Khamsin/ Lost In the Afterlife

I rise yet again
From the trappings holding me
From the coffin of the sky
My womb in the hallowed earth
Covering me with the pale light
Of the Ancients, the stars
Of the moon, the diadem
Of the heavenly vault
I rise
Having fallen, I rise
And where were you?

Left alone
In the dry soil
What bed would I need
What comfort could the ground give
With flowers now wilted
Left for dead
I was, I am
Coming into myself again
Watched over by the tender sky
My mother, conceiving again
Giving birth to me, again
As a star, an Ancestor
A descendant of the Milky Way
And who were you?

Hearing the early morning music
A caravan treading
On the shifting sands
Lonely yet crowded
Time watched them slip by
As it all slips by
These ephemeral things
My heart desired to take
And where were we?

We held hands in a moment
Already lost to us
To the temporary dunes
Playthings of the khamsin-winds
Angry, like the Gods
Giving pleasure, like the Gods
But for a fragile time
Gone again, but left
To the treasury of my memory
And where are you now?

Pale, fading
As the wash of stars
Paints the dunes
With timid color
I see the spirit of you
Appearing for the spirit of me
Only to ourselves
Are we a reality
Immortal like the Gods
Standing against time
As the living go on their way
Without us

We cannot consummate
Our vows
Nor halt the shifting dunes
From their destiny
In the tempestuous wind
The khamsin speaks to me
Like the thunder
Of my heart
Beating hard
Breathing the empty air
Over the desert
Where life is ephemeral
As twilight
And where were we then?

Free, my mind
From all of their constraints
Inhibited are they
From the fullness of my love
Clinging only to one
Their eyes could never behold
My many and generous reflections
For I have a manifold heart

One in the earth
One in the heavens
One for the sand between your toes
One for the burning plains
Where no thing grows
For want of sacred water
One for the sun, unforgiving
One for the moon, my lover in the shadows
One for every star, woven amongst the Imperishables
One for the flesh, longing
One for the voice, singing a song
For those who have gone before us
One for your thighs, open
Like sunbeams shattering over the sands
One for the Gods, all living in my veins
And how many do you have now?

I rise again
Forgetting the fall
Tasting freedom
Which is limitless experience
In the heart
Unencumbered by ephemeral conditions
These are the trappings that bind us
Here on earth
But these I have transcended
And shown the many colors
That shine from the mirror
Of my heart

Conscience, you are not bound
To this earth
Not bound to one
But married to many
Your freedom comes
After you have let go
Relinquishing the need to possess

Having fallen in you
I rise
My earth, my heaven
Reunited with them all
I have found at long last
The place where you are

Beyond the Beyond

The desert plains and mountains surrounding West Wendover, Nevada/ Photo by the author

Take my body
Alone with you
Into the empty spaces
Beyond life

I hear this calling
To my heart
From beyond the beyond
Where shadows and specters
Haunt time
Passing the hours and days
Without even a spell of light

Take my broken body
Alone with you
Awakened by your arms
That life may abide once more
In this sculpture
Of flesh and blood
What artist could have dreamed
Of my colors and textures?

Somewhere beyond the beyond
I will be renewed
In another form surpassing
All the ephemeral forms
I have ever taken

Will you remember me
As I once was
Naked and wet
Hugging your skin tight?
Or will my new body
Carry you away
Into new memories
Of skin, flesh and heart
Never had before?

Take my willing body
Down with you
Into the depths
Far beyond the temporary
Garments
Clinging to all
These beautiful people
Holding on tight
To what inevitably flees them

I do not cling to them
But put my trust
In the steadfast presence
Sheltering me in you

I touch the sky
Before I fade
But only to the eyes
Of little men
Who fall when their beauty
Falls
Who lose hope when
Their wealth loses vigor

I have never put faith
In these disintegrating things
Whose reflections, like a mirror,
Change and disappear with time

But your face remains
Constant in my gaze
Striking like a sunset
Reflected crimson and gold
Across scintillating waters
The light finds my eyes
Filling them with life
Cascading from your fire

My heart finds solace
Where your footfall
Draws ever near
Removing the shadow of doubt
Plaguing my reason

What reason is there in love?
What logic can follow
Such folly as that?

To believe in a beyond
The beyond
A life coming into being
From the seed of death

Such is the inspiration
You light
With the fire
Of your constant body
That an eternal beyond
Seems logical
Defeats all illusion
Calls me down
Into the luxury of your arms

Take my body
Alone with you
Before their reason
Descends to tear us apart
Their 'God', I promise you,
Is an idol our love has
Thrown out
And our light has replaced 'Him'
As a beacon of the heart
Beyond the beyond

Beyond 'His' chains
Beyond 'His' jealous possessions
Beyond 'His' inscriptions
And injunctions
We embrace the embrace
Beyond the body that
Disintegrates

Take my body
Never alone, with you
Deep down into the empty spaces
Where there is a voice
For love
Speaking powerfully
Within the silence
Beyond  

A Doorway To My Heart

Natural cave-like formations in West Wendover, Nevada/ Photo by the author

Alone in a desert land
Not abandoned
Not left for dead
Yet finding solitude
In a barren land

Tucked high in the bosom
Of ruddy cliffs
Piercing the flank
Of a turquoise sky
Cloudless
The sky drifts by
My eyes
Drinking, drinking
Drinking deeply
Of the turquoise fountain
Flowing above my head

Security waits
Even in lonely valleys
Where rams rut
And bleached bones
Tell a tale of life's fragile struggle

I find a purpose
For life to continue
Far outside the temporary veil
Of mortal existence

This is a doorway to my heart
Worn into the ancient rock
Where my ancient memories
Wait
Clad in the ages
Of lives lived before
This body came into
My mother's womb

My real mother is above
Stretched out in Her turquoise body
Kissed by the shards of sharp sunlight
Tumbling down
Over the empty landscape

There is a doorway to my heart
Where one finds a portal
Into the spectral world
A ladder to heaven
The doors of the sky
Sheltered by monoliths
Raising the hot earth
Skyward
Up and into the etheric vastness

You cannot help
But make pilgrimage here
To the place where my heart
Has hallowed a shrine
To the near-forgotten Gods
But Their voices linger
Here where the one gives way
To the Ones who went before him
Their spirit lights
Calling down lightning
Given from a bare sky

Heaven calls from above
Earth makes love to my feet
And open up
Before me
At the doorway to my heart

I leave behind
All I thought I knew
And give way to
The company of spirits
Who, in silence, bestow
The Wisdom of millions of years

My real father is below
My feet firm planted
In his sacral history
His battles
His deaths
His resurrection
I gather up his bones
And call him to my counsel
At the doorway to my heart
Where the Ancestors
Make quiet pilgrimage
To speak without language
To initiate without action

Gratefully I receive
The spectral lights
Emerging from darkness
Where every seed grows
Before it flourishes
In the Light

And I too came from darkness
Into the world of light
From between my sacred mother's thighs
Like the sun
In the rosy mantle
Of the dawn sky
Renewed beyond death

If you travel here
To meet me
You must give up
All that you thought you knew
To enter the sacred portal
Burrowed deep
In the desert shrine
Where the Ancestors
traverse
To make communion
With their kin

Hear the drum
The awesome heights
Of my heart
Secreted in the ruddy mountains
Where a trail of light
Moves like quicksilver
Through a lens of spirit
Cutting through flesh

This is where I meet you
Again
This is where
You pick up the pieces
And love again
This is where
We begin again
Here at the doorway to my heart

Spell For Raising the Dead

A child's tombstone in the historic mining town of Bodie, California/ Photo by the author

Come, o voice I have loved

Let me hear you again

For I am the worthy listener

Clad in the dawn

Possessor of the spectral light

Come, fine notes

Heralding the rising sun

Warming your bones

Surpassing the cold earth

Slumber, I will have no more of you

When the swallows return

When the conversation of morning

Puts a swift end to silence

Music unbound, I am your composer

Lover in my youth, hear again

The music my heart has woven

Come, flesh

Renew your vigor

Let me touch you

With the quickly approaching

Dawn

Jasmine, whose dew-embraced petals

Caress my nose

Whose senses are alive

Beneath my hard moving body

I summon you to please

To touch

To invigorate

Your renewal is felt by the bees

Returning to gather

By the sun

Enticed to shed its grace

By the earth

Clad in green stems

And wild carpets of lavender

By this lover

Whose skin, both hard and soft,

Is waiting to be filled

Come, sun

Come fragrant morning light

And dappled mountains

Rising with tender illumination

Whose shadows are long departing

I summon your resilience

Your strength

As the power of arms

Encircling the resurrected child

Of the sun

Come, lips

On a silent morning

You break the stillness

Of my heart

Because silence is momentary

But you are an infinite melody

Harmonizing on the dawn's northern breeze

There in the north

Your voice is quick

Like the sails of ships

Returning

Your face in the east

Tied to the glory

Of the rising sun

Come, dew

Falling on my thighs

Dappling my navel

Stroking my back

Opening my lips

Kissing, kissing

Setting fire to the secret places

Of my heart's desire

You know no rest

In the confines of the earth's

Darkness

You know no solitude

No gestation

No confinement

I will not have you

For my passions are quick

Lit by a flame of Eternal source

And impotence, I know not your name

Nor feel you in my blood

Come, youth

Softness again

A rosy light flushing

Skin soft to the touch

Upon whose sentiment

My tender touches play

I cannot abide you

To languish in the earth

For the sun refuses

To set forever

And he knows

His return is imminent

I will capture

His illumination

On my face

My eyes will blaze

In the splendor

Of an eastern fire

Sleep, I deny you

Rest, you are unknown to the excitement

Coursing through my hungry veins

Earth, I alight

Upon your weary mountains

Injecting new vigor

Red hot touches

From the tips of my fingers

Lips that speak in melodies

Haunting

I am your benefactor

Come back, o beauty mine

I receive you

As the earth has received you

But heaven cannot have you

Earth cannot hold you

Nor gods possess your soul

As I do now

Come, and listen

Lover of my youth

Hear again

The music my heart has woven

Icon

(S, light a candle)


Unlock the Light
While clinging to your darkness
Searching beneath the stones
Incandescent with hope
This is what Spirit has promised us

So do not give up hope
Even when stumbling, stumbling
Reaching so hard
Deep down inside despair
You will find me there
Tucked away beside
Your darkness

A little Light
Like a sparrow
Hidden in the eaves
Somewhere just passed
Sundown

Fragrant night jasmine
The incense always finds you
Beside me
Hidden away, secreted beyond
Despair's hungry clutches

In a museum, perhaps
But sparkling in a holy place
All its own
Where there is an eternal youth
A texture that will not crumble
An ancient language
Whose voice dapples
With light
Falling from a window high above

Clerestory
Bringing down heaven
Isn't this what Spirit promised
On the tips of my fingers
Alone and unsullied
For you

To capture your pain
And send it back to heaven
With the swallows
Across the shining sea
Which eats all darkness

I am your icon
Alone in a dark place
Yet suffused with a light
Of my own
Steadily flickering
From within

Your lips have never touched me
Yet in Spirit we have kissed
Your fingers have never undressed
My gilt edges
Yet in Spirit we have met
Naked and liberated
In a realm beyond time's dictates
And delicately you have absorbed
My glorious light-radiance
Taking it away with you
Into your darkness

Can despair touch you
When a candle lifts sorrow
And kisses its fingers
Into silence?
Has the Veil ever descended
Never to part again?

Can darkness have you
As I have had you
When, in the loudest silence
Of the night,
My golden face
Called you back
From the Other Side
Of the night
To be reborn in the rosy-gold crown
Of daybreak's new
Incarnation

All of these things
I have given to you
Without wanting so much
As a thread of your hair
In return
So still beat my heart
For fear of startling you away
In this lonely monument
Lit only by a high window

Reach up to me
And find
Your prayers answered
When the footfall of despair
Draws near
Call to me, and pray
Light a candle, and pray
For my name is a prayer
A dark companion to the Light
And Light's answer to
Dark's enchantments

Time cannot wipe away
My gilt edges
Nor tarnish the glittering
Pigments
Sealed tight by an amber
Varnish
Somewhere in time
Where you shall find me
Again, and again, and again....

Flight of the Jabiru

(To S, for the sake of remembrance)

The Sun has been swallowed
Like a ripe mandrake
Intoxicating the tongue
Of the Sun-God
To sleep
His heaven, His veil, His firmament
Glowing defiantly
Harboring the wings of spirits
Going down, going down

I never feared
The flight of jabirus
Whose winged grace
Signals the death throes
Of the sun
His kingdom, once on fire
With liquid gold
Cools my breath
A heavy, drowsy curtain
As the wings of spirits
Go down, go down

Did you hear
The flight of the jabirus?
Their wings disturbed
My placid countenance
Rippling like the waters of a mill-pond
Stirring, casting doubt on permanence

I waded in after them
Those ripples of wet blue
An azure mirror of the sky
Flaring above
But the shadows of their wings
Gave my heart notice
That you were gone
Gone, all gone now

A lonely torch burns
As the sun retreats
In a torrent of red, orange
And sanguine illumination
My heart stopped
When it saw that you had stopped
Gone down, down, down

This is what wise men say
Happens to us all
Even in the flush of youth
Sensual, carnal ecstasy

Lovers exhaust love
Climaxes leave tingling skin
Wanting more
Hearts left alone
In the startling sunset
Pine still for more light
Your promises made
In the heat of the moment
Now whisper and die
Away, away, away

I could not halt
The flight of the jabiru
Those Souls in light-dappled plumage
So I brought a candle
To illuminate your grave
And tears gave renewed life
To the hot desert sand
Flickering, flickering, flickering

The sunset called your name
My heart, still in love
Could not help but to listen
Listen, listen

I let them carry you away
Enfolded by wings
Whose tips had stirred
The Imperishable Stars
A host of spirits
To make light the path
Once trodden by darkness

Darkness, you let in light
Light, you kiss the darkness
And make love to twilight
Even as Mother Heaven swallows
The golden flesh of the sun

I cannot call you back
From your lofty flight
The jabiru comes and departs
Again through the western passage
All of the things I have loved
Have been removed
With those elegant wings
Softer to you now
Than the kiss of my bed
Naked and charged with youth

I call to the West
Waiting for your return
Like the face of the rosy sun
Bursting in blood and fire
Between the legs of Mother Heaven

They make their flight
Signalling the departure
Of all cherished things
Coming and going
Coming again and going again
Through the endless
Passage of the night

Gold Covers Me

A liquid gold sky spreads out over the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah/ Photo by the author

(For S, even though it doesn't quite make sense)

Gold covers me
To live in your twilight
Where no man has access
Jade becomes my heart
You greedily possess
Locked away inside you
The flame of me strikes
The earth like turquoise

Uncover me
I will find you
Having thirsted for redemption
I find in your cool arms
Cool arms
Warm fingers
Marble lips, sculpted by the Gods
A light you once concealed
I bring back to the world
Above

Gold
The sun brings me back to life
For loss had claimed me
I staggered to and fro
To and fro
Wading through casual flesh
Skin and thighs

And so many available beds
Regret has never known me
But sorrow has taken me
As an ardent lover
Not as tragic as death
When darkness falls
Is it still not dark?

Gold
A treasure clasped
In patient hands
A heart gathering souls to it
As light to shattered glass
How you cut so deliciously
To feel you
Even in this terrible way
Is finer than the vain promises
Of God or man

What have I not sacrificed
For you?
My treasure, once guarded
For only the Gods to see
So easily revealed its turquoise light
The dewy leaves of trees
Playing in the breath of Summer
Faithfulness undaunted
By deceit
Love uncowed by a heavy hand

How could I fail
To serve the best in you
When the light in me
Longed to rush in
And placate the shadows?

Gold
Let me hold you again
Press my lips against you again
Hard and wet and salty
Let me cut loose my eagle's wings
To wrap around you
And in the dead of night
Defend you

Finally life descends
Into the other world
Casting out what frail breath wove
Into the fabric of your flesh
All is gone, all is silence
The earth reclaims pleasures and triumphs
But in its stillness is covered
In the spreading gold of the morning sun