Life

Life, how small things lead to living and blindspots to the ability to see!

When Daddy Came Through

/ Daniel Swearingen / 74 Comments


“Protect your spirit, because you are in the place where spirits get eaten”. – John Trudell

You have been gone awhile now Daddy, sailing upon some unseen sea, you’ve left me here without an answer to what it means to not know you, and what it’s like to live inside me. There are clocks here Daddy counting seconds in quarter second time. They have second hands, painting specters just beyond reaches of my mind. And I wonder if you would visit, come before the summer moon, just to where I might see you, even if before death is a bit too soon. For I would like to hear you question, where I am going to, and be so kind as to answer, if I’m okay and doing fine. For it is I have been a Daddy, been a Daddy on my own, and my spirit is depleted without your help to carry on. For this world it eats my spirit, and I feel as if I am bound, and I need to know your present, need to know your still around.

I miss you Daddy!

He comes before the sunrise, in a soon begotten dream, a glowing set of spectacles on a broken thread in a rip from another world’s seam. His clothes they flow around him, and he looks to be about thirty-three, and he is speaking many languages, speaking them all just to me. For he comes not as nuance, or shiny haunt to be believed. He comes to make a difference, as my daddy, as my daddy.

On a plane of moving objects, through the symbols of earth, fire and bone, comes the man, I thought forgotten, looking round him as if he is home. At first, I think myself terrified, then I move myself to cry, then his cold hands lift me to him, and I see his sky-blue eyes. And they are deeper than the eons of space divided by the PI, they are many worlds spinning giving answers to the why.

And he says there are many pathways to the world in which I seek, but I better watch my spirit, for there are many who only seek. And he says they come to kill that which they never could create. And he says the world is burning, but some love can still be found. And he says keep to the places least expected, for what is expected has been around. And he says to believe in karma, and the settling of old dreams, for what comes around is healthier, if we have given better things. And he says if one door gets closed, wait awhile to open more, for what try’s the spirit might just try it a little bit more. And he ends it all by saying as a Daddy I am doing fine, and never ever question, when I do my best to try.

It seems there were so many things said as the sun moved to fill the sky, and I wished that we could just stay placed my daddy and I. But I felt him whisper in cold breath, I must not, I cannot, but it is never goodbye. Maybe I will see him again on his birthday in July. Maybe I will see him again on his birthday in July. – 06.21.2020 – דָּנִיֵּאל

SI (Act 1)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 86 Comments


“Out, out brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow.”- William Shakespeare

And brevity takes me flying, in everything I am not, a second in a lifetime that for SI was not I brought. Oh Lord have you not formed me like the eagle and the hawk, forever in this instant am I not. Forever in this instant am I not.

I found I was only a measurement of time, a sand in G_D’s eye, numbered by moments and found wanting. I died and rose again at the start of each day. Day after day, while the angels watched within my dreams, and begged to know if they could play. “While you are human, they whispered, let us play”. Undefined I flew across a lifetime age to age. Grace to grace, atom and nucleus, a speck in the seconds of the space age. A second or two of breath so high and then I was gray. And I said, “Oh G_D unto you I give all these days, a brilliance of light these instances, in which I am a flight of wind that mocks kings. Eyes and wings and blood finally dust in all things. For I am forgotten, I am remembered, salvation and iniquity, a human immortal born in my sin to finally rest in the exhalation of G_D’s sigh.

For in the second, the last breath, the instance when I am naked no longer shy. The SI, the doorway open from death to freedom before the wide open sky. I will praise G_D for the instance of quantum instances of assurance in my previous life, that let me know that I was SI, always an instant breathing, always SI. Your instance, your energy, a sum of answers why.

When I kissed, and kissed, my tongue wet against my lover, with her wide-open eyes.

An instance of a second as my two baby’s cry and cry.

A boy, a spirit, down on shaky knees, crying before a cross that is thirsty to give me needs.

A young man, an old man, both seeking to understand their greed, a moment in loneliness when a great eagle comes to feed.

Life in high country where no one but G_D knows my needs.

Oh, SI you are an action, an art of life and breath. That brings us from our screaming self, to a death upon our beds. A warrior’s sword in violence, a writer’s pen in peace. In the moment I have always known you, a lover in my psalm. A generator of spirit that cannot wait until I am done. You love me in a second, and then my breath is one. Only one and then my life is done.

And brevity takes me flying, in everything I am not, a second in a lifetime that for SI was not I brought. Oh Lord have you not formed me like the eagle and the hawk, forever in this instant am I not. Forever in this instant am I not. – 05.21.2020 – דָּנִיֵּאל

 

 

 

 

 

Jason’s Ghost (Until Then)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 81 Comments


“To a real best friend remember the truth! Hardy spy in the sky. (We did fly)” – Jason Waite (autograph 1974 yearbook)

Early morning my friend, eternal sails upon that desert wind, and I’m moving off with you again. Below just a topographical change, a deep, deep vale where we hid our change. From boys to better men. You come shooting up from Flame hill again. So, let’s begin. Let’s begin.

He rides the ship called Argo, the one that we fought for when we played. A tragedy born in the Ojo Amarillo, below where the Skinwalkers they lay. The character of boyhood brought from dreams of once upon a time until then. He smiles, he looks beyond what once was a friend. The clock burns into early morning seconds, well past three A.M. He summons spring. “School” he says, “will soon be out”. “Forever, and ever will never end, but until then”. For time has brought us this night, my friend. With stars cold diamonds, and hidden omegas beneath a galaxy’s far end. The mystery of the boys we have been. The rare spun change of when or then. The daemons laugh with us again, while our footprints appear, they walk without end. The flame, that sears our emotions again. On that hill, so long ago, where our souls began, again and again and again.

He swoons without blood or bone, the “San Juan River” is in his eyes like home. The color changes always. From muddy water to blue, blue, gray. His touch a cold, cold spell, he says there is another clue, by the river ruins. In the ruined Kiva where we planted staves, we swore we would fight wars on another day. So much in these words has yet to play. Oh, my friend is it another day, he smiles in the starlit darkness, and says “maybe okay”. “Maybe okay”. He rises like an Argonaut, a hero from a play. Final act of literal prose that blows goodbye with the high desert wind. By the table in the school library your face it disappears behind the ending chapter where our journey began. It could be the last time we see each other but until then. Until then.

Early morning my friend, eternal sails upon that desert wind, and I’m moving off with you again. Below just a topographical change, a deep, deep vale where we hid our change. From boys to better men. You come shooting up from Flame hill again. For now, it is the end. The end, but until then. – 05.03.2020 – דָּנִיֵּאל

The Gospel of Darkness (Passover 2020)

/ Daniel Swearingen


And we sing…

The law of the Lord is perfect, in its purpose and what it finds. In darkness it fills us, and allows us no cover from the judgment of what G_D finds. Hallelujah, it is time…

It is Passover…

The sun has set, its glow traveling near you, moving near me, perhaps it moves by request for the final time. Perhaps it determines the final key. It moves across an April snow here in Colorado, bringing judgement at Passover. Exposing a false spring, exposing skin. And yes, there is a question, (darkness) there is an incantation of rhyme, it comes not in light by sight so incandescent, but before the throne of darkness, here now in the end of G_D’s spare time. While Ezekiel’s wheels move across my wandering mind. Spending, removing distance, from what this Passover comes to find.

I’m listening to “Jane Siberry” sing “The Gospel According to Darkness” for the eleventh time as I write. Jane is a new discovery for me, a pleasing discovery. Her words invade my physical body, they stalk my soul, and they invite me to write truth’s I might at most times keep hidden. (Get thee above me) Here in darkness, here in shadow, here before any light. I feel homeless, I feel blind, and it could be that I am kept hidden from that which would take this my first-born life. For here in the shallow, here in the value of a snow drifting flight. Here below, that flicker, so many, many people that are good are held by fright. For I know it’s Passover, (darkness) I know its faith by night. For it comes in the dimness, it comes to the blind, for G_D is here among us as we watch the snow fly.

And we sing…

“The law of the Lord is perfect, the pleasure of her inner sight. The question of are you worthy, we will find the answer here, without any light. For we are not G_D’s paroles, indentured in bright light, bound by some dogma, Easter’s sunrise hides the blight.

It is Passover…

There is a place named “alone” (darkness). Angels unclothed, angels parting, to death all dies that we have ever known. In changing shadows, shifting by purpose, planning all that by a millennia she has designed. We are delivered, you and I are born by all we are resigned.

And we sing…

The law of the Lord is perfect, in its purpose and what it finds. In darkness it fills us, and allows us no cover from the judgment of what G_D finds. Hallelujah, it is time… -04.15.20 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Desert Verse (My Anecdote)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 102 Comments


“I know nobody knows
Where it comes and where it goes
I know it’s everybody sin You got to lose to know how to win. Dream on, dream on”. – Steven Tyler

Life is a dream, life is a circle, life is a reflection, life is addiction, life is a desert, life is G_D, life is a dream….

I saw her when I was thirteen years of age, moving to and from, unspeaking she was, outside my window, and I feared her, for it was reasonable to do so.

The high desert takes on a different look at night. Two hours after midnight, it moves, loosening itself from gravity and man-made plans. It becomes unto itself, calling out to itself, creation unto destruction. It spins into itself, creating genesis, and revelation. Birth and death. Time, and sorcery. Addiction and recovery.

She whispers, the ripples in the clouds are just shadows, they part the light and the energy from the moon. I wish you my child, to be willing, to come in secret to my sandy womb. Your visit should never be in daylight, where the sun shows a broader point of view. Nothing done in shine has such a perspective, as the honor under moonlight I have for you. For here by tumbleweed you’ll know my secrets, witches’ signs, and shades under a distant moon. There’s never been a deeper well than this my desert, a synonym, for what is really you. She whispers so inviting through my window, at thirteen, years of age how can I refuse. I must confess I am in awe of numbers turning, my anecdote is the whole of something true.

And, So, I strip myself of clothes that hide my secrets, human cloth that presents my parents view. At two A.M. I run into the desert, fleeing to the ark that defines you. To the west of me Shiprock rides the sand filled ocean. A transport that floats under this lunar view. I think at first that might be my naked destination, first class in quantum faith to a world that’s new. Be still, be still my soul that searches night for such an answer. Be still whispers she that turns the clue. Looking skyward way, I see her guidance falling from the stars, Orion slew. At thirteen years of age I became the desert, shifting in the night within her view. Such a hungry boy looking for visions, rising to a place no other knew. All her glory in my life’s decision, to be true in faith for all I do. To be true in faith for all I do.

Sometimes now at two A.M. I wake up quaking, and I see her moving to and from, unspeaking is she, outside my window, and I fear her, for it is reasonable to do so.

Life is a dream, life is a circle, life is a reflection, life is addiction, life is a desert, life is G_D, life is a dream…. – 03.29.20 – דָנִיֵּאל

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

The Perfect Place (Absentia)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 108 Comments


“Once there was a way to get back homeward” – Paul McCartney

“There’s a place I like to hide, a doorway I run through in the night”-Chris DeGarmo

“Is this the perfect place”, he asks, his cheeks glowing a perfect dry cold red. He looks the mixture between a loveable afternoon with A.A. Milne, and the darkest shadow of Dickens. “It is my perfect place”, I tell him, my breath blowing a long icy cigar looking shape. “I come here often”, I say, thinking my voice sounds younger, more adventurous here. I sound a better kind of honest. “Am I the first to come with you”, he asks, his bright eyes reflecting the red winter moon so close to where we stand. “You have always been here Ryan”, I say, my voice almost a murmur. “Always been here”, I whisper again, “as have I”.

In Absentia…

The grains of sand drop from the sky; falling in unison, they fill our eyes. Above the valley past eventide, the blessings come on a ghostly ride. We pray to G_D, G_D prays to us, in quantum travels on angel dust. From these twin peaks, we watch time tied, to a perfect place, as numbers fly by. There are tunnels here and dragons too, what is one wild-eyed boy when two will do. From a map inside drawn by eternal clues, one that talks to me now it talks to you. In absentia from a present gone, to a fourth wall fallen, without a magic wand. Oh, eternal womb that speeds us thus, to this great place in the two of us, to see these hosts of treasured years, these paths I once walked without present fears.

“Where might we go from here”, he ask the red moon of the desert sky descending, to halo his face. “There are rivers and ruins here”, I say, “and adventures”, he asks, a slight smile starting to form. It is as if for the first time he can taste. “Yes, I say, “Adventures too”. “Then in this perfect place I will find me”, he says, his voice suddenly filled with confidence. “Indeed”, I reply, “in absentia” great spirits we will certainly be.

In Absentia…

The gust blows, turning by, resolving time. We go two stars to the left what do we find? Standing there in Neverland, quickened in our newer minds like my own Dad. We wander the desert in directions I have known. A porous man, a psalmist, a child now a man. Our footsteps translucent as wind spills the sand. By dragons skeletal within our hands, we form a genesis that turns our mind and in turn makes us a man. Back to a place in time where my son can become what is me. A better version born of G_D in this holy desert sea. The better place to question all of what is she. The perfect place to be. The perfect place to be.

In Absentia…

“You have always been here Ryan”, I say, my voice almost a murmur. “Always been here”, I whisper again, “as have I”. – 02.13.2020 -דָנִיֵּאל

 

A Night by the Hours

/ Daniel Swearingen / 108 Comments


“How did it get so late so soon?” – Dr. Seuss

I suppose we discovered our immortality on that perfect night, when the darkness moved by the hours. The night it had no name for it was all nights, all times, and I called you “Sweet Darlin” …

We wind ourselves around the western view; to me it is one color, for you it is several hues. A difference of opinion on a falling sun that takes away our breath, as in the east a large moon has begun. Our spirits take position in a higher place, silent in communion no words can they say. For they border on a boundary, of clouds and grace, an absolution of spatial logic, a jump into ghost held space. I hold onto your tight bodice, my lips drawn back as if to taste.  My teeth a sharpened color, white snow like, chaste that would be debased. In an instant, we huddle closer as if some spell would tell us so, a last walk on the skyline watching the evening as it flows. For it’s a night not held in sorrow, or an evening in shallow touch, but a darkness filled with flying, where no one ever says too much.

We have come to know a pattern, when the gloom draws us here. To this path below the snow-caps of “Twin Sisters” crooked leer. You say, “One looks like she is laughing”, I say, “No dear, that is a sneer”, you say, “what if for an argument”, I say, “you are just so weird. But in that moment when we draw our eyes together hands held wide against the sky, the sun tilting backwards on its even, for the night on which it dies. With our sightseeing further, as we call out to the night, come and take our lives immortal, under over kingdoms rights. It is earth that in the daytime, what it holds cannot appetize, but the glory of the night sky is by that, our paradise. Unadorned by life’s expectations, we have no breath in which to sigh. Glory, glory in our indifference, bodies unwinding, our cathedral the sky.

We separate not when the shades of night taste us; their own light shadows pass us by. We laugh without laughing, and memorize each precious instant, the largest of mountains we have yet to climb. “What say you’re an artist, what say I’m the painted”, I brush my hand against her moon-touched thigh. “What say we are without replication”, she sighs her lips drawn as if to cry. This night of all has moved in time, by hours, rhythms, and numbers that rhyme. We are different as we turn to the east and make our way home to sleep before we would know why. Before we would know why.

I suppose we discovered our immortality on that perfect night, when the darkness moved by the hours. The night it had no name for it was all nights, all times, and I called you “Sweet Darlin” …

For Susan – 01.15.2020 – 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