Uncategorized

Portals (The End of Days)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 112 Comments


“The irrevocable hand That opes the year’s fair gate, doth ope and shut the portals of our earthly destinies; We walk through blindfolded, and the noiseless doors close after us, forever. Pause, my soul, on these strange words for ever whose large sound breaks flood-like, drowning all the petty noise our human moans make on the shores of time. O Thou that openest, and no man shuts; That shut’st, and no man opens Thee we wait!” – Dinah Maria Mulack

“It is a bad time to think about wanting baby’s”, he said. “So much happening”. “So much darkness”, “so much hate”. “Still” she says, smiling, her lips drawing back to show her teeth. Still…

And the sun hid its face…

In the end of days, the sky fell forward, rolling toward us as summer set. For the fires from California, made our breathes so hard to get. In the cities along the front range, homeless came from not the west, brought their needles, sold their spirits, laid on concrete, the only place to find their rest. Dead was color, that of aura, that which circles an Eagles nest. No one spoke language, that word of people, all was transmitted in sign or texts. For what was summoned from those that ruled us an old man, whose mind forgets. A dangerous daemon of centuries stolen. Empires fallen on rich made bets. A turn of fortune, a once held glory, in darkened churches, those once used temples, where Jesus, forgot his wept. The end of days now, a turning seraph, a plague worth noting, in our minds kept. All thine the glory, in earth forgotten, a soul of total, is judged not worthy, not on a gross but on a net.

And the moon reddened its eye…

For all who tremble looking skyward, for those who hide their dry eyes in sand. That day has long been passed. Deemed completed, to sharpen weapons to cry reset. And oh, the vale is wide indeed, barren of spirit and growth of seed, one-wheel stops, while another one turns in need. The clock no longer measures the seasons, the long grass has turned into weeds. Flags of nations wave, while Rome burns on a pirate’s creed.

And the portal was ready to receive…

In the end of days, I hold out my hand through darkness and touch you where your legs recede. The whole world is silent, as into each other our soul’s weave. A cosmic duration, that conjures meaning. Then, now, and forever, I love you. For we conceive portals, the kind each lover needs, an answer to the question, of how to believe. And the world explodes around us, the old and what was new. For the door is falling open the signs upspoken, our souls a turquoise blue.

And the day was made of lightning for the night had been so long…

“It is a bad time to think about wanting baby’s”, he said. “So much happening”. “So much darkness”, “so much hate”. “Still” she says, smiling, her lips drawing back to show her teeth. Still… – 09.08.21 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

The Turquoise Soul (Dreaming)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 114 Comments


“You’ve got to always go back in time if you want to move forward.” – Snoop Dogg

“You have a turquoise iiʼ sizíinii“, Grandma Blackhorse says. She is looking deep into the campfire. The flames reflect in her aged eyes and make them look like they are glowing. “Don’t scare the boy”, Ms. Woods says. She is to my back; I can hear the sound of the dough, flipping back and forth slapping her hands. “He’s not scared “, Grandma says, opening her mouth to show a toothless smile, “he is soon to dream”. “Stop it mother, it is not their way”, Ms. Woods says, her voice lower, sounding concentrated. She is no doubt worried about the consistency of the fry bread and hoping it does not burn. “May be not their way”, Grandma, laughs, “but it is his way”. “It is his way”.

A lighter blue just before sunrise, still it is dark at 4:00 AM. Falling deep into a slumber, as the chants begin and end. Three-sixteenths a time a sliver, into a higher desert wind, high above this firmament, this journey, into your ways do I descend. Not of this world, but of this people, between four mountains that ascend. Night has fallen on the Black Yeii; let the light of holy boy begin again. Round and round the worlds bend.

So it is that I am dreaming, of the beginning and the end. Of a soul that learns from mercy, born for water in the San Juan’s
end. Star gaze I into the heavens of a universe where life begins, five billion light years of glory, while right here now I am ten again. Black, yellow, white rotates again, while the turquoise eats my sin.

A safer place has never happened, why oh why can it not be. That every grey hair on this planet should be a child with me. Spinning it would seem in a turquoise destiny. Seeing this stone ship, that which flew, with fires and ash from a deep cold blue. Now it brings me here, from time immortal, cast down by a dream so clear. Everything happens in time, a constant in movement by design. Forwards, backwards, jumping over rhymes. The answer to the riddle is those who seek will find. Floating in a dream three-sixteenths at a time. In a desert near, may be like a child the answer comes so clear. Never fear, be free, dream with me.

“Come boy, come here”. Grandma Blackhorse is motioning me over to her side of the fire, using her nose to beckon. I look to see if Ms. Woods is paying attention, but she is busy hustling pots and pans over to the house to clean. “Boy I said come here”, Grandma has raised her tone. I shuffle over to her, hesitant but not afraid for Grandma is smiling again. Grandma is holding out something in her hand, and as I reach her side, she motions for me to take it. I look for just a moment into her eyes, those eyes that have seen time, and perhaps traveled it too. When I look down, my hand is holding a piece of rough-hewn turquoise. “You have a turquoise iiʼ sizíinii”, Grandma Blackhorse says. -08.27.21- דָנִיֵּאל

Authors Note: Grandma Blackhorse’s piece of Turquoise resides with this author’s soul and rock collection, as it will until the stars fall from the sky and I fly the Shiprock home.

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

Whiteclay

/ Daniel Swearingen / 66 Comments


“Civilization has been thrust upon me… and it has not added one whit to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity”. – Luther Standing Bear

“What must we do, has become what must I do?” – DS

And he looks away!

He sees Whiteclay as immortal sometimes, and perhaps it is. A Northern Nebraska indention between the world of his ancestors and the fifth of Wild Turkey he holds in the very palm of his hand. He feels Whiteclay as an empty faced angel scorching the earth in January, alkali and snow mixing, bringing death to the valley grounds. So cold in winter, there’s not a sound, except the sighing of the last breath of the defeated.  The indigenous, such a nice progressive word, for the itómni man leaving town. The mist it rises barely, over worn blankets hiding flesh, their bottles around them giving unto them a twenty-second century rest. And for the record Bruce Springsteen you can go home, for your song Nebraska, does not come close to atone. Your culture of murder, and thrills. Nothing is real in these Nebraska hills.

And he looks away!

For a million stars that have fallen from this cold sky. A million spirits that failed to gray and die. Look away, he sometimes hears them say. Born to die, die in Whiteclay. And sometimes late night, when he’s so drunk, his greatest grandfather comes riding bareback on the back of a thirteen-point buck. His eyes are smoking, and his feathers gray and black. He speaks in languages that the old ones hid away. Sounds and syllables from way back. In his tongue there is no variance or broken sound, just a rushing river of the winds from the south. The questions he wonders the ones he should ask, always seem to stick in his mind, as his greatest grandfather looks back. For in the morning when he awakes there is no greatest grandfather, only the empty bottle in Whiteclay, and his headache.

And he looks away!

He sees Whiteclay as a metaphor, for the coming future for the whole damn war. For the differences between what has been and the future apocalypse for agnostic sin. He knows it is a place in a state of mind for the drunken Indian that has lost his mind. But somewhere in the springtime when it is not so cold and bare, sometime when the first grass starts to bare, then if he’s alive, he will start again. To drive north from Whiteclay to where this war began. In the dead of night, he will sing a song, do a little ghost dance till the dead of dawn. And from the point of past of where he might have been, he will look away from demons and try to rise again. And then he will toss the bottle of his greatest sin, and he will look away. Finally, he will look away.

And he looks away! – 01.14.2019 – דָּנִיֵּאל

 

Copperhead

/ Daniel Swearingen / 43 Comments


“Every great story seems to begin with a snake” – Nicholas Cage

“Take the blade that’s close to you, and take the head away, for someday I’ll be gone.” – Minnie Frances Swearingen

Who watches over you –

Grammy there’s a Copper snake in the kitchen, and she’s not watching me, she’s watching you. Someone left the screen door open, could have been Pappy, and yes it could have been you. There’s a spirit coming through the split in the screen door, you say don’t touch it Grammy, you say don’t touch it. There’s a rhyme out of the reason in the hot Missouri summer, that opens me, it strange but it excites me, and by that great big garden outside, it breathes in and out, and a stranger from somewhere else, say’s what do you see? It places in me, yes it places in me, and I’m only three. Grammy, she breathes, from somewhere else she sees. and even after all these years, she’s dead, but she still says she believes in me.

Who watches over you –

Grammy there’s a Copper snake in the kitchen moving its head to see what it can see. And her eyes are the seven stars of Orion, a bittersweet it looks to me without a sound, and the world begins to spin. And all around me it’s a year a life recurring, a burning revival, every sense I own, renewing, outside a blade turning, the sound of lightning stirring. Before me in the floor before me a serpent returning, and the universe is before me, Grammy holding me, ever holding me. Outside in Missouri the day is hot, but here in Grammy’s kitchen it is not, no it is not.

Who watches over you –

Grammy there’s a Copper snake in the kitchen of my life, and its eyes are watching me, searching for what I say. Someone left the screen door open, and loved what brought me strife. There’s a spirit coming through the split I see; life’s screen door is not in place. So, while the wind moves, in syllables and notes…… the fall of my life, the leaves are drifting round. I come to you, as you move from me, and that summer passes on. The fall of all that’s ending, comes in a closer range. The Copper’s drawing close to me, I still can hear you say, take the blade that’s close to you and take the head away. So far away! – 05.28.2017 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Radiance (May 7,2016)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 31 Comments


A foggy cold, cloud filled morn, Isaiah said you would know, no scorn. For like the rays that fall from up above, my daughter. You are radiant with love.

Last Saturday morning, I wrote a song in your soul, just like I did twenty-one years ago when you cried on all I know. And you swept the vision of fatherhood against the image I had been told, and made my depression go away, with your radiance you turned me whole. I read in Isaiah that spirit will take control, and burn away the images of thought that takes its toll. Well if I was to be a better man, a father that gave more than a damn, I’d open up my memory, tell you ides of all the shadows I’ve retrained, inform you of the mystery of the light that fills your plan.

For you are like a shooting star, that was born in tomorrow, a siren screaming, I can’t wait no more. And from my past I tell you true, for once my seed was just me too, but now it fills the footprint in your plan. And I saw it on Saturday morn, a young woman so adorned, a high honor, a radiance. A better reason I fought and planned, and you too will feel judgments hand, but you’ll fly, where I ran. In radiance, far away, across these Colorado skies. Radiance it’s in life plan.

Last Saturday morning, Shekinah flowed through the day, and all the sense of prophecy, I had predicted through the years you see, all the dreams that fell and died in me stood to play. You stood there like a light filled star, still a headache away from last night’s bar. Just an Achilles weakness that’s gone today. And forward to the titles held, all Cum Laude honors, an earthquake felt. I turn and look your smiling, you take the day, in rays, the clouds just float on by and away.

A foggy cold, cloud filled morn, Isaiah said you would know, no scorn. For like the rays that fall from up above, my daughter. You are radiant with love.

For my daughter Kaitlyn, who graduated Cum Laude from the University of Colorado Boulder last Saturday, you are (Isaiah 60:5) radiant. – 05.11.2016 – דָּנִיֵּאל


Boulder

/ Daniel Swearingen / 2 Comments


“Your sundial will grow weary lacking shadows in this place”!

They rode in wagons, on horses, wheeling vans, smoking high, to the base of Flagstaff Mountain this Persepolis in the sky. They moved in special symmetry on a parallel, you wonder why, and under one they caravanned, with mystery in their eyes. Said Chief Niwot, with his sadness, build your temples, “your Versailles”, there is iron of mystic waiting with the Flatirons on their side. From one, repeat this antiphon, when the wind blows in the sky, on the forty creeps a Camelot, ghost of things who knows of why. What does flow here from this mountain, 30 miles from this divide, crystal liquid from cold glaciers, blinding white against the sky.


In this place of distilled beauty, they have come to worship land, from the cornerstone of all reason, logic blossoms where she can. If it not would be for gravestones rising grey upon this butte, one would wonder if this Boulder didn’t give life at its root. Here she sits when all the mountains meet the plains that mock the sea, and she anchors here in goodness, mediating wild and free. This premise rest then in mythology, where an angel stirs in its seed, sighing blessing’s in its virtue giving promise by its creed. There by on this risen city, western gateway, earth’s degree, G-D has made in you a miracle, beauty sown and guaranteed.


They have come to see the mountains, watch the bear rise on its feet, set their feet upon this meadow, walk their way down Pearl Street. They have built upon an anthem, while the snow fell down in sheets, turned the city to a people, and one soul to be complete. Fortune, has not come with weakness, nor will it ever know repeat, for there is but one Boulder, and she is the magic suite. When there is but one city, one village, left, shining still, she will be there below Flagstaff, with her people, their love of place instilled.


They rode in wagons, on horses, wheeling vans and smoking high, to the base of Flagstaff Mountain this Persepolis in the sky. – 11.12.2014 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Lucifer’s Opus

/ Daniel Swearingen / 2 Comments

All Graphic rights: Socar Myles (Lucifer in The Violin)

Two armies in speed approach, one upon another, two lights between the northern skies, mine, and then one other. For every death, is thought one more, pain from one another. You dash your heel upon my shore, a shame, a shadow, a shudder! What instinct has traveled by your mind, that seeks to find its owner, have you not seen me act sublime, and turn a frozen shoulder. A thought of interest from your face, when you look at fallen grace, how it tempts you, when I cry, beguiling spirits how I lie, shining teeth so open wide, misguided thoughts in disguise. Oh song, never has a night been so long, opus in the darkness sung strong, fairer than the morning that comes, better learned of anger than none.

Two flowers bloom, in desert sand, their petals shadow each other, like balance between the sun and moon, one over lights the other. A balance beam, on one eye, continued thunder in jaded skies, why let us fear, my thoughts draw near. It could be true I love you dear, after secrets, spurned and scorned, fallen daemons from false storms. Do you not know me after time, we’ve shared proud envy, fallen pride. Across this prism, my refrain, a trial given, and still I sing, your host in heaven, Sheol knows well, I the mourning have grief to tell. That while your trumpets they do play, I’ve stolen lightning from its way, and in this opus I do sing, I am your wayward brother.

Two poles do reach across a stage, in time they seek to turn away, and if by night he calls me near, my song of death he still holds dear, an opus strung upon the lyre, of sickles burning among the tears. Yes he calls me, like chosen need, to chart the deadly with disease, a critic most willing, to stage a play, my tune in killing on judgment day. Two ones of two and then one more, a composition of just one score, a blade in light it holds more heat, an opus in heaven has one seat! – 7.17.2014 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Should be a River

/ Daniel Swearingen / 2 Comments

Across the street from the Rosemont diner, food a plenty served with love for two, sat an old brown man holding print paper, rattling bones his luck not holding true. It seems to me, I said for endeavor, this river street runs a title true, across it seems, there’s foliage deemed for wet lands, please tell me is it true? Should be a river I think over yonder, should be a bank with water running through, contemplate this old man, you’re not a stranger, is there a river across there running through? The old brown man, holding print paper, the old brown man looked me through, and then his eyes thinned, laced like a rapier, his life of longevity shook me through and through.

The truth young sir, is something you can’t live with, the fable of life is where you find you’re own, in life I knew there should be a river, across the street it should run through, across this bow its water running new. His voice like death dyeing on dark embers, his face a mask of something gotten blue, you see in truth he’s never seen a river, that water of life so close to me and you. Right across the street, so close that steps should walk it, a bird has seen it so far up in the blue, but that brown man, the one with print paper, the one rolling bones he seems to have no clue.

On Ruby Street he was born a poor son, a beggar of a thieve in 1942. Six blocks west, there should be a river, but pain came first, a way to make it through. Bottles and bones, a culture of a fiefdom, a caste, Americana, red, white and blue. Demographic shame, father, son to reaper, a place lost from conscience, well hidden from our view. Truth it seems, is hidden from a river, a shelter it deems should help us through, how often it is, across the street there’s water, we die from thirst watching it flow through.

The old brown man, the one outside the diner, the one you’ve seen calling, is it really you? Hail now friend, there now should be a river, across your street have you seen it running through.

The old brown man sitting outside the Denny’s right across the street from the Des Plaines River in Rosemont, Illinois, had actually never seen the river itself when I asked him how to find i he seemed confused. He had lived his whole life no more than eight blocks from it. If eyes tell the truth his did. His words I will always remember, “There should be a river over beyond those trees, may be a mile or so but I’m not for certain”. The truth was it was no more than a quarter of a mile from where we sat and talked. – 07.15.2014 –דָּנִיֵּאל

Milton Erickson (American Warlock)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 2 Comments

There now, the distance of your arm now, that miracle you seek, to touch, inches total numbers from lengths you can believe. Deep there, everything is seconds, everything is heavy like your sleep. Listen, you’re always fair and hearing, always contemplating, always accommodating, rest you can’t share, home bound inward need. Values, experience is believing, assumptions predeceasing, integrated pleasing, you don’t need to, and you’re just asleep.

Does a Shaman trump a prophet, does a seer know a dream, what of high turbaned healers, and medicine queens? Now sit you tight inductee, and think of what you need, I’ll heal you of something with what you now read. Predictor of unseen and untrained of sight, from Wisconsin his spirit was born in foresight. Inscribed of pure logic of healing of binds, a cripple a walker, hypnotic in rhythms. This could be a young boy, a son who barely sees, indeed he is a color blind, in summoned tight hypnotic wells he heals thyself by light. Three doctors told his mother, by night you see he dies, not so for this young warlock with death he will not abide. Bring me now a dresser mirror and lay it on its side, oh mother dear, the sun will set I want to see its light. He did delay his still death with sketch and paper fill, for he did block the dead of night with what he drew surreal, for it was he that drew the sun that died and held upon that hill. He would that sun would not set for ever till one day, and in it, was his last breath that paper went away.

Now so many stories, but now let’s make time still, for it can last for hours, with what you want that’s real. For you live in an unconscious world that plays upon your soul, you speed through all your joys and life, your pain in time congeals. Let’s move that time like clocks that shift and bring your hurt to nil. Your love and bliss is more than time, your hours it should now fill. Is that now something that you believe, the time you now command, to choose your seconds indefinitely, lift pain by your command.

Now this old man with polio, the one that staid the sun, he delved into the mind of lore, and made dark nightmares run. He pulled induction from the space that held where time stood still, he bent strange habits and made them fade, with man’s unconscious will. In everything he taught and saw, in everything fulfilled, healing by the minds own eye, a composition sealed. Parts and space, and neurons run and paths of parts now healed, juxtaposing heaviness, he made joy standstill. We bow our head just as he said, hypnosis habit real, in ghost of rhythm where he now lives, I’m sure he’s laughing still.

There now, the distance of your arm now, that miracle you seek, to touch, inches total numbers from lengths you can believe. Deep there, everything is seconds, everything is heavy like your sleep. Listen, you’re always fair and hearing, always contemplating, always accommodating, rest you can’t share, home bound inward need. Values, experience is believing, assumptions predeceasing, integrated pleasing, you don’t need to, and you’re just asleep.

 

For those who have never heard or read the works of Milton Erickson, now is a good time to try, It’s remarkable the magic placed in mortal eyes! – – 07.06.2014 – דָּנִיֵּאל