one
That understands the subtle art of life as it's begun
The images created
The notes and words conflated
In frolic carries on
Subtler signs of art conveyed
In grace and poise, the heart displayed
And gala ferries on
The crafting of that ceiling is no chore
Just gamboling preceding so much more

w

"Restoration"

Lacuna falls away
The breath comes out to play
The genesis of day
The pain along the way
The world turned upside down
Peering from within the nest
The fear of flying laid to rest
With wings so newly found
Soaring in the skies affords,
Liberates its own rewards
The breath of life adored
The pulse beats in accord
Magic is explored
Innocence restored

w

"Simple magic"

Each cell of my being

Each fiber of life

Each heartbeat agreeing

Each moment is rife

Celebration, elation; each movement the body does sing

'Tis the way unto transit the time

When each moment is set to the rhyme

In the wonder at all that unfolds as life sings

No destruction is found in the depths of heartstrings

Validation is gained when you view

All the places you look at in you

Not encumbered or caught

By the gestures so wrought

In another's deep thought

No more shadows are fought

No more hiding your thought

The embellishments sought

Are in you

To relish each movement with flowing surprise

Through the pain and the song in each glowing reprise

The life that goes on through the will and the way

Embraces the loving in every way

The breath will still catch

And the heartstrings still stretch

With the love of a one above all

No matter the fate or the fall

Just each moment and breath

'Til the end that is death

Is caught with the wonder of all

Then, you fly and you never will fall

w

In some ways, I guess this is an update to "The drum" as I further study how to remain whole in an existence that is doing its damnedest to make it otherwise.   w

"Streams"

Like streams from a fountain that flow in the night
The sparkling of ripples that flash in the light
The waters of love as they flow through the soul
Make ripples in time as the passions unroll
The streams become river, create waterfall
Ending in mists that arise above all
The vastness and meaning that cover the shore
The feelings of wonder that last evermore
The streams of the colors of rainbowing sky
A prism dream ripple, alone, I let fly

Streams of thoughts that ripple through my mind
Concern for Gypsy Empress left behind
The streams retain concern within my heart
Never, leaving pain, would I depart
To bring a glisten to the Cosmic Rose
Intent of all I did and and all I chose

All streams of all eternity are locked within this thought
With feelings and the worry, is the Empress free or not
Has the cage been opened, is the bird allowed to fly
In the ripples of that stream are rainbows in the sky

Eternity, the quest for something more
May all your rainbows stream through open door

"The home in the wilderness (or Finding you)"

Along all the travels this traveler roams

I find on the way to the wilderness home

The light of the way in the heart of the one

Whose heart, by its habit, was certain had none

So bright to the eye that I shielded my form

In a life without shelter from rain or from storm

I found what I sought in the home nestled there

And emptied the loneliness, clearing with care

The fury and wildness that worked in my heart

That animals caused will now flee and depart

As the blade of my terrible anger erased

And hilt of my rage broke the backs of their waste

In the light of the morning and heart of the day

In the gentlest of arms did I carry away

The tears are still shed for the pain and the cost

To the winsomeness hiding in wilderness lost

But, now, I can see in the light of her eyes

Her heart was the one gave that boot to the lies

The woods have now thinned leaving heart with the room

For home that is nestled in loving abloom

No more is the home to which no one would go

The feeling is right in the heart and the flow

"Love and chaos"

It is such a peculiar thing indeed
My heart, from love and chaos, never freed
To swelling of the heart, I always plead
That life with love, I celebrate the need
I throw the love to one and only one
The chaos of this heart has now begun
I revel and I ache
As love and chaos rake
The passion on the coals of burning fire
To the winsomeness our hearts retire
In my loneliness, my heart's desire
Creates a living, loving funeral pyre
Une autre vie, it seems is the long chance
To love you in a fine and sweet romance

"Valentine' day"

Innocent eyes did mesmerize and caused an overflow
Of feeling that went reeling as the mouth did, then, forego
Any tense of slightest sense and babbled far too bold
The deepest dread of what was said has taken dreadful hold

w

"Florescent Fire"

Upon the distant mountaintop persists a burning name

The colours, red and green, are bursting forth in flaring flame

A flash of passion burning through the intervening haze

The distance still remains between my heart and burning blaze

The wildfire spreads to light the night, a coruscant display

A silent burning flare intent on keeping heart at bay

w

"Comfort"

It's weird that I am comfortable with this
There's so much more that still remains amiss
But, ache has dissipated like a mist
The heart no longer clenched by mighty fist
The fates that play me, I do not resist
I submit, all anguish is dismissed
I bow unto the destiny
Delay in all the revelry
Is just as it must surely be
The message whispers, thoughts entreat
The bane of man, I must defeat

w

"Cocoon"

The ice is back as warmth recedes

With differences of note

The heart, in this case, never pleads

Cessation that I dote

It's different now, I sadly say

Until there comes a newer day

So, ice remains but, in cocoon

The heart and soul will stay in tune

'Tis no mirage I see

The warmth of supernova just declines to radiate

But, steady on, the heart is strong, an end to the debate

Head bowed and bended knee

A steadiness within the eye

No windedness within the sigh

I know that it will be

The certainty infuses me

White garden will, in bloom

Encompass vast ballroom

Piano keys will play in three eighth's time

As winsome oneness sways to hearts in rhyme

Crescendoes that so slowly makes the climb

The only certainty of all that I'm

So certain of is this

It will proceed

When hearts are freed

Within this life or next

w

"Longing"

That longing for the whirlwind, yes, that is the phrase I use
For I think, when pondering, it will, for you, amuse
The longing that is reinforced when playing of that song
In three eighths time I'm wandering for all of this lifelong
I beg it is embedded there, so deep within my soul
So that upon the hearing in next life, will make me whole
No confusion as I step into that set of shoes
Just simple clear directions in my course to finding you

w

"Out of time"

Out of time*

A love that spans eternity

That stands outside of time

As steady as infinity

As clear as crystal chime

The patience in the revelry

For one of love and lace

Lays open to the panoply

Dependent on time's grace

Armored with the desperate plea

To only fill that heart

Circumstances must be free

To reinforce the start

The wizard in me now perceives

The scope of time and place

Across all time, the heart achieves

The patience to embrace

That time will bring the strength of deeds

When fragrance in the air

Matches hearts' intents and needs

With love, response, and care

w