Gratitude for being Rescued

“I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine tonight.”
 Percy Bysshe Shelley












In the darkness I was alone
And then you found me
I lingered in the pain
Of life
And then you saved me
I worried that I would fall
And you lifted me
Echoes of my grieving
Existence had hurt me
I was wounded
But no longer
I might tremble in the night
I still scream
During dreams
Nightmares linger
Still but
Fear doesn't rule my life
Because you give me hope
You give me the strength
To survive
Your love gives me more
Than the pain takes away
The days are endurable
And the nights I survive
Because with you I have
More truth to fight the lies
As a child I believed
I'd be alone
I would always despair 
I needed you
Never thought you'd appear
A needle in the haystack
Confusion suddenly cleared
I would never have been able
To rise above without you
By my side
I love you
Only you
You are the reason
I go on
And that I am alive

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ... "

dynamic forces, creation/damnation

I believe that the ultimate purpose
Humanity is to find
Is to create
The opposite of this is something
Occupy Human minds
Is to destroy
What do you believe
What do you do
We are meant to emulate our creator
Who created everything
Who set the stars in the sky
Who fashion planets out of dust
We are meant to create
Lives, art, buildings
And others seek
To destroy all there is
For they've divined that creation
Is for them harder to achieve
And damnation
Is the goal

The Gloaming

The beauty of the new dying light

The world set fire by the birth of night

The cloud caught remnants

Shed by fleeting waking hours

Day turned gaunt

Working world wakes at dawn

While the world sleeping will haunt

The dreams and spawn

New stories to tell

In the green glory found

Every night

In the gloaming

A passing ship cuts through the water's surface

Separates the waves and the calm

In the darkness the moon's light
Can be a holy chalice

Here upon the water it shines

Like a distant guidepost

Reminding us of her nearness

Despite our being earthbound

And possessing no wings

To fly

Grounded

Forever perhaps

But we can appreciate

The passing light

Of the gloaming

Staring upwards

Alone in solitude

Wondering if I am alone

Just watching 

The moon rise

And the sun die

As if some mysterious being

Changes roles, crossing

Over to take the guardian role

Of the watch
Anew

Over earth

Made more beautiful

In this

The gloaming

Silent but for a strange knocking

It echoes along with a washing

Of waves and wake against the walls

There is a calm here

Between the harmony of the sky's beauty

And the water's rhythm

It is broken only by humans

And rare, broken acts

That speak their own language

Anguish

Hurt

Sorrow

And the peace can only hope to help

Because unspoken broken hearts

Never know the answer

Even in the gloaming

“It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.”  Alexander Lowen

“But when one does not complain, and when one wants to master oneself with a tyrant’s grip — one’s faculties rise in revolt — and one pays for outward calm with an almost unbearable inner struggle.” Charlotte Brontë

When the Dead will Dance

Danse macabre

Dance death dance

The harvest of the human crop

Begins anew with every day

My bones rise

Follow in the line

Of dancers and the dead

They cannot stop

The parade goes on

And walking bones 

Are not in pain

They neither mourn

Nor do they sob

The parade of the dead

Marches on 

Whether to heaven

Or oblivion

They march together

Whatever they've achieved

Whoever they are 

Society might believe
That they are important

Or that they are not
But death is a democrat

And takes everyone alike
We might wish to live
We might be happy to die

Kings, Paupers, Knights, Beggars

Are the human harvest

Time to say good-bye

When Night Falls Upon the Earth

She is lovely

But not an enigma

Her ways are not mysterious

She is divinity

Never missing her duty

She is fearless

Her movements are willowy

Her duty to earth

Unspoken but deep

She looks upon the globe below

And when the moment

Is appointed

Her veil falls

And day's light ends

A gray for time

Traps the last light

A gloaming exists

Between day and night

And soon

Her black veil

Has covered the world

She mourns her lover

When the morning begins

But he will return

When the appointed time 

Happens again

And he waits

For her embrace

And in her heart

She burns

To embrace him

Again and again

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

e. e.  cummings

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night."

Edgar Allan Poe

She Walks in Beauty

By Lord Byron (George Gordon)
 

She walks in beauty, like the night
   Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
   Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
   Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
   Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
   Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
   How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
   So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
   But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
   A heart whose love is innocent!

Frozen Cattails

The first hard frost preserves the scene
Nothing to misunderstand, forward and clean
The remnant life awaits, for the approach of Spring
When the world will awake, new life will sing

Frozen branches

Reaching out to spread the organism
Coated with frost, becomes a masterpiece
A view of white, with patches of gray
Still the tree tries to live, in this way driven
Tries to bear the weight, not moved by caprice
It has urges, a life inside, that is fire but not flame

Orthodox ideas

If you agree with them you are allowed to carry on
If you do not, you are branded a pseudo science sinner
The orthodoxy will soon remove your computer
Replacing your pen and paper with crayons
There is no side that ends up the winner
Never allowed to join any academic staff
If one does not conform to orthodox beliefs
They will not be sanctioned to perform research
Science has become to the orthodoxy a religion
The orthodoxy seeks to learn, but see their funds increase
From taxes or endowments, collections for science church
Those who suffer for the orthodoxy's pleasure, suffer legion

“Scientific prayer makes God a celestial lab rat, leading 
to bad science and worse religion.”  Michael Shermer 

My Love Isn't Less Because

If you tell me that
You don't love me
It will hurt
My love will become unrequited
But it doesn't mean it will end
If you tell me that you hate my name
You cannot stand me
My love will remain
Because love doesn't diminish
By the hand of others
I am not able to love
Only if I am loved in return
I am only then loving
For the reward
I love because I do
No matter how it might burn
Either in my heart
In some bitter regret
Or in my grieving soul
Because I am not loving
In order to be loved
Love is not capricious
Nor a whim
If it ends for any reason
It might well be a lesson
Because I will not forget
What my heart has done
I can only follow
And remember
I will not lament that I loved
Only that I am wounded
I will learn to be moved
From the mercy of the moment
When my heart reached out
And try to reject the sorrow
Of the pain
And remain
With a love unspoken
I won't love less
Because my love
Is not an emotion
It is life

Chains of a Slave

In chains from the beginning
A slave has no shame for his birth
Yet he has to account
For this curse
The chains keep me from flying
Breathing and growing
Yet I have learned
I can become master
Of the sky
By how I determine
The fashion in which
My dying
And how I live
By my choice
To lose the chains
Or embrace
Them around my body
For now and ever more
I can stay upon the earth
Safe and never tested
Or I can loose these chains
From my feet, and wings
And soar
And lose sight of the ground
It is my choice
My will
For the one
I call my King

I am a Stain

Maybe I am simply an infection

A bubbling virus or a bacteria

Causing death or damage to the brain 

Perhaps I am a disease 

Pulsing through the veins

A non-specific cancer

A disease of the heart

A strain of evil

Or a human stain

Because I know I am hated

I am someone unwanted

Abandoned at birth

Ignored and thrown away

Thought to be an idiot

An imbecile

Left to drain
Told to be quiet
In the silence of a life
Where everyone is allowed
To speak, to share
I am not proud
For I am a stain
And it is time
To leave
Drain my shadow
Leave no image
Empty my humanity
Pour down the red rain

 

I am a simple stain

Upon the white flag

Of surrender

No one will remember

That I was ever 

Ever here

But for the stain

Society has shown me
It has told me
It owns me
But to them
I have no use
Society cannot understand
A being like me
Who refuses chains
But refuses also
To play the hierarchy
The societal games

I am human and therefore

I possess value

I am unique

I was made different

I was made to be more

But

To the tribe

To the hive

To those who think

Someone like me

Is a being who is arcane

To the greater number

That judges me

I am worthless

Yes, I am a stain

And nothing can wash me

Except on the inside

No more on this side

For the last time
I will not repeat it
In case you can't recall
What does it matter
That I gave you all
Why does it move you
Why do you still call
I am not your lover
I am not your friend
It was the choice you made
I still live, despite the fact
You were the one I asked
To dance

The Hawk's Human

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre, 
 The falcone cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world... "
W. B. Yeats

Looking down
From far above
Above the castle
There were eyes
And wings
Gliding
Staring
Hunting
Guarding
The grounds
Nothing went on
Without notice

The falconer's arm
The call
The garb
Were used
In unison
With the partner
Two species
Trained
But was species
Being trained
The falcon
Or the falconer?

"Itque palam est, quod ars venadi cum avibuw & ars est, 
& eceteris venationibus nobiliar, & dignior, & ideo prior."

Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Holy Roman Emperor, 
De Arte Venadi Cum Avibus (The Art of Falconry) - 1248

















"Et tout anisi qu’on ne scaroit lire sans congiostre les lettres; 
de mesme on ne peut estre Fauconnier san cognoistre les 
Oyseaux ce qui est le principe de cest art."
Charles d’Arcussia, La Fauconnerie, 1589

Enter End Game

We believe ourselves wise
But we contribute to the end
Building weapons and machines
Stealing the lives of youth
We can't see our own lies
From the gruesome portents
Crushing hopes and dreams
Spreading falsehoods not truth
The end game was begun
The world was frozen in place
War games as hatred identical
Wars are never truly won
Treaties never lead to embrace
Our hope imperceptible
The final move is not ours
But those who hold power
We cannot know how to survive
We've waited endless hours
For the resolution is devoured
Humanity can no longer thrive

Grieve

With silent empathy
I've watched her fade
Life spreading her legacy
Even still, my life delayed
I can't go on without her
So, I bow and pray
But it didn't do any good
Life has betrayed
Her good acts
My prayers and fears
There is nothing left to say
Except words that reflect my grieving

Outcast

I don't agree so I am often outcast. I've made decisions that leave me vulnerable to attacks.  The result isn't my doing, I don't love pain.  But they refuse to allow individuals to resist, they try to use shame.

Last Stand

Most cannot understand
The grieving inside you
And yet, it goes on and on
So they give you tasks
Not for you, but for their needs
The accusers demand
Your compliance to their beliefs
I refuse to obey them
I refuse to allow them to succeed
My flesh is not theirs to wound
My mind is not their slave to act
This is my testament
Even if it kills me
This is my last stand

Made Holy

I left home, I walked where no one had ever
I said nothing, not wanting to break the quiet
Beautiful, with a cloak of mist made me shiver
A holy place, where the spirits were not silent
My spirit burns eternal
My flesh a moment in time
There needed to be no sermon
Made holy by the voices inside

Nightmares or Dreams

Bram Stoker
 “Even if she be not harmed, 
her heart may fail her in so 
much and so many horrors; 
and hereafter she may suffer--
both in waking, from her 
nerves, and in sleep, from 
her dreams.”

There are dreams
In which you succeed
Only to wake
And have them fade
Never to replay
There are the nightmares
That linger
Every time
You close your eyes
And you beg to die
But you wake up
And meet and new day
But the worst thing of all
Is to exist
Without
one single moment
In the dream lands
No sleeping thought
Because you cannot
Imagine well enough
To be bothered by your mind
You don't care to stray
From this comforting place
You can't imagine a world
That might not be like this
So you hide your mind away
In an asylum
And sleep
Like a dead man
Like the dead
Without a single dream
Before long
You stop waking
You forever sleep
And never live
Enter into eternal decay
Neither in waking life
Nor a hero in the dream state

Break me

Break me
Then remake me
Destroy all I am
To become what you need
Steal me from hope
Deliver me to damnation
Loving you
Is spiritual starvation

Stopping The Flood

Persian King Darius tried to destroy Athens at Marathon and lost

Darius's son King Xerxes learned a similar lesson at Thermopylae,

Where the Spartans drew a line and refused to allow the Persians to pass

Without the invaders suffering a tremendous cost

At Châlons the Roman general Aetius and Visgoth King Theodoric

Joined forces against the massive horde of Huns and won

Few could have foreseen former enemies now partners

At Poitiers, the Frankish Hammer defeated invaders

Western civilization survived and stood fast

Former rivals joined forces, now united

 

 They could not know then how vital and powerful

A Europe who would become a single union would be

An exquisite tapestry created in common, language, ideas 

A work of art very intricate and tightly woven

The ideal of many, thinking as one people gained importance

 

But then, as always rot comes from within

Rivalry, old tensions, discord, anger for old enemies 

A confluence of western blood marked 

The old boundaries and parameters

The beautiful dream of a place called Europe

Each state would be equal yet unique

In the present, what we call modernity

A dream exists still of one Europe

Greece, who taught the rest of the continent

About true democracy and citizen soldiers

The Greeks are seen as frivilous

Living too freely

And that nation

The first democracy

Will be made to suffer

As Greece will become

The sacrifice by the others 

For their god Mammon

Acquiesced

If you ever asked, I acquiesced
You demanded, I performed my task
But to have given all I have
And have nothing to show
It is as if I've been damned
For letting you have control
I agreed, to let you be content
Instead you hate me, it will stain me
It is a burden I will carry
And for my labors
You'll resent
I have nothing to offer
I refuse to repent
For there is no sin I've committed
But to allow you take my soul
And refuse to let me live
Again

4 Maidens

Life and death are a circle
Even without intent
The earth partakes with the seasons
As we are reminded
When the maidens arrive

The four seasons are different
As with personality traits of the maidens
The faeries bring forth the changes
As the earth spins and time moves forward
Ever forward

Spring is a magnificent announcement of life
The truth of grace and mercy
After the quiet rest and slumber
Of the previous season
That has passed

The glory of summer is felt, heard, seen
It is alive in every direction
And the gestalt of energy and joy
Combine to create growth
And amusement

By the time autumn has arrived
The moment of glory still exists but
The living plants are dying, giving a last look
To show the world
How glorious it was

At last when the snow has fallen
Winter is here and the moment is gone
The world has sheltered under the white
To sleep for a time
Until life calls again

Doom Machine

When you know that they are creating life
In petri dish and test tubes in the laboratory
Giving you jobs that kill you without dying
Know that you are just here to give your time
You aren't allowed a dream, no theme of glory
Only if you escape the fate, they call denying
We are growing to realize that we have more
That this life means something deep to the core
But I'll never find out, if I am killed in the gears
Know my grandchildren will understand my tears
There is no meaning if we live for the doom machine
I've been out of line, calling others to simply dream
Let the judgment committee convene
I am guilty, and refuse to apologize
We spend our existence longing to sleep
And wear a blank stare as our disguise
We will overcome
Oh Lord I pray
Let your will be done

No escape from the zoo

Each species
And each race
Divided with prejudice 
Every one was separate
Prisoners condemned
Branded, ignored, chained

Others were placed in a pasture
To reproduce, for more workers
There were no borders,
Fenced in by metal
Wire with sharp edges
Slashing the skin to the bone
Nerves, muscles connected by pain

Damnation before escape
The beasts could never leave
Except by death as the nexus
Whatever the future pain
Through that portal offered hope
No new days, but no more anguish
 

But the lives lost
Were each unique
Every soul born
Carried the DNA
Of the creator
Each creation lost
Could never be replaced