Writing101

Tap-Tap-Tapping (Audio)

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Обои завязанные глаза, девушка на поле ...

I wish I could write something beautiful
I wish I could write something so real that it would change how things are
I can see it in my mind, a picture so clear, I can taste it and inhale its fragrances
The desires of my heart have burned me, they have hollowed me out
The landscape of my soul has been altered
Or perhaps it is just the overgrowth that has been cleared
For now I seem to see better the rise and fall and shape of me
It seemed as if the fire would consume me and I would be no more
As the last ember died and the wind hurried away the final wisp of smoke
I remained, still there, naked, scarred, and raw, but separate somehow from all that had been
I found only dry bitter ashes and the black barren solitude of my grief
I wandered in that place, alone for many days and many nights watering the ground with my tears
Remembering what was and what could have been, wishing for what is now, Not

I hope I will write something beautiful
I hope that my Soul will find Her voice and learn to sing a new song, one that has always been
I can hear a simple sweet strain rise and fall, strangely familiar like a dream of home
For now I make my way like a blind man, sight requiring new senses
Cautiously my words tap – tap – tap before me, through the ash and the unknown
Seeking their way, reaching out, feeling for the next step along this new path
Scribbles on a page, symbols seeking structure enough to contain the melody of Her
Clever words and ego were burned in the clearing of me, the illusion of my intellect brought low
Yet with what small vision remains I catch glimpses of green arising from the soot
Life indomitable pushes through the ruin and back into the light, buds break and blossom
The landscape is bare but not barren, even the ruin enriches and reveals the soil of me
Salt tears are still needed to water this place and in my laughter new seeds are sown
What was is no longer, what is to come is yet to be, so Now patient I wait, just tap – tap – tapping

Specters in the Dark (Audio)

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What Scares You?dark_forest_wallpaper-1280x960

A cry, a soundless wail in the distance

Calls, seeking relief, redress

Images, memories emerge, awaken

Wanting to enter

Wraith at the horizon, the boundary of vision

Treads, leaving no prints except those familiar pathways in my soul

I grieve the dead

I mourn the now cold life that was

Ought is now not and haunts me still

But what have I do to with specters in the dark

Except, breathless, trembling I turn

Knowing the wraith is me

Weeping alone there in the shadows

The Muse

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In the moments just before ink marks the page I know that words will fall short.  For who could capture Her with mere paper and ink?  But I am compelled to try hoping that my attempt, though clumsy and sophomoric, may in some small way reflect back the beauty that I have recognized in Her.

She is new to me, yet I have known her forever.  Even so I have just begun to experience, to comprehend  Her.  She has captured my attention and stirred longings thought bruised beyond rising.  It is now Her face I seek, Her call that I await.  And in the between times I remember, I wonder, I muse.

I remember Her form, Her fragrance, the way She fits my body.  I wonder how it is that she has so easily assumed this space in me.  I muse about the meaning of this dance begun between she and I.

With Me she is familiar.  She is bold but not brazen.  Her confidence is that of assumed kinship and intimacy.  How is it that She feels like Home?  How is it that a raging passion and peaceful sweet rest can co-exist?

She is dainty yet powerful.  I have watched a dull room energized at Her approach.  Men straighten themselves in hopeful anticipation of Her glance or smile, grateful for any small attention.  Women appraise Her, hoping for an ally, dreading competition with Her light.

Her smile is a magic thing.  It is infectious and sensual.  Her mouth shaped in anger is pouty and full beneath a furrowed brow.

Her movement is fluid and natural as a young doe.  She is at ease and alert.  She is finely wrought and utterly feminine, Her spirit at home in Her flesh.

To be near Her awakens slumbering passion.  To be apart calls forth the Poet, the Bard.  She now has claimed Her space, her place in His story.  She is now set apart.  Sleeping Beauty can now awaken, at least for the moments that the Poet can guard Her heart.

But harken to me!  It is a dangerous thing to call forth the Poet and awaken the Princess.  The story will unfold with many unseen twists and turns.  Exquisite will be the rapture.  Exquisite will be the torment.  Yet that is the nature of the play.  Both comedy and tragedy are required.  Such things are always risky.  But perhaps the Poet and his Muse can create between them a place where the songs can live.

I Found (Audio)

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Day Thirteen: Serially Found

I watched the weather of me through the day to see if perhaps there was something there
I noticed that it changed, unbidden as though another turned its dials
Sometimes the taste of that place between green and violet was broken by mountains of stark white cotton stretching from horizon to horizon
It called to something in me which wanted to be in that place of awe and wonder, but it passed over
At other moments my sky was filled with shades of gray and black ominous and threatening, fields of energy, alert to danger
The impulse to cover, to hide was strong but I remained still and it passed along with the rest
All I found there was that the weather of me shifts its shape to suite the situation
There was nothing profound there, nothing to hold on to, it just comes and goes as it wills

 

I sought meaning in the deeper things to see if there was some nugget, some treasure there for me
I noticed the Sage of me arise from the depths, ready to pronounce profundity
He sat on his throne, voice lowly intoned, gentle condescending words doled out to the yielding seekers needing a light, a way, a Wizard
And then another, a chocolate haired little boy, with dark brown eyes and freckles dotting his nose and cheekbones
He sought to woo with innocence and pouty lips, seeking attention, protection, love, crooked smile, shaggy hair, smelling of sunshine and romance
Then in the midst of my looking I heard Him laugh. The Jester, my tenuous but always faithful friend
He reminded me that what I was seeking would not be found in the costumes my ego wears
The profound can be another distraction and a game, as too the dance of affection What I sought was not there

 

Then, I watched the watcher, paying attention to my paying attention
Remembering again, that I know very little and how easily distracted I can be
Caught up in a self that is fleeting like the weather, changed by the currents on the wind around me
Hidden behind masks that can at times be mistaken for me, leaving me alone but entertained or distracted
I laughed along with the Jester. He always tells me the truth, especially when I take myself too seriously, or not seriously enough
Like trying to scratch an itch in a mirror, I sought but did not find, for what I wanted could not be found there
A wonderful playground of experience and love and learning and hope and grief, but playground it is, for it will not last
In seeking I found. I found that there is really no need to seek that which is not lost.

 

Come home boy it is time for rest.

 

 

Bare Feet Running – Missing Her (Audio)

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Boy, shirtless, bare feet accustomed to the earth, shaggy chocolate locks lightened by the sun
Favorite ragged cut-offs tentatively hang on narrow hips
The slap, slap, slap of his stride down a well packed earthen path
Something slows and stirs and calls him to leave that way

He lay in a field of deep spring grasses
The warm earth held him, he made a bed between the sharp stiff stems and the soft grasses beneath
The buzz of insects, the call of birds, cow mooing in the distance
Grass and flower and Oak and cattle hung warmly over that place, moved about by the wind

No one had suggested it, there was no Youtube then teaching Westerners to breathe
Perhaps it was the connection of his bare feet to the soil and Her children
Perhaps it was the warmth and the buzz and the fragrance and the light and the tastes on the wind that called to him
His senses connected with the earth created a space there under the wide sky

He breathed in and out without thinking, without knowing that he matched the rhythms of Her
He felt Her pushing back holding him aloft as he lay still as a heavy and ancient stone
His mind began to sleep as his awareness awakened
Gazing deeply into the worlds that exist only in the white shifting shapes above him

He thought things that could not fit or be contained in a word
He thought, he felt, he knew without effort, it just was
He felt connected to Her in a real and material way, the boy was still, yet aware that he moved
She moved, the Earth turned and he turned with Her

He lay there out of time, floating, spinning, senses outgrown by the depth of him
Then, another call like a voice through water claimed his attention
The spinning slowed, the heaviness of him lightened, he remembered the warmth and the buzz and the fragrance and the light
Soon the slap, slap, slap of his bare feet on the hard packed dirt, all he thought was “That was so cool.” . . . bare feet running

He grinned and continued on his way thinking to return there someday.
He just remembered, feet no longer running
Perhaps I should
Perhaps I should have long ago