Drive

“It’s like driving a car at night: you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” – E.L. Doctorow

“Beautiful calm driving, deep-sea pearl diving”. – Sia

I suppose these are the questions and the gifts of what was youth. Bear with me a little longer, while I drive on toward the truth.

I drive around a hillside that I drove so long ago, looking to the starboard future to the left of stardust glow. It seemed just for a second I was born upon a bed, a mortal existential of what some G_D had said. In the twinkling of a lifetime, I was old and old again. It is time to drive myself homeward once again. I suppose I should speak silently, just a nod or two in sleep, or continue to just sit here on this hill, that is not so steep. Still, may I ask a question or a second if I could? For I do not wish to go on driving misunderstood.

Was it I that floated past you in the summer time, with the moon smiling wickedly at a three percent of shine? Did I seduce you, did I know you, and was I a little boy at all? Would you answer softly speaking while I drive on through to fall?

Did I not sit upon a hill of stars, falling from the spirit-filled sky, and did I not kiss them each one silently, like the apple of my eyes? And did I not change from one heart to another, of that from clay to air, and under your simple direction did I not become a man in that same air?

Did you not transmit breathe to me while you held the planets in your hand? The sound of moonlight falling over a mighty world of sand. And forever did you not caution me, without provocation to stand, boy you had better drive so carefully, so carefully when you can?

I drive around a hillside that I drove so long ago, maybe it is in the Ozarks or the desert of New Mexico, or maybe that same hillside has grown a length or two. Maybe it is now in Colorado where the mountains give a further view. For it is in the sum of all my questions, and the space I place them on, I begin to wonder oh moon of sliver lighting if you are the origin or the sum? I suppose these are the questions and the gifts of what was youth. Bear with me a little longer, while I drive on toward the truth. – 07.02.19 – דָנִיֵּאל

Rivers (A Haunting)

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.” – Norman Maclean

“Whereas we find ourselves at this dreadful yet wonderful place. Betwixt by resolve and torment. Haunted as it were, on the banks of the river of our own soul, asking which way does the river flow”? – DS

There is a flood of many waters inside of you that goes to waste, said a voice, that voice without a face. But the voice inside was something that I knew no one could fake, the one that held the storm, the storm I could not erase!

I hear the hymn in the morning time, with the Colorado sky stretching dark and wide, With the first son of morning comes a star shooting high, the chant sings a song about my rivers inside. So many empty verses, so I just cry and cry. For just these many years I have been kind of quiet, Not saying much to anyone about the water inside. That muddy moving liquid that moves from side to side. Bringing me a challenge to move across its troubled tide. Its just analogy for life that moves outside, Rivers needing crossing when the need does arise. One-way bridges under cloudy skies, and the keeper of the through-way has a storm in his eye, yes, the keeper of the through-way has a storm in his eye.

I think my souls waiting on a singular side, inside or outside me, it wants to cross to another side. From what I have come to know, or from where I have tried, I think it wants to know what it’s like to finally die. For some this might dishearten or become a frightening sight, I sure somewhere somebody thinks my G_D it’s suicide. But flesh and bone are different from what I’m about to describe, you see I want to finally meet my genesis on the river that is inside. A mean that is not average an inner fire that will not subside.

So, I move to pray, crossing that one-way bridge of yesterday, moving from ghost to ghost from a child unto a man, crossing inner Jordan jumping over quick sand. A space that grows in grace. Myself a younger man. An inner sort of question that ask to see his face, and there I see not much to my surprise. One-way bridges under cloudy skies, and the keeper of the through-way has a storm in his eye. Yes, the keeper of the through-way has a storm in his eye.

The river running in me has a hum and a grind, sometimes it seems to clean me, at other times I feel its grime, But now in this place, at this place in my life, pour on me with your mighty water, let my soul consumed, be refined, on this place, where nothing can ever go to waste. Where nothing can ever go to waste.

There is a flood of many waters inside of you that goes to waste, said a voice, that voice without a face. But the voice inside was something that I knew no one could fake, the one that held the storm, the storm I could not erase! – 09.04.2018 – דָנִיֵּאל

On Sleeping (1971)

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” – Edgar Allan Poe

“Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions.” – Stevie Nicks

The full moon swings on a wireless swing and comes to rest above my sleeping shoulder. I move as if a little too much to block its shine by pulling at my cover. “So near to summer” whispers, whisper, “come outside let’s plan an escape and count the stars by number”. Shadows move, twist, and shake, with tenderness they pull me from my slumber. “All the worlds an open stage”, sings one stray spirit to another. So how I moved I did not know, hand to mouth, a secret I stowed, and off in light bequeathed Altair’s glow. Let some dream of dancing, some devise lofty plans. Set their scope of dreaming on obtaining all they can. Faith deems I set my nighttime hours on Neverland, and fly away.

“Now here I go again, I see the Crystal visions“, unlike what Stevie sings, I cannot keep my visions to myself. For there are ladders here, a way to heavens chair, a better view to share what was seen was all about. On here, a summer’s stage, with an equinox to display, the spirits hop and dart about. And back in inertia deep, a graying man he sleeps, the covers from his shoulders creep. The air in golden gloom, a hand held out just like a spoon, a breath of unseen consequence, sends out a playful spray.

For I see a window open, of the places undescribed, a familiar looking better me of what I will to try. For though I lay a sleeping somethings changing inside, and then I slip away, on sleeping it’s the only way outside.

The boy stands at the edge of the river and he cleanses all away. It looks like the Jordan, but it is the San Juan in disarray. He gazes at the sky, and counts every star by number in its place. For he means, every promise with words he will never say. And when he assails the bluffs of the mesa for a second, he will stop and stay. For the entire world is his alone, the summer present and the one he still owns. No dark valley where the winds still roam. The boy is a me, as I have never known. A full moon falls in a single ray. Nineteen Seventy-one at night is on display. Let some dream of dancing, some devise lofty plans. Set their scope of dreaming on obtaining all they can. Faith deems I set my nighttime hours on Neverland, and fly away. – 06.14.2018 – דָנִיֵּאל

Tongues (The Dream)

Grammy takes the clothes pin, and she runs it across the metal line.  The wire hinge on the two wooden pegs connects with the line, and a screech of metal on metal fills the hot humid Missouri morning.  Grammy’s strawberry bonnet bobs up and down in time as she moves the clothes pin, back and forth across the line.  “Listen” she says, turning towards me, her Cherokee eyes are laughing, “it’s talking in tongues”.  “I don’t hear it”, I say, I’m lying on the damp grass, holding a weed Tom Sawyer like between my teeth.  “It’s a spirit tongue” she says her eyes dancing and then beginning to float.  “You have to listen”, she says.  And my Grammy, my precious, precious Grammy goes away

My dreams I think are like puzzles, each piece moving, to find its place, and just like the vision I had last night, I’m eleven once again, listening to Karen Carpenter, make love to me in grace.  And Grammys there before dawns morning light, her words float by my face, she’s teaching me about things up above, the languages most of my life I cannot face.  And she speaks before I can acknowledge, her words leaving marks behind my face.  She’s a witness from a fallen race.  She instills love in tongues of the angels, speaking beyond hearing and place.  This dream I think it’s symphonic, retired to such a place.  The world going round, what’s lost but then found, an old woman’s wisdom, I can’t replace.

She turns her simple blue dress blurring, the world has grown so still, listen she breathes, her fingers interweaved, and in tongues I believe we are chaste.  For listen to what the storm tells you, put your ear to rocks and the land, and when the time comes, touch metal, climb rungs, and listen until you have found your perfect place.

I awake upon this new day, the tenth of September, sixteen, but it’s still seventy-two the languages, not new, the tongues still whispering away.  I think of all that has happened, with so many voices inside.  I’m going to decide, my fate has arrived, I’m going to talk in tongues till I hear.  I’ll listen to what the storm tells me, my ear I’ll put to the rock, and the land, and when the time comes, I’ll touch metal, climb rungs, and listen to what my Grammy said, I’ll listen to what she said.

“It’s a spirit tongue” she says her eyes dancing and then beginning to float.  “You have to listen”, she says.  And my Grammy, my precious, precious Grammy goes away.  – 09.10.2016 -דָּנִיֵּאל