Gothic

Lake (His Anecdote)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 104 Comments


He sees at times that G_D comes down by the lake, dressed in a refinement that makes it easy to see that he is she. And it seems she wants to comb his brown hair with her fingers, wetted by the waters below.

Her cold air comes from a sweet mouth, a hallucinatory word of a devious faire. Spoken by a thin light of possible imagination, he’s never certain if she’s real, or a picture born in defense from his mind’s own devious lair. Is it true she tells him of her lovers, is it right she tells him how she really wants to care? “Meet me by the lake”, she whispers in the darkness, we can enter the blackness where no one really cares. Her picture becomes one of animation, one a Psychiatrist can say is never there, but still as the days turn their light into dark shadows. What once was neverland has eyes that really stare. For he knows she wishes him her secrets, the ones that dance where no one cares. The magic to walk upon the moonlit water, whose to say what afterlife is there.

The night songs come as much more frequent, framed within her blackened flowing hair. Words and gilded eyes that appear now much too frequent, no longer a doubt of if she’s with him there or just a faded belief. “Trust is a neurological vessel”, she whispers as she sails upon his nighttime seas, “and when the time is right, I will take you home. To far beneath that lake with me.”

And the pictures of his mind pass by all description of what analysis would seek to tell. An ancient witch of water coming forth in spell, or a broken right hemisphere, in diagnostic tales. A question or a myth in a modern world, a place of science or a supernatural scale. For what does he see, beckoning him by the lakeside. Is she a delusion or an interstellar bell? Ringing in his mind of the season, syllables and signs and beckoning tales. Oh, her perfect arms that reach to take him, from a mad world to the lake, her wishing well.

For a moment he sees himself, floundering in cold lake water, drowning in an indescribable sad dream. What a bad drama, or a lie of a story it would be if all he had seen, was not what he had deemed. But then a story is never just a story, a fable has a truth that’s really gleaned. She pulls him up, just when he is able to live his dream. She pulls him up, just when he is stable to live his dream.

He sees at times that G_D comes down by the lake, dressed in a refinement that makes it easy to see that he is she. And it seems she wants to comb his brown hair with her fingers, wetted by the waters below. – 03.11.2020 – דָנִיֵּאל

She and Ordinary Men

/ Daniel Swearingen / 2 Comments


“I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.” – Nelson Mandela

The angel came…

The homeless guy had a slight English accent, maybe from Worcester I’m not really certain though. He had been drinking for three days straight he said, still his accent was fairly firm, and his thoughts spoken plain. “I saw an angel of the Lord“, he said. “He looked right through me and said he was interested in ordinary men”. “The angel told me great things come from ordinary men”, he said. When he said that, I noticed his eyes lost color. Watered down almost. Supernatural almost, and yet quite ordinary. In that moment I wished to be the most ordinary, the most common, for there was the heat. There was G_D

The angel came…

Saw a boy through a thin glass, saw a boy dancing near Tupelo, saw a bright spot, a big bird sailing high above. In the indigo sang a child, under the moon, dancing near the moss oak that holds the old coon. The questions came as questions can. Is he a shimmer in the dark, is he a twist that makes you want to twist too? Possessed by thoughts of what he can’t say. Does he sing to the stars, does he move in you, is he chosen by all sides? Is he fame, or is he shy just lost now as a typical man? For it could be we are all her, exploding in all we could say, chosen by her to be alive, gifts unopened, a dream, an unbearable ordinary man.

The angel came…

Saw a stutterer, a man who needed tamed, saw him leaving through puzzles in the dark, lost inside, for want of purpose, lacking spark. And a big bird flying high, to a burning bush, a symbol, that can haunt you. Words in syllables and flames, G_D of shadows, fire and rain. G_D who chooses losers known by any other name. Is he fame or trying to hide, gone tomorrow, here today, archetypal by test of man? Commandments given; nothing hides. For it could be we are all her, exploding in all we could say, chosen by her to be alive, gifts unopened, a dream, an unbearable ordinary man.

The angel came…

Saw an answer in a dream, walking deserts, moving through streams. Moved through time, watched my children born, what does it mean. Watched a big bird flying close to me, and wondered why. In the open, under star lit sky’s, followed by the G_D of need, seeking answers in what I see. I ask above, I ask again, let me go for nothing ends. Still she sends the bird of prey, holding me until it’s day. Then I understand the art, understand from where I start. For it could be we are all her, exploding in all we could say, chosen by her to be alive, gifts unopened, a dream, an unbearable ordinary man.

The angel came… – 02.21.2020 – דָנִיֵּאל

Snow Canyon (Hallelujah)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 83 Comments


Giving thanks is that: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of G_d when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant. – Ann Voscamp

I have been incarnated for such a long time, from my birth before the beginning of all time. I never knew how powerful I was, I never realized. To be humble, has in its way its own pride. At last I come to a great winter canyon which does not give a shelter in its great snow filled side. Elijah, Elijah your blessed mantle that won’t let me hide. I am risen well before I ever thought to die, here in Snow Canyon the walls so tall they can’t contain all tides. Hallelujah! A shadow for the new year, a blight I can’t associate with from this wind-swept floor, a daemon I will not call forth. For legion calls only that from the human side, and I am destined here in snow canyon to breech the great divide. I have been waiting here from this egg my entire life, and I say hallelujah.

What is a haven, when it pushes you outside, closes in its doors and lets you try? What is a mercy that lets somebody hide, not a compassion, but covering in a life? In snow canyon you make me realize, I have earned my real lines, on my face they ride, a greater glory in this new, new time. The soul is cleaner when your shame is rhymed to hallelujah. Though snow is judgment, falling through this air, though points are moving, it’s not in time I care. My only freedom is not bound by any air. A little secret, a little find, a great big canyon, without a sign. I’ll give it to you, as the new year shines. It’s hallelujah, its hallelujah.

There was an old world some would have most find, its filled with memories both good and bad, all kinds. It keeps the freedom of those it’s keep they find. A darkness backwards, an entry most can’t unwind. I tell you memories, must be bound and tied. Here in this canyon is the presence of current time. No clocks or seconds, just Infinium of what’s right. In hallelujah, in hallelujah.

I have been incarnated, I travel through all time, I have seen me born, and I’ve wondered if I died. Still now no matter in this canyon here, with snow clearing, the coming of a new year. The stars above me the way is higher and clear. For hallelujah. It’s hallelujah.

Happy New Year!

For Susan, Ryan & Kaitlyn – 12.31.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

First Christmas

/ Daniel Swearingen


“Expectancy is the atmosphere for miracles”. – Edwin Louis Cole

I cannot shake the feeling of familiarity, even though each time you come around I feel new. A loving heart filled with specific clarity, of the special kind of person that I have in you. I would strike a deal of my eternal security; run the judgment gantlet a time or two. If G_D in all her wisdom and her mercy, would let me walk through a winter snow with you. The lore of love is all around us, between life’s mountains what a view. The universe in snow in Colorado, the quaking Aspen below a sky that is blue. The mighty storm of life that has blown at us. The change that comes, the change that must. The first Christmas I really see you, the first we bind to make it just.

There are many who would say that it was unspoken, signs between spirits not above. A deal made by a minion who knew better? A course of instigation of not what was. For all the times we thought we were not special, for all the dread our twosome stumbled through. In all of this pain and degradation, we were hibernating, waiting in a winter wonderland to become new. In a prayer, that we have no words for, in a language uttered from the stars above. Who’s to know but us what we are given, ties that bind that make us thus. The mighty storm of life that has blown at us. The change that comes the change that must. The first Christmas I really see you, the first we bind to make it just.

For we have not died alone, but together, while moving parts have changed above. The snow around us is a carol, sung immortal in our love. We alone have sampled heartache, as such in life our deeds have some. For how we remained as faire together, for how our destiny was done. One hand raised unto the heavens, the other tied within our love. Now we see the door opened, not a shadow do we bare, and what was once is now forgiven. As ghost and angels, hold our future in such a cold thin air. Within us both strikes a hallow, a white warmth from light’s guiding lair. We rise as one together, no need for ties that bind. The mighty storm of life that has blown at us. The change that comes the change that must. The first Christmas I really see you, the first we bind to make it just. – 12.20.2019 – דָּנִיֵּאל

For Susan.

 

Betsalel (Shadow Man)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 75 Comments


“Look in his eyes and see your reflection, look to the stars and see his eyes, He’ll show you tomorrow, he’ll show you the sorrows, of what you did today”. – David Bowie

It is December now; all should be quiet both inside and out, and all is as should be except for the shadow man. Except for the shadow man.

He rides above the sky line in the desert of my mind, he follows me through pages I have written my entire life. He kisses lips that kiss me, and whispers “now that’s divine”. He intuits bodies as they unwind by four by sixteen time. In December he moves within me, while the snow it falls outside. It could be he is a cancer, a daemon born of rite, somehow twisting memory flowing through each time, each tide of night. But all and all he is shadow, inner backwards facing light. Summoned through time he’s history, moving rhyme through inner flight. Oh, to know his mystery, to have or have not his sight. The lovely trails he would lead me, with witness he would be me, for all the worlds above my whims, the sins beneath me, still shadow man’s inside my wound, brilliant by what he sees.

He rode me to a forest, when I was but thirteen, he showed me holes in tree trunks, where time was set to breath. For it was there in winter time, when shorn were all the leaves, the shadow man was lurking beneath his dark, dark wings. I wondered was he always inward for outward he seemed to be, and with his white teeth gleaming, he said, “look into me”. And it was that I was just a boy, unfamiliar with holding keys, the rejoinders to so many questions that the shadow man put in me. For time itself is reflection of the answers that we seek, and I myself upon this journey know there is a shadow that harbors me. Oh, to hold this white bird, a symbol of a lawful brief. This that defines the shadow man, in the deepest part of me, for all the worlds above my whims, the sins beneath me, still shadow man’s inside my wound, brilliant by what he sees.

He flew me to the present, a force inside decreed, I cried myself tears of oceans, still I was just me. An effervesce of beautiful, beside a celestial king, that was what the shadow man told me, it was all a part of me. For if there was no tomorrow come, no holes in no more trees. What I have seen would have been enough to satisfy my need. This shadow man is all I have, the reflection that is me. Ghost or spirit of a muse it occupies the we. For all the worlds above my whims, the sins beneath me, still shadow man’s inside my wound, brilliant by what he sees.

Daddy you were right about the shadow man. I think at last I understand. – 12.07.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

Ave Angeles

/ Daniel Swearingen / 82 Comments


Salvador Dali – Angels

“O’ what may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!” – William Shakespeare

I watched them fly in early morning. Stern faces all, diamond like eyes reflecting a pinpoint brightness of eschatology. They pointed themselves toward the eastern horizon, daemons and angels, muses and monsters of mythology. I opened my curtain ever wider, and saw they were burning stars, blazing before the dawn. Reflecting the vitality of beginning and ending. The holiness of G_D’s names. And I wished to fly with them above November.

Said you, “born you were unto November, rise above it, it can’t hold you”. “Rise above it, it can’t hold you.”

Such a sweet day in November, with the sky an eye of blue, an occasional sun drop. Bouncing off my points of view. Woke myself to sweet surrender, of the purpose designed a new. From this vantage on this altar, laying naked before you. Cut all feelings from the shadows, those that are human accrued. Raised my shaggy head upwards. Screamed I am made from you. You are the author of my adventure, between the lines of light and hue. In the numbers of error, you found me, and led me through a timeless wound. Said you, “there is higher than you are reaching”. Said you, “Loose your thoughts and I’ll show you, you”. Said you, “Care for me and care for no other, for I am jealous for all you do.”

Said you, “born you were unto November, rise above it, it can’t hold you”. “Rise above it, it can’t hold you.”

Such a force of Citrine lightning, a picture painting of gothic rhyme. All though it is written I am a little lower than the angels, still above them I would fly. Bring myself before her presence in a question and a cry. Risen in the morning, with frost above my eyes. Tear myself from self-deception, that which lies accrued. Raised my shaggy head upwards. Screamed I am made from you. You have formed me like no other, cut my soul from roughen hew. Lifted me up from this dead garden, fallen Eden, no longer new. Said you, “unto you the choice is given, nothing hidden from your plain view.” Said you, “love me, and love no other, for between us life is consumed.” Said you, “I am breath and, I am numbers, time and mystery, ever new.”

Said you, “born you were unto November, rise above it, it can’t hold you”. “Rise above it, it can’t hold you.”

Above the Scorpius, beyond all air, below frozen water, all November’s share. In staring upwards, I stare no more, for I hear the summons, it is a silent roar. Your final gesture that defines my core. Said you, “born of the morning from when all comes, and innate by my word relative to all sums.”

We fly in early morning. We fly in the morning. We fly in the morning! – 11.18.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

The Dragon by the Dump

/ Daniel Swearingen / 82 Comments


“No, I would not want to live in a world without dragons, as I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith.” – R.A. Salvatore

The night sky ripples in my dreams, a mixture of sun, moon and stars. Something stirs in my bloodstream, and awakens me to whom I am to become.

The spine went from west of the dump in a half circle, unapologetic in its bending latitude, king like, under sun, moon and stars. The jagged edges whispered to us as we climbed them by day and moved tilting inwardly as our feet touched them by night. Although the rains almost never touched our hidden sacred find, the winds often came ripping away the night clouds that formed a curtain on the summer sky. We ran, we walked and we sat upon the back of a dragon, and its form entered our bloodstream, creating all life that we would forever be.

It is summer; it is winter, always springtime or fall. Just a boy then, just a boy now, when I hear the dragon call. Draco rising in a north star, that constellation, oh stars of all. A voice a whisper, a sound that comforts, “I lift you up boy, forever tall”.

“The fires never go out”, my friend say’s from the shadows of the dragon’s tail. He signals towards the dump with his nose, but I know he is talking about the warmth beneath his feet. “They never shall”, I whisper not sure, if I am back then, or here now speaking in my sleep. The sky seems to ripple, perhaps the fathoms of the days heat being released, more likely it is gravity protesting the movement of great silent wings. “Is it a ghost”, I whisper, thinking it might be. “No” my friend whispers back, his voice beyond my reach. For a brief moment, a bit of time that is deep in me, I see us moving upwards upon the spine of a great sand filled sea. A dragon has entered our bloodstream, creating all life that we would forever need.

It is summer; it is winter, always springtime or fall. Just a boy then, just a boy now, when I hear the dragon call. Draco rising in a north star, that constellation, oh stars of all. A voice a whisper, a sound that comforts, “I lift you up boy, forever tall”.

The head of the dragon, resting so still, one eye glazed over, under moonlight, may be it is granite but still. Sometimes it was more than just a rock on that hill. Guarding that dump, that manmade swill. “Sometimes it was us”, I hear my friend whisper, and it gives me chills. For now as back then, I can still feel. The rush of the dragon, the knowing so real, there in my bloodstream, from then on until. From then on until. – 07.18.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

4th Night Studies

/ Daniel Swearingen / 89 Comments


And G_d made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the less light to rule the night; and the stars. And G_d set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness; and G_d saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day. – Genesis 1:16-19

Once upon a time in the west, on the 4th night, before the 5th:

I left you at your doorstep, with your taste still in my mouth, and I stopped in Flora Vista with the moonlight all about. In the ruins I walked transparent with all my single lonely doubts, and the daemons reached unto me, to divert me from life’s route. And I wonder as I wander what this night is all about.

Oh, moon my moon on this dry ground, in hallowed whispers, come on down. In the night still, flies caped burdens, bringing night songs to the ground. In cloth I stand a human, watching stars they do abound. Is this night to be divided, or am I forever drowned? Oh Lord of syllable and Lord of sound, beyond my eardrum I spin around. For deeper still you come to reach me, like some lonely spirit found. Be gentle here by this ruin known, how many times have I come here alone? Still I wonder as I wander which light, I carry to my bones, still I wonder as I wander which light will shine if left alone.

This fourth day, is upon me, as the night before the fifth. Something borrowed deep in memory about the light and how it splits. My mother said, my mother told me, oh I had so far to go, oh Thursday child, was really Wednesday how that night was filled with woe.

In the ruins there was a lessor light, an angel on display, said she how it is you left me just a moment or two today. For that girl you left past star ward with her taste still in your mouth, cannot contain what G_D has for you in all your secrets and your doubts. It was a question that I wondered from that night there in the ruins, for what it was on that fourth day in the creation of my youth. Even now I walk division from the night unto the day looking forward to the greater light, not found deficient in anyway.

Once upon a time in the west, on the 4th night, before the 5th. – 06.19.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

Highway 491 (Were Still Here)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 63 Comments


“No one is actually dead, until the ripples they cause in the world die away.” – Terry Pratchett

“We’re still here We’re shadows fallin’ the night is callin’ again We’re still here Where love is runnin’ the night is calling, again (Brother to brother)” – Steve Perry

Steve Perry is singing “Were Still Here” The words move through my thoughts, taking up association with the visuals from a troubling dream of the previous night. There have been many dreams lately. Too many. Visitations from unknown parts. Voices and faces from different times, different places, gathering it seems still here it seems on Highway 491, that highway in my head.

I watched them turn in a distant memory, a friend or two within my head; they stood upon the precipice of my thoughts shimmering and looked straight ahead. The night closed in with all its mystery, the stars moved circles around their heads. For I probed the devil’s triangle in my soul for they were no longer dead. “Still” I ask, “oh why the stillness?” “Is this the answer that you had?” “When you drove the sprite’s highway, with a holster packing lead.” A way fare that you both paid duly, not aware of interest due. A lost account when the sun rose ruefully, there you lay, life shed. There you lay, life shed.

Be gone, I sometimes ask the nighttime, when such scenes are played. Dreams they shouldn’t be of lesson, that of fright or dismay. I do not want to ask or wonder why such friends would leave such way. It seems a crime they stray on highways. Lost alone in May. Faces white with questionable worry, lost alone, where daemons roam. Hardly seen by modern travel, my friends, my friends you are still alone. “Still” I ask, “oh why the stillness?” Bone to dust your bodies gone, yet you distress me, for somethings wrong. In hours of morning, with springtime here, I see you driving your eyes bright and clear. On down a highway named 491, those numbers cover the shadow of the beast; those numbers cover the shadow of the beast.

Oh, mortal frames that break in two, unwitting minds of careless youth. That star you followed with its red face, led you forward on too fast a pace. It is some mystery, my dreams that see, you are waiting, waiting so patiently. Yet your mouths, cannot speak. “Oh G_D”, I ask, with weakened thought, brought on by darkness and turmoil wrought. “What is their place within my life, what is the meaning for which I now write”? “What is the meaning for which I now write”?

For there they stand by the highway, that eternal highway that runs at nighttime through my head. That eternal highway that runs at nighttime through my head.

For Jason & Tom and so many others, in my dreams on Highway 491, how I miss each one of you . – 05.07.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

The Ghost in the Cathedral

/ Daniel Swearingen / 77 Comments


“Hear, O Israel: the LORD is our God, the LORD is One.”

A dream on April 15th………

“It is well” my dad whispers as he sketches the Cathedral, the details designed from the nape to the great stone that shelters the moving shadows in the Roman portico. “Are there ghost here”, I whisper, thinking the answer I might receive might not be kind. “They are here” he whispers back, continuing to manipulate the pencil on his long white draught tablet, his face the color of angels, that of peace, that moves rough rivers to find a better course. My dad, the dad I know no more, a spirit, a moving light in darkness, moves his right hand with flourish finishing the left arch that covers the holy of holies.

“I will put daemons on the outside of this sanctuary,” he says, his now inhuman glowing blue eyes giving the appearance of a shelter, he was unable to offer while yet he was breathing. “Why”, I ask, the question knowing the answer to come. Still, the inquiry helps me hear my own voice. It sounds passive, and echoing, as if in a great hall. “They help us to know possibilities”, my dad mutters, turning drawing rapidly something that stands still, noticeable only to his eyes. His immortal eyes.

“It is well”, my dad whispers, baring the image of something alien upon his arms. They are moving images of creatures, alien beast that move to guard a sanctuary. Perhaps it is they guard a throne, a host, or a plan sketched of what is to come. “What of the ghost” I ask the spirit that speaks as my father. “They are here”, my dad laughs suddenly, as his eyes turn a cobalt cold, color of ethereal energy that moves between worlds.

He draws them then, with quickness, a suddenness that interrupts the troubled thoughts I have. They sit in silence, in quiet death, their bodies in sanctuary, their souls’ deep wells, not troubled by belief or ideology. “They rest”, my dad says, his voice moving to other places. Perhaps mysterious places where bleeding stops. Perchance that place “John Lennon” imagined, with no religion too.

“I would go there, also” I whisper to my dad, this dad who roughs great divine basilicas. “I would climb past these ghosts, I would Passover“, I say, as the night moves in and out of that consciousness that is my soul. “I cannot make it so”, my dad smiles, the same unavailability suddenly present within him, as it was in life. He moves then his pencil moving furiously over the pad he carries with him, and I understand. I know without worry, and I am concerned no more. My life passes beyond cathedrals, celestial and even divinity. It spins so often out of control. Nevertheless, they are there, ghost sketched in great cathedrals, daemons of awe sculpted by my dad’s awl, that help me know deep possibilities. Thoughts that are not bound to past or future. Still it is well, oh Hashem it is well with my soul.

“It is well”, my dad whispers.

For Notre Dame That still smolders this night.
– 04.18.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל