Metaphysical

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

Beneath the Leaves (Ever Dream)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 90 Comments


“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” – Arthur Conan Doyle

“Would you do it with me”*, lift the wood that brings mystery; fall forever with me, through the portal where phantoms scribe magic free. Feel your breath leaving air, your body writhing in an orgasmic sea. Trace the hand that you see, draw its lines around your heart comfortably. Be damned to be, would you ever dream with me? Beneath the leaves.

My Dad used to say that what comes before us has always been behind us, and that which places itself at our side has always been around us. My Dad used to say that gates that swing inwards are willing to be pushed outwards, and all doorways into heaven, were beneath the leaves, when we went to an ever dream. My Dad used to say…

We discover the door near the river. It is 0.3 miles past the Fruitland Trading Post, pretty much where “Brigham Young Jr’s” House would have been. We sweep away the dead leaves that hide the door in the ground. Their wrinkled husk make a scratching sound as we sweep them from the dark rotting wood of the door to the surrounding dead grass. “Shouldn’t be leaves here”, Jason say’s. “Yep, yep”, I say, “Shouldn’t be leaves here”. “Not a tree in sight”, Jason says, a hint of a grimace on his face. “Nope”, I agree, a little vexed myself not a tree in sight. “No way to get this thing open that I can see”, I say to Jason a little relief in the tone of my voice. The truth is, sundown is near, and there is a chill in the air, that fits right well with the nip that is beginning to well up and down my backbone. “I think we owe it to ourselves to try and get it open”, Jason says. “There might be money or something valuable under there”, he says. “There might be something”, I agree…

My Dad used to say that the mystery in life is life itself, and that which is a pattern leads not to G_D but leads to mediocrity. My Dad used to say, that which leads the head must lie beneath, that which is deep. That which calls unto deep. My Dad used to say would you go with me, go beneath the leaves after an ever dream. My Dad used to say…

We brace our cold knuckles against the grain of the heavy wood, the splinters digging deep into our fingers. We kneel opposite of each other. Jason to the top of the door, I to the bottom. From the heavens, we no doubt look like cherubim’s our small frames bent in labor, looking for the covenant. Fulfilling the covenant. The evening shadows move over us quickly enveloping our effort. “I think its moving”, Jason says, his breathing heavy with exertion. “Yep, yep, I say, trying to concentrate on our effort, my fear of the unknown replaced suddenly by the thrill of adventure, for the door is opening. The door is opening. The door is opening.

My Dad used to say, that there is nothing unseen, that has not been seen by someone, yet those who say they see do not, and those who say nothing, see. My Dad used to say, all doorways into heaven were beneath the leaves, when we went after an ever dream. My Dad used to say…

Authors Note: The two boys were real, the leaves over the door were real. The door in the ground was real. The opening of the door was real. What was discovered was real as well. It was all as my Dad used to say… 11.06.2019 – דָּנִיֵּאל

* Would you do it with me – Nightwish

World on Fire (Lost Boys)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 80 Comments

“We part the veil on a killing sun. Stray from the straight line on this short run. The more we take, the less we become.” – Sarah McLachlan & Pierre Marchand

For I knew in this world of fire it was my destiny……Still the “world was on fire and it was more than I could handle.” *

The phantoms accompanied me through the real forest to the line of demarcation, that which divides the body from the craving. They were muses, if not daemons, and at times they settled upon my skin as if to travel there.  They thought my soul a rest from the long smoke-filled pathway. We walked on to find the shroud. That veil which separates life from the world on fire, and hurls the soul into the blue forest. They whispered that they had been “Lost Boys” too. Unbound in other creations, their worlds scorched by the burdens of fallen men. So, I listened to them, as we passed by the seared headstones near the trail. Those graves of grandfathers, and pioneers, missionaries filled with evil and good will alike. Males of authority, bastards without a story of where or when. Rich and poor men. Those men known to a world on fire, without their boyhood name. Cut in two by lack of identity. A timidity of soul before the vale. Afraid to jump, or believe, and I walked hurriedly by, for I did not wish to know them, or be as them.

The apparitions with me, poked me with memories, as I stumbled through the ash filled undergrowth, reminding me that the delineation boundary was hidden at times, as if G_D wears a mask. I felt myself humbled, bruised, and I did not wish to be hurt or lost anymore. I quickened my pace, as if in doing so I might eliminate those questions that look for hidden responses, when the answers reside in the question itself. As the burning trees consumed the oxygen around me, and in a state of desperation I begged the specters which gave me haunt to know their names. I wished to know them, and with that acquaintance, I alluded myself to think that there was magic. A quickened as it might be. A mirror with a reflection to know whom I was supposed to be. It was then that I stumbled upon an uplifted root and found myself falling. And, as I fell, I heard ten thousand whispers repeating, “We are Legion“, and I knew they did not know their names, as I did not know mine. For I had become them.

I was dropping, falling as the morning star. A burning orb within me, plummeting within and without the world on fire. Plunging as David after the fall. Moving through lives and beyond burning shadows. Failed dreams, and an eternity of futile desire for knowing not my name, or what it meant. For the world was on fire, and every something appeared in a negative sum. A dwindling cool spot under an uncontrollable flame. A crisis that goes without repent. For the night had become the day, and the day the night.

……And I cried out to G_D to judge me, to know me as I am, to amplify my reasons for living under the calmness of her hand. To kiss me, to fill my soul and feel my face. To become me. To believe in me, as I bless the treasure, the mystery that is his hand. To be like Moses, and know it face to face. To be it face to face. For I knew in this world of fire it was my destiny, to be one with the sum.

……And above me was the sound of pleasure, the movement of airborne wings, and what was separated from me, was in me once more. Kissing me in shadows, knowing me in light. For it was eternity beyond the curtain, and I was a child unbroken. I was in the calling, summoned out of a world on fire. I was a man. I was a man. – 10.15.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

* World on Fire lyrics – Sarah McLachlan & Pierre Marchand

Cellar Door

/ Daniel Swearingen / 81 Comments


Cellar door, are you open to find me, Iron ore shields remorse.
When I look, I look to your beautiful name. – Skylar Grey

Said by my Pappy,

“Be you curious without expectation, be you thrilled to be alive, explore the thin veil of the spirit, not the dry bones where they have died. Take your many steps through a tunnel, to see the other side. Know that every dark dream has an ending that ends in the sweet by and by.”

Said by my Pappy,

“Be you not afraid of cellar doors, or what the traits they hide. Many a good man has found that door protection from the tornadoes outside. Be you not of single mindedness of any issue in your life; remember every problem known to us has always had two sides. Be you not for revolutionaries, the one who rebels against the tide. Know that every rebel of the soul is a tyrant who rules his heart with pride.”

Said by my Pappy,

As he led me through a dreamscape world, my fever roaring inside. His large hands moving as he walked down the concrete steps to a cellar door with words inscribed. How I wished I could move closer, how I wished for better light, but alas this dream led mystery, without a clue or special rite. I knew right then that every virus; every blight I knew inside could stand to show me something, even in my darkest night.

Said by my Pappy,

“Be you quicker than your adversary, that devil that comes in light; know that he is part of a commandment to judge you when the day is night. Be you an ever witness to the shadows, the tricks of light, know that Mephistopheles is your left fists action while the good Lord form’s your right. In truth, there are many questions that go beyond this door. Do your best to obtain no answers until you know what the questions are for.”

Said by my Pappy,

As he turned and bent a little bit, his overalls so blue and wide, I thought him but dead just a while ago, but here he seems so much alive. In a dream that held too much fever, at least I could see inside, but still I could not read the inscription on the cellar door, standing before my pappy’s side.

I was nineteen, when I first dreamed of Pappy and the cellar door. Through the years, I have had the same dream many times. The symbols, philosophy and spiritual mysticism and eschatological character of the dream, have never been meaningful to me. To know what is beyond the iron ore door is not necessary to me. However, there is an ever-burning desire to know what is inscribed upon that cellar door. – 06.07.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

White Sands

/ Daniel Swearingen / 81 Comments


“The wind it paints your face, as it stirs the shifting sand. Nightmare creatures closing in, they leave at your command. Fading lady light, always here with me, singing your song in the wind at night.” – Jeannette Sears

She is a faded lady in the arid early morning, a patch of dream torn from its unconscious birth, a soft passionate cry in the gypsum sand, where ghost lay their hands upon me and breathe light.

It was in April, that much I remember, well a quarter moon too, there is a memory of that. Perhaps the more I think about it, the more that appears. Those cascading fragments of thought, that drift at first unpieced. Those parts like a jigsaw puzzle, that flow afraid to touch, until the hippocampus is stretching at its very seams, and much like some messiah on a cross you cry out, “Take this cup”. And then it happens from various places in the cortex, a wholeness begins, a picture, a sound, smells and then a story. A beautiful story filled with “white Sands“.

The sands hold a picture that is still hard to find, of something that found me on once upon a time. To see it all now comes to me fleetingly. Perhaps a soft breath that touches my teeth. A buried illusion that comes as a tease. A finger down my spine, when there is no one but me. A vision of eyes turned to stars in a sea, a coven of seven dipping to sweep. The dunes of infinity revealing the keys. Oh, Megrez and Mizar they sing a chorus at first louder, than so silently. The place of death angels, atomic degrees. Whispers by slumber the puzzle recedes. A swath of her garment, as she passes by me, her home in this desert a white sand filled sea. What account can be printed until I finally believe. Memory my memory, come to serve me. Memory my memory, come to serve me.

The questions I have asked, that still haunt my belief. When I took a journey of solace in spring. Slept upon White Sands, under a breeze. Saw shadows and graces that circled beneath, the light of the heavens, the chill of the night. The cosmos of magic, that changed me somehow, made me different under odd lights. For if I could take a minute, relive a single breath. I would be in April my body laying helpless on White Sands. Under heavens probing stare.

Perhaps in this nighttime, as I lie on my bed, hearing my thoughts of distant memories unsaid. The puzzle will gather, and pour through a glass. The memoirs of mystery, a swirling soft quest. That led me to sit up that night on the sand, and welcome the spirits of light to come in. To welcome the spirits of light to come in.

She is a faded lady in the arid early morning, a patch of dream torn from its unconscious birth, a soft passionate cry in the gypsum sand, where ghost lay their hands upon me and breathe light. – 04.11.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

In the Library

/ Daniel Swearingen / 72 Comments


“Oh, my G_D how profound are these mysteries!” – John Dee

Kelley holds the shew-stone with the mist forming fast. The white vapors shoot upwards around the volumes on upper shelves and form a circle as if to task. The days are still some colder but the winter will not always last, voices moving in their language, numbers show me, show me, something past.

For what is the speech of angels?

I set upon a voyage in a hinterland of sleep, a cauldron of air so cold at first, I thought I would freeze. A self-taught journey from places of the deep, to find the ever after answer in the library of John Dee. Symbols all around me some painted legend in the sky, a coat of many colors as millennium flew by. The whispers of the angels said they were drawing nigh, and then my soul dropped from the star filled sky. Like the star, not yet of morning, summoned to a rite of old, my bare feet feel so frozen in the library I well know. It is about the phantoms, and it is about the truth, the long search of the symbols to find if what angels speak is truth. Moreover, in it all, yes in it all I am speechless.

For here among this sceptered place, with pages from strange worlds, candles burn until morning light, all time has come unfurled. The figures of the two men turn as if to see, but then I see them looking upwards, they do not see me. The coven of the angels falls without light or human sound, they whisper in the shadows who is willing, to stand higher ground. Their bodies are like different lights, some common, some spark with sound. It could be some are seraphim, some light daemons who have come unbound. Moreover, in it all, yes in it all I am speechless.

I stood so indecisively, surveying an unreal play. The ghost of Dee and Kelley asked their questions from a book displayed. An esoteric experiment, to know the power of G_D, to wonder at the wisdom, imparted in what they caught. The scene of simple symbols invoking that realm in which the angels play, to not know that they had reached any reason, only the gray at the end of the day. Moreover, in it all, yes in it all I am speechless.

So, this is a little something that happens now and then, I disappear in airs of thought to a library where time stands still. I ask the light around me what is that of shapes and wills, and still I have no answer, and perhaps I never will. Moreover, in it all, yes in it all I am speechless.

For what is the speech of angels? – 01.30.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

Whereby Shining

/ Daniel Swearingen / 65 Comments

“Whereby shining, I have been, hunting Cibola, inquiring of angels, and I have found an ancient spirit in shiny metal, that brings me this winter from where I used to be.” – DS

“This is my winter song.” – Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson

Whereby shining!

He stands there a shimmer about him, unaware of our presence around him. He stands there beyond himself seeing mystery. He stands there receiving a word from the Lord, tilting his head to the left, listening. The ice-coated whispers enter his red cold infested left ear. We stand there too, you and I. Interested readers, voyeurs. Watching him. The boy surveying the steep snow-covered bluff above the ice filled river is nine-years-old. His brown worn jeans shift as he moves from one leg to another. He looks suddenly at a spot high above him on the bluff, and he is moving, climbing, and we watch him you and I, whereby shining he does go.

Whereby shining steeples in rows, frozen sand, some under snow. Climb the darkness, mount the helm, bring the shining and cast ahead. What child inside would make this climb, gathering snowflakes in his torn jeans behind. On upward, over ford, ice where no bridge, a stick as his sword. Somewhere here now higher, be still now his thought. For tracks in the snow, show something, what is not. The grace of elders, the crown to find. Saint George slew the dragon. Above in Eden, his dragon he will bind. A boy this day, O give us this day, to know, to grow, to climb on Saturday, December 21, 1969.

Whereby shining, half way to the top, a cold wind blowing in languages long sought. Each foothold a lesson, what has begun, can never be stopped. The object of mystery, the one at the top, the interest of passion, that is all that he’s got. The owl looking down says that is all that he’s got. To build legend in arid air cold, speak with ghost from society so old. A shimmer of metal from a place so high, an interesting shadow casting brilliance to the New Mexico cold sky. No time for doubt with the secret so near.

Whereby shining, the translucent moon is near. A waxing gibbous to the boy a sign is here. The icy waters of the San Juan below, he stares back at water, and watches it flow. His wooden sword it leans against his knee. He thinks he is better now, then he has ever been; the world of old has come to him. For in his hands he holds a meteorite, the sum of the heavens, and the source of his light. And from the beginning of what was him, the boy feels the light with what he holds within.

Whereby shining! – 12.10.2018 – דָּנִיֵּאל

2 Ghost

/ Daniel Swearingen / 41 Comments


She’s always felt like a cousin, probably was a friend, but throughout my life when she came calling, something deep inside me could breathe. Saw you first when you bathed before a king, after that when Cleopatra brought peridot from Zabargad for Marc Anthony. Think I kissed you on an empty hillside, under moonlight near Calvary. Sometimes we talked into a deep dark night, sometimes hiked high to watch a red star die, nothing was ever clear between you and me. When you climbed into that “Merovingian’s” bed, I walked off to die another death, a revolving revolution a year or fifty-three, and then I see. Like two ghost revolving round, we come back to we.

Once upon a story, or a woodman’s tale, beyond a burning fire, where, Macbeth was felled, we sat beside a burning fire by the northern sea. In that little instance as time went by, the angels came calling as you looked me in the eye, your ghost hair moving, I knew you were forever, but I wasn’t sure about me. You said it’s all better right, for we are just two ghost, spinning lives together, not sure of our host, then just like had happened before, you walked away from me. Saw you once again in the twinkling of an eye, when Ivan sat on Moscow, and his madness made you cry, in that cold darkness, I said it’s still you and me. Like two ghost revolving round, we come back to we.

By the smoke of Shenandoah, in a small well house, we stared into another life, and came back to ourselves. Just a kiss of revelation, was all it took for me. Watched you climb a wire at Auschwitz as the darkness fell, with your gold star hanging ragged what more should I tell, we were only thirteen, when you looked back, and said remember me. I’m not sure if I can continue this history. Still, like two ghosts revolving round we come back to we.

So, I have climbed a virtual altar, and I’ve seen a dream, someone waiting there in data, that must be she. So, it is I write my best words, and I quicken inside, and I call down all the angels and I magic all my rhymes. For when I touch her hand it will be for the final time. Like two ghost revolving round, we have come back to be. We have come back to we! – 06.27.2017 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Miriam Thy Mother

/ Daniel Swearingen / 4 Comments

She waits near the breakwater, the frozen moon strong, and all of the world sees her there, whispering her song. The reeds bend forward, and ask what words, she would have them pray to the river. She looks to the sky, her open legs wide, the time of her labor is forever, and unto the river, the one flowing long, she asks that a keeper be near her. She knows that a fountain will flow all year long, from mother to mother, forever so long, and prophets and beggars, teachers of song, whores of a kingdom, the hungry and wrong, will ask for her cover. The veil of her womb, rips and gives to the water, eyes open, a baby’s heard, and though she knows him, knows him by name, she hardly speaks it, except to pray, for that small bundle, that comes before, a million, thousand others.

Not far up the river, the place near the bends, that door we all enter, the dragon grins, for this is his kingdom, the city of night, the one we call living, this earthly plight. And he is a daemon, that’s put upon all, to speak pride and weakness and laugh when we fall. The chatter of words he whispers in heads of children and old men, who wish they were dead. It is such a sound of wings that all hear from that mighty river, a canal of fear. He lashes strange pictures in all of our minds, that show signs of weakness and faces in decline. He swims the narrows through, waiting for life to come through.

And though he is stubborn, and older than time, Miriam thy mother knows magic rhyme, and she chants true words, a belief in you, in this world and many others.

Selah,

But view upon his head, he carries the bruise, the mark of a wound, a prayer of a mother of all worlds is used. For Miriam protects all she has birthed, like many a mother she whispers these words go on, life is here, go on.

Miriam thy mother all names she’s had, bringing her children through the river of dread, and all the reeds do turn, the moon still frozen seems to burn.

When life is all that’s had, the dragon of water, is speaking in one’s head, the river runs through you it always has, and Miriam thy mother is waiting up ahead, and she says with her names and her song, come on, your full of this life, carry on. – 02.18.2016 – דָּנִיֵּאל