Gothic

The Ghost on the Bridge

/ Daniel Swearingen / 37 Comments


“It is required of every man, the ghost returned, “that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death”. – Charles Dickens

“Listen, listen”, the boy ghost said, “we are present caricatures of what we once knew, no better time than Christmas, to know the life that once was you”. “From this same stargate a child was born, and in that image all lives were formed”.

Blew a kiss your way in the snow of “73”, you were transparent so hard to see, a foot pointed in reverie, no one saw you but me. Just a sprite upon the bridge, looking southward toward a ridge. The bluffs above you, and down below the muddy San Juan looked like moving brown snow. I thought about you standing there, a Dicken’s character with muffled hair. What were you doing, where was your home? Were you the same ghost who whispered to me when I felt so alone? I saw you again when we drove home, winds swirling, the spirits they roam. Oh, the ides of Noel be, above a river, on Christmas Eve. Faire thee well then, from my way back when, the clock is ticking while darkness moves in. A change to shadow, the book of dark, forever thirteen, a phantom in my heart.

Beyond our house, the wind it blew, from the steeps of twin peaks, the sand it made a witches brew. And in the interest of the dark, the Christmas story had a different start. For instead of Judea from my Father’s lips, I heard a whisper about desert ships. A different story from a different arc, a previous world in its glory before our start. “Listen, listen”, the ghost boy said, I’m a reflection of you before you were dead. “Listen, listen”, to your own heart, the Yuletide of genesis was the beginning before this Christmas start. And I heard him singing inside my head, and it sounded of wonder as I made my way toward bed.

That once in a lifetime on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1973, the ghost on the bridge, came with me home, made my life different from all I had known. Told me stories of how life had been before division of meaning was borne upon men. Told me of stars, that spelled out their names, as they danced in unison, until morning came. Told me of meaning of why we are born, to love in adventure, to love in the storm. And as I traveled so far in my dreams, a boyhood voyager, to give or receive. I passed that bridge by the one where I’d seen, the boy ghost looking, staring at me. He looked so familiar, like someone I knew, no different from me. He waved me on through. He waved me on through.

“Listen, listen”, the boy ghost said, “we are present caricatures of what we once knew, no better time than Christmas, to know the life that once was you”. “From this same stargate a child was born, and in that image all lives were formed”. – 12.20.21 – דניאל

 

Morgana

/ Daniel Swearingen / 115 Comments

“He, who rides a tiger, is afraid to dismount”. – Thea Harrison

July 30, 1982 or centuries ago…

It is a five-hour drive from Whitby to Glastonbury Tor, if the traffic is light, and the winds of good fortune are with you. Worth the drive if you ask me. Worth the time indeed. So much to do while you are there. So much to see especially at night. Especially at night if you dream.

In this moment, she is like an unsatisfied water storm whirling in my mind, and uncontrollable pleasurable orgasm careening undefined. That sweet agony that defies our outer bodies combined. Other times she is inside me, her tongue like an allegory, a legend refined. Wrapping her long, mind around me proving that life will not be with me long. Altogether, she is immeasurable part of a mystic plan. Serving her Lord and her Master, whether a woman or a man. I sleep this night in misery looking for her cause, is she a muse caught in my memory or just a rhyme gone wrong. Maybe I am a searcher for a sorceress drawn in different signs. Maybe I see her naked body summoned out of time. A blue crescent moon on her forehead, a perfect swoop back of her hair. Just a hint of a blue shadow under her eyelid that invites me where. Taking me across many waters, taking me on her own. Stars falling from the firmament, the cold waters how they foam. Swaying circles by a seashore, hearing drums, wrapped up feeling her unclothed home. Knowing you are a witch to my bone. Witch oh which a universe to roam.

Better, you are here with a lady, better you are from the unknown. Stories of you when you were crazy, screaming “roll the bones“. Lower you down just above me, where do spirits roam. Ancient cities explode between centuries. Eyes meet eyes. I moan. Crescents on totems dancing inside the circle of her womb. The stars above me from far away Babylon weaving a loom. Battlefields on her body of a different kind. Tracks telling your history from when Buddug said sweet fairy you are mine. Over and over the sky raining sand, the night upon us in a dream strange land. She breathes it cometh, it cometh where angels ran. She breathes, ride this fifth horseman as hard as you can, and then I see the red moon falling from her raised hand. The red moon is falling from her raised hand.

It is a five-hour drive from Whitby to Glastonbury Tor, if the traffic is light, and the winds of good fortune are with you. Worth the drive if you ask me. Worth the time indeed. So much to do while you are there. So much to see especially at night. Especially at night if you dream. Especially if you dream. – 07.30.2021 – דָנִיֵּאל

Ivanhoe (An Addendum)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 82 Comments

“Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last final awakening.” – Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

For Ivanhoe sailed on a blue cold sea, ever present from what could be, to be a knight of war no more, to embrace his final score. No more dust and blood of war, just better passions on heavens shores.

Hold still thy Eastern windows, those upon the North Sea, facing toward Jerusalem, where there I will soon be free. Breaking now my spirit that, which is a loom, weaved by darkened feelings, comes the witch before the moon. What was my father’s fortune, tithes and land and silk, lay I now before thee, thy daemons and their ilk. Forge the steel of Canaan a double-sided seal, who knows if it is really, really real. Here now I pray, between the stones from another day. Standing still, I cry as all men cry, “will G_D let me stay”? Whom is now upon me? Darkness or the light by day? What is its fashion, poet or warrior fallen by a blade? So, this night, this starless, soulless night, filled by shadows, great with evil’s plight. Is it mine to reckon, to stiffen with my arm? By these shores of England in a calm or storm. Still I hear thee bade me, come unto my breast. Oh my G_D you know me, in this you know me best.

I thought upon this hardly, when first a sword I sheathed, to carry death upon my hip, better to give unto than receive. For all the years of battle when my mind saw blood red, I never thought that demise could come peaceful for men once bled. For what the passion of all true things, those men of oath can often decree. Their minds lacking character in the power of control they deceive. Their laws held high on banners, held to heaven’s doors. From love and savage battle, they are laws that never bind to us subsequently once we are no more. For here, it makes no difference, this crusade now described, in final breathing moments, to a black angel. Oh her eyes.

Names, names, names I would be remiss, not to say my true love’s name, in death I truly miss. Daughter of the misty lake, Saxon queen whose sweet lips I often taste. She who leaves before me, now by a flowered filled lake. For all the swords and lances, have I thrust, to give unto this dark angel all my trust? To view Rowena in a land so faire. Very different over there. For ever Loxley perhaps I shall miss, its stone and thatch and heavy mist. For what has come in what I see in these boiling eyes nonmoving before me. Just a calm within a storm, in a circle that feels so warm. In a circle that feels so warm.

For Ivanhoe sailed on a blue cold sea, ever present from what could be, to be a knight of war no more, to embrace his final score. No more dust and blood of war, just better passions on heavens shores. – 02.20.2021 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

Valiant

/ Daniel Swearingen / 95 Comments


“You cannot give me my soul and take away my heart” – Prince Valiant

Upon this terrible eve of difference, that between the dragon and me.  His, the daemons troops so terrible, that which brings the fear I see.  So it is, in that great battle, that which quakes inside of  me. Move I unto my great lady in this darkness comfort me.  In this darkness comfort me.

Oh, hallowed place oft with no sun, to drench the soil of goodness done. Why here I pray, and ask someone in shadows come and cloak thy son. Bring grace in step and purpose some, make inside stronger than outsides sum. Know thee to me, my ladylove, one life, one soul, I will not run. For battle rages, I know it true, it rises when the sunrise is through, and I will not have glory then, for all blood spilt, is mortal sin. In truth right now, when darkness comes, a slight chill uttered on thy light tongue. Kiss it to me, and I to you, become we one in ghost and shadow too. Lay here with me, and know not my tears, take now my thoughts for the coming years. For here so cold on nighttime’s shore, we know each other in skin and more, and share a shimmer of what might be if on the morrow I cease to be.

Light here no candles as if I am staid, a token monument while breath is weighed. Still laugh with me and breathe in true and call the muses to sing us through. One life, one soul that parts nowhere, even on that morrow when blood flows everywhere. So the question asked between us two, are we finite now, in what we do? Tonight, tomorrow when the battle is through. To know this eve of that to come, will be enough when sleep is done.

Oh, sprite, thy torments everywhere, thy flurries dark and teeth still bared, to rent my grasp from what I do. To sow the doubt within my love so true. To split my will as if it is none, to change the mystery of what must be done. To show this place where we now lay, to describe its hollowness as my shallow grave. My sword to me, my strength renewed, the stars above fall, and show me to you. For in my heart, laid deep to test, one life, one soul, will pay to rest.  One life, one soul will pay to rest.

Oh, hallowed place oft with no sun, to drench the soil of goodness done. Lay down thy time, look not ahead, for what is future could already be stead. In this black place which knows no sun, bring light to me, thy will be done. Know thee to me, my ladylove, one life, one soul, I will not run.

Upon this terrible eve of difference, that between the dragon and me.  His, the daemons troops so terrible, that which brings the fear I see.  So it is, in that great battle, that which quakes inside of  me. Move I unto my great lady in this darkness comfort me.  In this darkness comfort me.

For Queen Aleta and my wife, both who have put up with much the night before a battle. – 10.26.20 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Shéy

/ Daniel Swearingen / 94 Comments


“Lost boys almost always do need a good witch of a wife” – DS

Shéy does sing,

“Sing my name among the cosmos, the stars that drop to earth, and the ones who bear the wolf mark lost upon their birth. Dance, within the circle, make sure that life repeats, as it was from the first day desire makes breath complete. Count the many numbers as often as you can, oh great one you made the angels just a little lower than just I am.”

The Mr. finds her by the stones at dawn, her still radiant body warm to touch, wet with perspiration. He holds her close to him, feeling her breath against his grizzly cheek. “You are the most stubborn man Mr.”, she says to him, her voice carrying both wit and seriousness to it. “Could you not leave me to my tendencies for just one night”? The Mr. thinks about it for a moment and feels himself flush. “You give too much of yourself to this place”, he mutters, his brow growing stern. She thinks for a moment he looks like a wolf, not quite as lean and handsome as the ones who had surrounded her the night before. Still, The Mr. carries that glint still in his eyes, just as when she created it in him. When she brought him over. That was a long time ago she thinks. She wonders if she could do it again. Summon the craft, and give…

She writes on slates of Sandstone transported from some Moon, the images in her mind act out as if they are a rune. She sees the stars of Caledonia raining from the sky, painting her white naked body with the symbols, as old as Sodom and the tombs where stories lie. A pleasing aromatic of olden sage burns between her feet. An adoration of unseen tongues makes words she cannot repeat. An ancient revelator bends to what she seeks. She gives in to all temptation, as the dark angels sweep. The shadow of her book of sorrows burns and then it dies. The heavens open duly, and deep cries out against the sky. The sound of many spirits parade and march from ancient steeps. For there upon the Highlands, sums magic only secrets dare repeat.

She summons all her sisters, on the Southeast winds they ride, bringing rain and lightning, intermixed with starlit skies. The Bean Nighe and the Kelpies, and all the Wulver too, gather to the circle that spins in a darkened hue. For unto all that is madness in all that witches do, to bring forth life from that which is lost, and make it life anew. The earth is now opened. Between the times of man, as Whitby Ladies from all moments join the Clan at hand. And she who forms the circle, to bring forth someone new, screams her name into the chaos, as a new man walks on through.

The Mr. dances with her just beneath the circle beyond its still pulsating heat. “You gave again, didn’t you”, he whispers hoarsely in her ear. He is jealous, and to a certain extent, he feels his envy is righteous. “Just to the lost boys”, she whispers nuzzling the rough skin upon his neck. “You will always be my first”, “You will always be my first”.

Shéy does sing,

“Sing my name among the cosmos, the stars that drop to earth, and the ones who bear the wolf mark lost upon their birth. Dance, within the circle, make sure that life repeats, as it was from the first day desire makes breath complete. Count the many numbers as often as you can, oh great one you made the angels just a little lower than just I am.”

Shehanne Moore is an amazing accomplished author and I say with all intentions of being a namedropper, a friend (Please do check out all of her wonderful books). You can find Shey’s blog at https://shehannemoore.wordpress.com/  Welcome to The Whitby Lady’s my friend. –
דָּנִיֵּאל
– 09.29.2020

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