What you feel is life, what you live is another story.

Category: Poetry (Page 14 of 36)

I am Born (A Poem)

In the sullied storied yesterday
It began
Lost to the ages in a whimsical verse
Gone to the ether in a mystical prose
Like that, the flicker dies
And like that, I am born.

Somewhere bits of me resound
Yet, for now, I remain lost
Lost in the melancholy of stories not forgotten
In the foggy pieces of hell
I've grasped, I've held on to
Despite the burning flesh of my embrace.

Somewhere in the distant shadows
I can hear the singers sing
And feel all manners of their hallowed dance
Their footfalls in the sand
Their faces lit by the orange gaze of burning wood
I long to know their joyful sound.

Yet, there...somewhere...everywhere
We are lost to the Wind
Bound by faith not our own
Held firm my mystics we have never known
Scratching at the Earth...
Begging to be free.

What, dear Shaman friend
Do I do with such a freedom?
When the shackles fall and the song is all my own?
Who teaches me to build that Fire?
To dance that Dance?
And the Wind guides me beyond the grasp of man?

Who, dear Warrior within
Do I love in such a free-born flight?
When the light shines in I love the darkness,
When the darkness comes I crave the light,
Never to seek
Never to know myself again.

I laugh an insane-man's laugh
As another layer falls, another universe is born.
You cannot exist in the spaces I now go.
You cannot fall when your wings are thus unfurled.
You cannot lose when there is nothing left to win.
Now, go, be free, and never speak of this again.

Let go, She said, this peace is yours to know.
Hold on, He said, and die forever in this mist.
Dance around the fire of your own design,
Choreographed by the Master that you are.
Do not look to them for answers,
You were born with all you'll ever need to know.

At the shoreline I stood, 
A prayer uttered by my footprints in the sand,
Answered by the lapping waves,
Singing praise to their depths, 
Calling me in, as I gulped down air
To breathe where no breath could be taken.

Birthed by the ocean where I feel so at home...
Warmed by the fire around which I dance...
Cooled by the subtle breeze of yesterday...
Embraced by this joyful dance of life...
I walk out, slowly sinking into all that is...
Releasing to the waves all that ever was...


And there...
I.
Am.
Born.

Something of Your Voice (A Poem)

I think I heard in the analog
Something of your voice
Reminding me of some simple folly
Some simple vice, some simple thing you needed me to change.

To make this white rose red,
Is to see it seething in the throes of your despondency,
I simply walk away,
Before I see you as less than I saw you yesterday.

In my absence, what do you see?
When you have no one else to blame for your imperfections?
When you have no one else to throw those stones at,
That you have gathered in your yard?

Tell me, or don't, it doesn't really matter,
Who are you when you not the fixer of the broken man?
Just another aimless drifter I suppose,
Just another soul lost under the bridge down by the bay.

Who are you, do you even wonder,
When you count your friends by their ideas
When you hold that candle to your own weathered veil?
Does it, too, burn with the madness you are so pained to see?

I can't remember when last we spoke,
When the Sun shone so brightly up above
To cast our forms upon the icy ground,
My shadow next to yours. 

Yet, I hear your voice, still...
Reminding me of who you thought I'd be
Of who you thought I was,
Of who you thought I AM...

Your mistaken identity of me.

If we judge the bird newly emerged from the egg,
We shall never see it fly...
If we hold too tightly to the nest on which we're born
We will never know the truth beyond this tree.

If the Universe never moved beyond that single speck,
You'd and me, we'd be just ideas in the darkness,
If we never took that step beyond the cave,
We would have never seen the waves break upon the summer sands.

So, count as honored the very first of us,
Who walked beyond the length of chain,
Others had wrapped around his neck,
And chained to the walls of their own making.

Count as blessed the very first of us,
Who squinted at the Sun,
Who stepped out beyond the darkened walls around him,
Or her, as I think the case may be.

Stand firm in your hallowed prison walls,
And see nothing of the stars.
Embrace the bars you've grown to love
And feel nothing of the true wind caress your skin. 

Try not to hate the free One who cries at your plight,
Or beckons you to fly...
For he loves you...
or she does, as I think the case may be.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For then shall be filled, 
Surely no prison is right for the free man
So what shall be his fill?

Nothing, I suppose...
It's all just a dream, a screen-less movie played upon the open air,
A lost cause in the realization
That there is no such thing as an empty glass.

And that bread alone cannot satisfy your hunger
There must be something more...
Than the manna from a book, 
Or the thoughts from a man who's never known the Earth to move around the Sun.

Oh...sigh...
There I go again.
Sadly mistaking the sand for the concrete you say it is,
I'll watch the house you've built fall, 
While you say that was always the reason you built it. 

Goodbye, I must leave, 
The ideas mounting will surely bring us back to...

I think I heard in the analog
Something of your voice
Reminding me of some simple folly
Some simple vice, some simple thing you needed me to change.

To make this white rose red,
is to see it seething in the throes of your despondency,
I simply walk away,
Before I see you as less that I saw you yesterday.

Who Taught You?

Who taught you
That the essence of love
Was found in faking a smile, and feigning a laugh?
Pretending that lemon's sweetness had touched your lips?

Who taught you
That kindness was in lying to your fellow man,
Of pretending to be happy
When you are sad,
Or at peace
When bathing in turmoil,
Or joyful
While you are fighting back the tears?

Who taught you
That God was someone you could talk to?
That angels and demons care of what fruit you choose to eat,
Or what leaf you hide yourself behind,
Or what altar you'd bend your knee before?

Who taught you
That heaven was some place you went?
That you had to die, not live, to get there,
That you needed to sing the praises of some other man's fantasy
As a price of admission?

Who taught you this?

And why did you choose to listen?

Who taught you that you were not good enough?
That the beauty within you was not beautiful to see,
That the fire within you was not enough to light your way,
That the song you danced to was not a song at all?

Who taught you that your smile was not as powerful as the Sunrise?
That your touch was not uplifting,
That your whispers could not send the chills
I now feel running up my spine?

Who taught you that your pleasure was a sin?
That your screams of ecstasy are best kept hidden in the shadows,
That your open displays of love are things best kept secret,
That you are not the one to be free?

Who are these bastards, and how can I meet them?
I want to show them what I see...
The beauty, the strength, 
The Heaven that is you.

I want to know the ones who taught you
Not to believe in what you knew,
To silence the voice within that shouted out your name
Even before you knew a single word.

I want to see those who have such a power over you,
Who can make a river flow uphill.
For they are truly gods among us.
Must we forsake ourselves to be
More
Like
Them?

And you've chosen their hymn,
Without even realizing it.
You've ceded your power, 
With barely a whimper in the cause.

Why do you choose to learn the book
That has never worked for them?
Surely the purpose of such a faith
Is to not need the faith at all...

"Surely the purpose of such a faith
Is to not need the faith at all..."
Let that settle for a moment.
And a moment more.

Surely the purpose of your crutch
Is to help your wounded limb heal.
Not to hold onto
Once you are mended.

Or not, it seems,
We're stuck in some unholy matrimony
Where ideas struck by other men
Mean more than the footprints we can press ourselves into wetted sands.

Who taught you that you're a sinner?
Some heathen prank of a lowly god
Who needs you to bend your knee at some ornate altar
He was surely born upon?

Who taught you that you weren't enough
That something out there would make you more,
Would give you more
Would hold a torch while your cried loudly in the darkness?

Who handed you that crutch on which you lean?
The very tool that keeps you from walking on your own?
And why? 
That's where the weakness begins.

I say goodbye to their thoughts
And hello to my own experiences
May I never need your crutch again.
May my healed wings now take to flight.

I've never seen a thing in nature
Bow before a cross
Or kneel before an altar
Or seek refuge in a church.

I've never seen a fowl or fish or beast
Read a book to teach them what they know
Or need the words of others
To be
A fowl
or fish
or beast.

I've never seen a tree
Change itself to lumber
And I've never seen a flower
Seek to bloom to your perfection.

So, who taught you that you weren't as perfect as a rose?
That you were wrong the moment you were born?
What evil lurked within the mind
Of those who judged you even before you knew your name?

I guess if you thought you were good enough,
Or happy enough,
Or could fulfill your wildest dreams,
You would not need their silly book,
Or silly building,
Or silly notion of what is right for you.

If you could be free,
That would mean they could be free too,
And freedom scares those who cannot own their place in hell
Or heaven, or in the spaces they find between.

The spaces they create
In order to blame an Other, or give thanks to an Other
That same creation
Taken from another man's design.

Breath...

Deep breath...

Release...

Hated is the one who has been freed.
Feared is the one who slips the rusted shackles of collective thought.
He spreads his arms to feel the pinch of steel and wood,
In order to truly free.


 

 

 

 

Set Sail (A Poem)

May the Sun rise with a kiss
And set with the same
For such power exists
To set the wick to a flame.
 
So may heavens set sail
To find such a land
Where Angels and Demons
Can meet on demand.
 
There a breeze comes alive
Gives a song to the mast
This ship cuts through surf
That gives life to the past.
 
From the depths down below
To the stars up above
We don’t set sail out of fear
We set sail out of Love.

From this…(A Poem)

From this end...
A new beginning.
From this pool...
An ocean born.
From this emptiness...
A sacred space.
From this soul...
An endless truth.

From these bounds...
Springs liberation.
From these tears...
A slow release.
From these quakes...
A mountain rises.
From these remnants...
A star is born.

From this goodbye...
A new hello.
From this word...
A sentence born.
From this destruction...
Creation follows.
From this hallowed silence...
I hear it all.

Peace.

Nothing (A Poem)

I sit, and I wonder...
Where are you?
Why is the air so cold
Why is the silence so deafening?

I look for you
That smile, the way your hair wisps around your face
Through the numbness I reach for you
Through the haze I call your name.

Nothing.

I long to hear your laugh
Find the spots that make you gasp for air
Draw the lines that make you moan
Take the best you have to offer.

A simple prayer is whispered
Through time, through the ether of my mental state
I wait patiently for your reply
Or an echo, or a sign.

Nothing.

To set this moment, time and space
In such perfect synchronicity
One must become the softest rock
The neutral water in your drinking glass.

So I beg of you to take a sip
A notion of a potion not that magical at all.
Tell me, please, I beg of you, reply
As I wander away I look toward the sky for answers.

Nothing.

Once I was a boy afraid
Now a man, fearless and determined
I bear the wounds of battles fought
And bare my soul to the legions of insanity.

I call your name, or at least I think it is
Can you hear me? Can you feel it coming?
Still I bask in empty light
Waiting for the warmth to charm my mind.

Nothing.

Like a snake in a basket
I dance to music no one else can hear
I fall asleep when the respite comes
Only to awaken to her tune again.

I want to bite you but I can't
Such a tortured battle waged within
The fighter without a fight
He looks for peace at every turn but sees...

Nothing.

A growl, a sigh, a morbid curiosity
No need to marvel at this godless saint.
A pinch, a whisper, but this is not a dream
Yet I swear I whispered something in your ear.

Your smile, the answer I've been looking for
The warmth of your body cuts through the icy air
I stir in my slumber looking toward the evening sky
I reach, to you, from the nightmare that I feel.

Nothing.

It is nothing that I look for
And it is nothing that I'll lose
Yet it is nothing like I've ever known
It is nothing but a lover's song.

I find nothing gets me going
For there is nothing to ever gain
As nothing pleases you
And there is nothing that I have to give.

One day we'll close our eyes
And meet our Maker, we'll travel home.
One day we'll say our final prayer
And find the answer we've always sought. 

Nothing.

 

Acceptance (A Poem)

You love me despite my creativity.
Despite my ideas, my thoughts, my desires.
You love me despite my curiosity.
Despite my mind, my needs, my ingenuity.
 
You love me despite my weakness.
Despite my fears, my scars, my open wounds.
You love me despite my reflection.
My ugliness, my reactions, my attention to those tiny pixels on the page.
 
I am accepted, loved, cherished.
Not for what you want me to be,
But for who I am, 
Lost
Insecure
Genius
Loving
All the mud and dust that makes me who I am.
Acceptance.
 
You love me despite my strength.
Despite the softness of my heart, the hardness of other places.
You love me despite my craziness.
Despite the caution I throw to the wind, the things I’ve lost in translation.
 
You love me despite my fallibility
My mistakes, my passion, my sense of self.
You love me despite desire.
My need to take you, to want you, to make you scream.
 
I am accepted, completely, infinitely.
Despite my tone deafness
You listen to me sing.
Found.
Content.
Destroyed.
Recreated.
All the sins and virtue that make me who I am.
Acceptance.
 
The Embrace

The Idea of You

I have fallen for you

This idea…

This incessant demand of my soul

To follow the twisted paths and fractured roads

That twist my ankles and cause my weary feet to blister

Just to catch a glimpse of you, my Beloved.

 

I can only do what my heart beckons me to do. I’ve long given up the fight with it. The demands of battles waged between my heart and mind take too great a toll. I’ve long surrendered to the inhuman voice within me, a voice that sometimes has to drag me, kicking and screaming, while at other times has to struggle to keep up with feet bent on taking me somewhere.

Where once I had to think, to demand reason of the unreasonable, to seek the indescribable answers with describable questions, I now surrender. The once befuddled mental spreadsheets and flowcharts that bound me to the Earth have given way to a sense of freedom that allows my sturdy wings to unfurl and catch the winds of life, embraced in unfettered destiny.

I allow those winds to capture me, to take me high above the clouds; to plummet me through the dense underbrush of life thicketed with my own insanity. I allow them to pick up my bloodied corpse to fly toward new fields of destiny, toward unknown stories of welcome and woe, to write a new chapter and verse in this life, to fill the pages still left blank in a heart overflowing with this idea.

The idea of you.

I hear you in the winds of change

Howling at me…

Reminding me of my own instability

Preaching a virtue foreign to my mother’s ears

Reminding me of my father’s own insecurity

It sings…and sings…relentlessly battering me with its hopeless tune.

 

The discourse of surrender can be such a fearful dialog to the unwise mind. Since the moment of our birth we are taught to fight, and to fight hard. Soon, we lose sight of what “fight” means, and we discover a value in the struggle. Then, everything becomes a fight, a struggle, until we have nothing left to identify with outside of it. We become vessels of drama.

Yet I sit in impassioned stillness, longing for the facade to dissolve. I long for the steeled silence to replace the battered illusion; for the peaceful space to replace the dramatic game. I long for it to become easy, like breathing in a spring day. I search for it to become as effortless as sunrise, and equally as meaningful.

Yet, I am only human. I am just a man. This is, of course, more folly from my ancestors, a continued denying of my implicit truth. Even the blue skies lie, and beneath them I forget the limitless bounds that rise above me. I can lay in a lie bestowed upon me by others for only so long until, one day, I need something so much different, and I begin to change.

Change it seems, can be a whip used to beat me or a rope I use to climb. The choice I make, is mine.

Lover, hear me whisper

I’ll hum you a lullaby.

I’ll caress your face with undoubting hands

Hold you firm against the tide

Share the board on which we’ll ride

Until tomorrow, we have today.

 

Which is the right way to love you? Which is the right road to choose until we sit, illuminated by a raging fire, nestled closely against each other? Which path should the beads of sweat born against our skin take to form the puddle we will share? Who are they to tell us? Tell me, which lion born forgives itself for pretending to be a zebra? Which drop of rain flies upward in some vain attempt to kiss the very face of our raging Sun?

Who am I to deny the very life we were born to share?

I relinquish my control while being embraced firmly to the roots that hold me to this place. I search for the sea and the highest peaks on which to make our holy altar. My body screams your name and my heart…well, my heart…it simply beats praying for that one moment when yours has becomes its echo.

I have simply given in to…

This idea of you.

One day this moment will be gone

Nothing but a distant memory, an over-told story.

We’ll be two old crows silently squawking in some corner of a room.

But my, how we will have loved,

How we will have loved and loved and loved,

The truth be told in the glances we share,

In the smiles our eyes betray upon our knowing lips,

In the way our wrinkled hands fit nicely,

In the way my shoulder bends to the touch of your head,

The way my aged arm fits perfectly around your longing waist.

 

One day today will be but history,

And we reborn into nothing but a vision of two aged fools.

But, my love, what a tale we could tell!

The countless nights in eternal ecstasy,

That ocean of love that bestowed us an infinite number of waves,

Too many to count, but we were too busy anyway.

I’ll long to hear those words you had first spoken so very long ago,

Words that had never aged from the first moment you gave them life.

“I love you…”

 

With those word gave birth a new universe

Where two aged fools in love could sit

And say nothing while saying all that need be said.

Where the space that we have shared a million nights before

We share but for one last breath

And close our eyes for one last time.

We’d have but one regret,

That we had not one more to share.

 

Love has little to do with ending. That is the folly of the mind. Yet all stories must end, even if there are sequels to be had. The idea of surrender takes me to a place that we share, a place where love basks in the imperfect and glows lovingly on the humanity that gives it life. When i think of you I think of such things. Perfect imperfection. Beauty. The truth of incredible strength as two souls trudged through the muck and the mud created by stories of old toward the beaches and peaks of their own creation. The stories of how pain and failure gave way to happiness and success; how struggle and limitation surrendered to acceptance and love.

That story never does get old, does it? Somewhere in the deep crevices of who we are our hearts beg to write it as our minds plead to read it. Yet there I am, alone at my writing place blocked by the empty air around me and the buzz of longing in my ears. No light can shed this darkness and no thing can fill this emptiness.

Until…

I have this idea. This idea of you. Suddenly life springs into my fingers and it all comes together. That’s all it takes, a simple, complicated idea of you. A thought. A glance. And then a smile.

What a life it will be.

Searching for Stars (A Poem)

I heard her shouting from a distance
Lost, wretched, aimlessly yelling at mindless passerbys
I heard her tainted, longing mind searching for some absolution
Wanting to be found
Wanting to be something more
Wanting to be wanted.
 
She would stare at her form in only certain panes of mirrored glass
Playing with her selves
Toying with memories, some not yet created
Making hardened concrete out of shifting sand
Creating tortured music in the waves
Blaming the moon for her shifting tides 
As if the moon should somehow change itself.
 
She’d succumb to impassioned numbness
Blaming the tress for standing tall
Cursing the Sun for being bright against the backdrop of her sky
As she stood on her head in the corner of a hidden cave
 
She’d offer her own sweet juices to the field
Then hate the bees for circling her fragile core
 
She’d tie beautiful baited hooks to the corners of her mouth
The bite the unfortunate who came to kiss her sultry lips
 
“Who are thou?” she’d say to me as I entered her darkened room
“I am you,” I’d reply at the moment of insertion
Then we’d cry alone in the darkness
Searching for the stars
They must be here
Somewhere.
 
 

And We Loved (An Erotic Poem)

She woke me with her mouth
I stirred
Growing in that moist embrace
Hardening in the moment
Finding her desire in my own.
 
She took me to her sacred places
I followed
Trusting in her loving guidance
Finding truth in her oasis
Realizing heaven in the rush of mindful pleasure.
 
I entered her – deeply and without reservation
She surrendered
Accepting love in our embrace
Reaffirming truth in each thrust of our intentions
In each moan, in each scream, in each testament of our hearts.
 
The pace quickened in the Divine instruction
She listened
Taking me to the brink of insanity
Showing me what’s  beyond that glorious ledge
But never allowing me to take that holy plunge.
 
Until…
 
The tsunami broke free from the horizon
We came
We jumped together, took the plunge to heaven’s gate
We lit the darkness as one mighty flame
And in that space revered a new universe was born.
 

And we loved.

We loved like there was no tomorrow
Like there was no yesterday.
We loved like there were no others
Like there were no tainted waterways within our Ocean.
We loved like love was all there ever was.
 
 
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