Where can I find you

Where can I find you
When the land runs away?
In a new year the
Months stand as promises
Though darkened by
Uncertainty,
Despite my fiery resolution
Time cannot be swayed
Nor fate circumscribed.
The old wisdom says
Que sera sera
As if to comfort, or that
Love removes
toute la crainte 
d’une extrémité.
But I cannot agree
Because I have known endings
In love before
And think the opposite is true:
It ends too soon

O morning

O morning with a thought of you
Through dark and dreams I come
To promises made before
The twilight of our breaking day
No more to haunt the darkened landscapes
In the ghosted space between us
Your name tattooed upon my lips
I breathe you in
With sunlight

Epitaph

today i shiver at the
coming nothing and
shudder at the why of it.
are these philosophies
meant to comfort?
how can we face the day?
what is your guarantee for
these labours?
the countless throng
all gone in faded time
do you remember them?
etched on stone in
shoebox gardens

As you are now
I once was
As I am now
You shall be
Prepare for death
And follow me

i cannot countenance this
imposing rock
who can stand the
weight of it?
gibbering, chattering
fumbling about
we rush headlong into it

Stop, reader! I have left a world
In which there was a world to do;
Fretting and stewing to be rich
Just such a fool as you.

it crushes my chest and

stifles my screams

it ends there upon the green

Coffee date

"We're at counter-purposes," she said
"And in any case blind
To the reality of our situation
You're not interested in
Knowing the truth of the matter."
"What is the truth?" I asked.
"You cannot begin to fathom it,"
And she wrinkled her nose.
Then she asked me to pass the cream.
I watched her pour it, and the
Coffee swirl around before being stirred
All together into one familiar light brown colour.
"I know more than you think I do," I said.

Áve

"O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell

Hail Mary, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

With the Holy Spirit and Power
Your voice echoes in the Church
Now shaking
Now shivering
Flanked by aged pillars of flesh
Now rising
Now shrieking
The Host unmoving
All approving
Now tearing
Now rending
Your robes descending
"O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell"
Now burning
Now writhing
Our seats aflame
"O my Jesus"
"O my Jesus"
Save us from the fires of this ecstasy
"Forgive us our sins"
We cannot undo them
Save us from the fires of this ecstasy
ora pro nobis peccatoribus
now and at the hour of our death

In the years

In the years we've lost our
Special kind of intimacy
To the pain of those
Suffering days,
All the ways we've been
Picked on,
Now gone before a
Newer age.
I can't help but reminisce
About our days of bliss
Where all was daring
Us to fail.
How frail we have become
Before the challenge of
A newer day.

charity

the way she spoke, through teeth,
led me to believe her heart wasn't in it
she played the lie with cramped tongue
tucked behind immovable ivory gates
i did not choose this path for you or
call you by a masked name
you stand in high cut dress
the stone cold beneath your slippered feet
"the pay is good" she reminds herself
with Christmas 'round the corner and
nephew's love for their aunt
making mindful of the season
(the lie's made just a little easier)
i see it all at once in those dark eyes
the terrible truth of her humanity
it cuts too close for me to
play the dark charade
and turn my back to go away
my strict morality will leave her penniless

Her eyes

Her eyes a mirrored wonder
Moonlit silver doubled
Shimmer like the heated land
A supplicating hand to
Open air between us
Drawing ancient runes
Upon a crystal thread
In drops of dew and blood
"You've waited long
Upon the virgin ground"
(Her voice like golden
Light on morning fields)
"Has time at last
Reached fullest hour?"
The sign: her star shines  
Upon the mountain brow
As constellations churn the
Ether sea
Eclipsed beneath a mirrored
Wonder crashing into me

Through Elysian Fields

"In no fix'd place the happy souls reside.

In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds,
By crystal streams, that murmur thro' the meads:
But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend;
The path conducts you to your journey's end."
This said, he led them up the mountain's brow,
And shews them all the shining fields below.
They wind the hill, and thro' the blissful meadows go.

-Virgil

she opened

she opened
starry eyes
on glowing world
forty years ago
gasping autumn air
as red leaves
hovered in the
misty trees
as beautiful as these
in parent's aching hearts
watching as she starts
to know their face
"will her years be
full of grace?"
they wonder
how her journey
will unfold

"forty year's old"
they write
inside the gilded card
(how far this child
has been and seen
beneath the climbing sun)
"happy birthday" in the
book with papered lines
she reads with
shining eyes
oh goodbye to
memoried yesterday
today she's
born again

did you fall down

did you fall down
upon the sloping ledge of
life?
just when you were
picking up speed
the floor came rising up
to meet your wide-eyed face,
out of the race
and they all pass you by
but not us,
we saw your good intentions
the colour in your cheeks
the innocent resolve
now dissolving as it
drains from those
perfect eyes
as the self begins to lie,
we beg you not to
listen to whispered
"i am nothing"s
our hearts are full of you
and we hold out
aching arms
we will share these harms
if you let us
we surround you and
affirm you with our

Yes

i dreamed of you again

i dreamed of you again
but the dream was mine
and i tried to stay asleep
to touch you more
but the door of my eyes
opened and gone was time
i'm not fine
this cloudy morning
and the coffee steaming
forms the face of my dreaming
i can feel you in the air
around me
will we lose each other this way?
fading with each day
to be surprised by
dreaming's touch
it's too much for me this morning

Crystal Ship

what can i give you?

what can i give you that will
enlarge you?
is it eyes to see the
rising day?
the starry night
sapphire-jewelled in an
arched celestial dome?
or is it home,
the growing box of
youthful hearts?
where there is beauty
we are transcendent
where compassion,
extensions of ourselves.
all parties, tribes, placards
force the trembling eye
but compassion,
a seed that grows from
deepest "I"

Nothing is more intolerable

“Nothing is more intolerable than publicly employed guardians of morals. Whoever acts with a pure heart is always the first to be misunderstood by the people with the moral and religious yardstick.” – Hegel

How brief

"how brief how brief!"
the old man cried
"all die
all by the Styxian way
will cross"
(his eyes a mirrored madness)
with sadness did I touch
his hand
"sir do not rush your time,
stay and tell me of
your life"
"is yours not enough?" he laughed
but still I tried again
"please tell me of your
younger days"
then with a piercing gaze
he looked me in the eye
"will you add sorrow to despair?
but sit down in that chair and
hear of broken hearts,
parted ways, and
the love of Arabelle."
then I sitting heard his tale
which someday
I may share
but beware:
you may find yourself
in the story I heard there

the real life

don't let the "real" life
bring you down
for when you turn around
you'll find there's
other views
the child within you dies
when from your heart
the magic flies
for there it used to burn
like glowing steel
but no! "grow up
none of that is real"
(and so they fool us into
thinking we're not allowed
to feel)
how long since
you felt the
heart-expanding wonder?
lightning and the storm
a dragon on the thunder?
the real is a perspective
respective of times and
peoples, places, wrapped up
in imaginary graces
as true as you
and me
grasped first in what the
aching heart sees

Stay here with me

Stay here with me
These lips drip with
Giving truth
Up on the leaning roof
Beneath the autumn stars
How far you drove here
In your car
To recline against me
When I breathe your
Name into the sky
Please don't pass us by
Oh perfect moment
Oh star resting on her
Graceful finger
Be my witness
Burning for a billion years

we sing new stories

we sing new stories
(far from holy books)
by mountain peaks or
shining brooks
we breathe ourselves
between the pages
gone the cages of
un-holy systems
no more the victims of
another's vision
we have inner sight
brightly glowing with
an earthly light

we sing new heroes 

from all peoples for

all people 

by Earth and love the 

heavens shining in

our eyes 

our cries the 

howling winds 

our tears the oceans 

feel the motion of 

our bodies the 

living spin of stars 

so far from old 

beginnings 

within and with each other 

singing 

new stories

Among the Multitude

Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother,
child, any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.

Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.

-Whitman

when did you cease

when did you cease
the passage through
this shadowland and
to our forest home?
hand in hand upon the
fen and moor
no more the fiery hearth
to warm our night-graced
flesh, still cool from
starry air
with care our loving words
beneath the heaven's stair
fingers through your
gleaming hair
til words failed the
lover's lips
you said you burned
for me
and I believed the
shape your mouth made
afraid to miss
a single part
when did the
ceasing start?

The Way

they sing

they sing
celestial harmonies
but i see a single light
a single sight
so far away
it barely touches my
wondering gaze
away with
cacophonic chorus
the steady eye of
Horus watches its
priestly servants
within the
silent hall
now raising songs
beneath the dimmer
light
a sacred sight
still forms the
blessed call

up here

I sign your name

cast upon these mountains
your glowing face
laced by summit's snow
sunlit graced by
timber growth and
hot spring flow
upon the middle slopes
cast there also longing
hope to join the
ancient peaks
(I am the one who seeks
a higher shining pinnacle
beyond earth's
vaulted ceiling)
kneeling by a craggy pine
I sign your name upon a
wind-smoothed rock

On poetry

“For we are not pans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and torch bearers, but children of the fire, made of it.” – Emerson

Rise and shine in Calgary

if I had the words

if I had the words
perfect-breathed and
light upon these
martyred lips
would you ride the
southern winds
time-tossed before the
tumbledown days of
youth and broken
memory?
where shrouded
waiting haunts my
burning marrow
gale-blown before your
shimmering face
infusing Beauty with
beauty's avatar
how long and
how far before 
night takes these words
from me?

where forest

where forest meets sand
an ocean crashes in our hands
along the coast of never-been
a white-capped dream
keeps me company
how could love be
such a multiple singularity
this sunny vision
uninformed by reality?
free to gaze and smile on
endless miles of golden sand
hand in hand or running
through the foaming wave
will i be brave to
keep this in my heart?
will i falter with the news
tomorrow brings?
i will sing an
impossible song
kept strong by
stone and paper
the wind between these fingers
a love that lingers in
this aching heart
everyday a new start with
an ancient love

ever present

ever present
heart-ache
I cannot shake the
best thought of you
(my every-summer-night)
how long before the
dream has given up
on possibility?
I will be very old - 
these birds upon the
window gone the
way of wintered sleep
the glade laid bare by
sweeping icy wind
but here you lie within
'til cold retreats and parts

arrested by a 

warmer hearth

clouds carried

clouds carried by
the starry sky to
your glistening eyes
breeze-breathed grass
I sit in wonder as
you pass
in jewelled constellations

am I alone
beneath celestial vision?
are you less
substantial than the
fingered wind?

night-whispered
lips pronounce
your sacramented
name upon the air
cared for by Earth
where diamonds meet
the blowing ground
until a perfect
ear be found

A long road, but it's mine.

memory the ghosted shadow

memory the ghosted shadow of
first love and eyes
shimmering heat above this
silver-summered earth
godlike o'er Elysian plain
scattered with the shaded dead
a'haunting down to sea and stream
in a dream i see the
contours of your face
white flower in your hand
wandering through the
golden grass of memory

"I hear you whispering there O stars of heaven,
O suns-O grass of graves..."  -Whitman

why have you

why have you
made yourself
invisible?
can you not
feel the coming
night?
all time
drains the light
falls the yellowed
leaf from Yggdrasil
waste not the
open eye of life
briefer than a
catching breath
before the darkest
depths reclaim
can't you see
i'll never
be the same?
is this self-assurance
all illusion?
the filament a
delusion of my
pierced heart?
the silence mocks and
coldly shuns all
hoping thought
wrought by golden
ages forever held
desperately within a
breast beat strong
dearly wondering if
i was wrong
oh twilight that
feels so long
will i see the dawn again?

the longview

the longview will
take care of itself
press it not upon your
fetching minds
lest shrink-rays convert
being to amoebic proportion
crushing individual
beauty with aeons
heavier than lead
let this present be
sufficient for the longing
heart
then perhaps
you will survive

In a dream

In a dream I found myself in a haunted house.  An old century manor, with creaky wooden floors and large glass windows.  I don't know how I knew it was haunted, I only felt that it was so.  Suddenly a woman appeared before me on the floor.  She had golden hair, and skin as white as porcelain.  I felt a kind of electricity in the air, and knew I was in the presence of a ghost.  She was lying flat upon the wooden floor, but looked up at me with dark eyes.  We said something to each other then, but I don't recall the content of those words.  I remember kneeling down and gently kissing her upon a snow-white neck.  She inclined her head to make room, and gazed off into the distance.  I still remember the way my lips felt upon her skin.  She was as smooth as a ceramic bowl, and cold.  Her flesh was not hard, but soft.  I think at that moment I felt we might possibly come to love one another, and my heart filled with emotion.

The next thing I remember is leaving the building and meeting its proprietor.  He was an older man, short, stout, and sporting a large moustache.  He vaguely reminded me of Stephen Jay Gould.  He seemed shocked that I had been in the building and asked me in amazement, "Did you not see the monster?"  To which I replied, "No, only a beautiful woman."  He went on to explain that all previous visitors to the house had seen a terrible monster within, at which I glanced at one of the windows and did indeed see a terrifying image, a beast of incredible horror, which flickered away once I looked to other windows.

As you can imagine I was quite upset by this.  Questions flooded my mind.  Would I ever see my pale lady again?  Could I enter the house knowing that such a creature dwelt inside?  Was the lady and the beast two different creatures, or were they in fact two aspects of a single phantom?  This latter possibility made my skin shiver.  Had I unwittingly given my heart to a monster?

This dream was so vivid that I have not forgotten even the smell of the place.  I have had some misgivings as well.  Did I have the lady's permission to kiss her?  I can't recall what was said between us, but the way she gazed into the distance causes me to wonder if my kiss was something she even desired.  Who was she?  Why did I not ask her where she was from, or why she was there?  Could I have helped her transition to another form of existence?  What is the significance of kissing a dead person?  She seemed animated, and yet to touch she was as good as a corpse.  This I find quite disturbing and even hesitate to include here, and yet to you, my faithful reader, I have always shown the deepest recesses of my heart.  In the end I remain baffled by the images and visions that danced within my skull in the quiet hours of the night.  Perhaps you hold the key to unlock these mysteries.

a vision flickering

a vision flickering
o'er the ebony wave
glow with memory'd
light so rich and pure
i stare afraid to blink
along the passage of
time and desire
you are a fire
floating there above the
watery way
rimmed by glowing spheres
fireflies around a
brighter center
bid your ancient love to
enter and recall a
time before the fall
before the weakening of
our magic days
unafraid to embrace the
bold light of uncommon
space around the nearness of
our faces pressed so
close together
before the darkened time
descended from
another place
alien and cold upon the
threshold of our
epicenter
i have not looked away

Thoughts on love and Jesus

Those who say love should be "properly oriented" know little about love or its potential.  Augustine thought love should be oriented to the one unchangeable being, ie God, for all other things are subject to change and therefore lacking in perfection.  But he failed to realize that love demonstrates its true power in being directed at the changeable. 

"He demonstrated his love in this: that while we were still sinners..."

But love was betrayed by those later writers who made a mockery of this demonstration by having Jesus "ascend into the clouds" while his disciples stood gaping at love raised to the level of an abstraction.  His followers were left to love Love. 

on this heated day

on this heated day
waiting thirsty by the
dusted tree
parchment paper lips
form a hidden name
"i'll never be the same"
she whispered
and i understood
every word
as an echo in the
shining valley
"how could she do this to me?"
how big the sky for
little questions
how big this ego to
wait so long
could i be wrong?
the illusion of a
windowed face
became the mirror
of disgrace

misty morning

Copyright: https://earnestlyseekingthereal.blogspot.ca/

Current mood

A lake in the woods

The land is now so wooded around this lake one can hardly walk through it.  I used to swim here as a child.  Around the only island visible in this old photo a person can catch bass and old logs.  The stands of birch in the distance, looking like frost upon the land, have for the most part been replaced with spruce and pine.  Otters and beaver live here.  In fact the first beaver dam I ever encountered was found to the right side of this picture at what is the south end of the lake.  During my teen years I would bike the 5.5 km (3.4 miles) to cool off in the water after a warm summer day.  The last time I visited the lake I was hunting for chaga, amply supplied by the remaining birch trees on the southern hills, the once grassy fields you see in the foreground.

Snowy afternoon

"I brought her back and compelled her to be my lover. It satisfied me to have her before me as proof of my unbroken solitude..."   -Hermann Mann

Just chillin..

Katoptron -part 1

Dryad chorus:

"Hear the evening breeze
rustle through the
dancing grass
cricket song in
valley green the
night has come
at last"

Traveller:

"Oh road well laid
wandering path through
forest glade
heavens open
above my head
heavy be my weary tread
There a fallen log to
rest while supping on some
simple bread"

Long he sat as
night came on
a silver moon
rose full and shone
upon the tiny glade
his tired eyes
grew dim as
wakefulness began to fade

Dryad chorus:

"Away oh dream of day
bright illusion to
confuse the
waking dead
find truth within
the night
and love a
welcome bed"

Traveller:

"Perhaps I'll sleep awhile
within this forest glade
safe from evening
wind in shelter
nature's made"

His eyes close upon the
starry night
no care or fear as
world slips from sight
but what's this!
a sudden glowing light
breaks upon
his gentle face!

Dryad chorus:

"Do you believe in fate
children of a
passing breath?
life walked on
thinnest ice a
moment from your death
how came you here
to this time and place
do you suppose
this merely part of
nature's race?
what is this
unnatural light upon
his gentle face?"

Spirit of the Glade:

"A man rests within the
sacred ring
yet still my forest
creatures sing
who is this that
disturbeth not a
single thing?"

Traveller

"What light is this
upon my
weary face?
i dream, or perhaps
moonlight fills this
special place."

Spirit of the Glade

"He wakes!  but
who is this
that makes the
evening bright and
heart within me quake?"

Dryad Chorus

"Unmatched in substance
flesh and spirit meet
but matched in love
all meeting will be sweet."

Traveller

"A spirit there before
my eyes!
Too long have
I travelled or perhaps
while sleeping
I have died!
'Spirit, are you real?'"

Dryad Chorus

"All love seems unreal by
those who feel
the most,
by those touched within
and serve as
true love's host."

Spirit of the Glade

"See these trees and
log by which you lay?
though they be
hard and I be mist
I'm more real than they.
What is your name?"

Traveller

"I am Katoptron
from beyond the
shining sea
Spirit please relate thine
name to me."

Spirit of the Glade

"No mouth can form
my true name
yet there is a word
your lips
might rightly frame:
'Belarten'"

Dryad Chorus

"Would you possess a
being's soul?
learn the name that
makes them whole."

Time has slipped away

Have we not
counted our days
beneath the golden
rays of youth's sun?
do we not see that
time has slipped
away?
why such distance to
our place along the
rippling shore?
no more will I
call home the comfort
I had laid in store
no more a solitary
figure will I cut
it's not enough to
think you mine
one-sided dream

there is a fruiting tree
in a vision
I once had by a
grassy pond
fond have I been of
this memory:

there stood a
spirit of the wood
her eyes a'twinkle
in the light
she plucked a fruit to
share with me until the
day's twilight
"stay with me"
she said as
I turned away to go
had I known she'd
disappear
I'd have not said no 

(some prefer the
natural course
"come what may"
they say but
I am nature's
creature beneath
organic sway
ever mindful of
the fact that
time has slipped away)

Simulacrum Veritatis Tempore Detegendae

Music by Philip Glass

i miss you everyday

it was the closest thing

it was the closest thing, but
we were not equal to
its form or design
the dripping icicles
remind me of a coming
spring
why is it still so cold?
without my sun
can winter ever leave?

You haunt my thoughts tonight

You haunt my thoughts tonight
Shade of Raven's wing
Rimmed with reddish glow
Casting dreams throughout the night
Upon my soft pillow
While the wind howls and blows
Down an empty street below
All around the pyramid lights
A tempest swirls and flows
An icy storm out in the night
While here a fire grows

Your worst sin

"Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing." -Dostoevsky

Can You See Yourself

can you see yourself as a child
in some image of the past?
chequered picnic blankets by the
blue water
sand castles suspended under
younger faces
(in their excellency
these are perfect graces)
beyond reclamation but for
their fuzzy traces
did i miss something there?
what did i forget to do?
who am i
to raise this child's ghost?
am i still that little boy
beneath the elm and
mother's spreading smile?

Raven Conspiracy