The Ides of Harvest

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 93 Comments


“The secret to harvesting is to live dangerously” – Friedrich Nietzsche

In the ides of harvest I.

No more writing of the night, hidden darkness, forbidden sights, no thinking of the gloom of what must may. No more investigating dreams, without a purpose of what they mean. No more kneeling to the evening that precedes the day. No more hunting keys for some, when the all is all for one, no more waiting on a shadow that has been staid. For here, I stand with you and me, six feet apart baptized by dew, looking well beyond the sickness and the grave. In the valley forms a storm, but here on high ground we are born, in the ides of harvest, come we spirit in all a blaze. For nothing happened all before, that counts defeat or evens score, hail the soul of one seed formed that takes the day.

In this the daybreak of future time, summoned by light that sails the mind, am I fool to think that it would be any other way. For you know me from a seed, as you formed my very feet, kiss you now my forehead standing still this early day. To the ides of harvest now. Here I take a fulfilled vow. Pass it forward so all will know how, my soul was made.

How my soul was made.

In the ides of harvest I, not in shadows with no eyes, before the dawn just one seed before the king. Began I, than you and me on the higher ground we grew, kissed she with her wet, wet mouth of dawn’s first virgin dew. In the sun of all delight, did we sing of heaven’s sight, in coronation of days to come oh how we grew? From the steppes of all we are, gathered dust from sun soaked stars, hail the soul of one seed formed that takes the day.

In the ides of harvest I.

Not the darkest of hidden night, not shame that blinds all sight, not the barren, not the question never destined to be free. Not the lack of grace are we, not forced by death on our knees, not the night song ever longing, will we be. Not depression or new moon, bent or broken, never bloomed; I for one will never separate from you or me. I for one will never separate from you or me. – 03.19.2020 – דָנִיֵּאל

Lake (His Anecdote)

Featured / 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

Featured / 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)

Featured / 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

Featured / 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)

Featured / 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

December

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 61 Comments


“O Lord thou broughtest up my soul from the nether-world. Thou didst keep me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.” – Psalm 30:4

I remember that moment in December.

The Christmas tree stands before me in the darkness looking like a totem in a dress. It watches over me, and the gifts below it with a calm steady attendance. The house around me is quiet, the coming exhilaration putting an end to the present anticipation some three hours to the future. Though it is that magic soon comes my way, I am filled with a great and terrible dread. A worrisome moment, I would venture to say a bothersome familiar. It has always been that way. It seems at that moment it always will be. I am thirteen years old, and I am sore afraid.

You wake me in darkness, the dream still fresh. You cast yourself a web encircling, a motion picture to remember. You kiss me your lips icy cold, but always tender. Your fingers trace my earlobes, beckoning, leading me to enter. Through the frozen windowpane, the one in frost that bares my name. Not a king or poor man me, just a child flying into December. For not alone would here I be, the stars above, not shrunken, by this belief. In divinization you mirror, from all around me. Greatness tall in leave less trees, broken shadows upon the patches of crusty snow near my feet. Angels, that bless this prayerful peace, justified in grace. The opposite of the great tragedy, that I have always seen. Lord my Lord, you heal me in divinity, Lord my lord you choose December.

I saw a child in a chair he sat, through a dark glass looking at all he saw pass. It seemed a strange moment of familiarity, like a lifetime of poses, that strike a similarity. In a question I posed in a deep, deep dream. What did that boy want to see, and was he really, really me? Where he stayed his eyes open, full of amber shine, there were thoughts and doubts, were those eyes really mine? All around that boy that was surely me, was a contemplative notion of what the world could be. It was filled with worry and a massive tragedy. Still he sat there all alone by a Christmas tree, and he moved not from December.

You lead me in a great darkness, that truthfully is at times hard to grasp. This little bit of life has been a hell of a task. I would be remiss if I were not to say, that this night between you and me. This touch, this sensitive intimacy, was needed before December. Standing here in this sacred place, my own back yard a sanctuary. The world spinning a celestial sea, the silence, the great divide closing, there is no seam. For here it seems, you would have me be, no longer going back and forth through eternity. Not a frightened child through a darkened glass, looking in terror at all that would pass. The opposite of the great tragedy, that I have always seen. Lord my Lord, you heal me in divinity, Lord my lord you choose December.

I remember this moment in December. – 12.24.2019 – דָּנִיֵּאל

First Christmas

Featured / 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)

Featured / 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

 

By Thanks

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 26 Comments


“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues but the parent of all others”. – Cicero

He comes inside the morning, flying with the heavy snow. Spirit of an effervescence warming, dispersed with no place else to go. In the gloom of all his essence, in the place’s memories go. He awakens me in his presence, revealing to me what I should know. He stands me by the hours, ticking clocks in hallways bare, colder in November, he tells me something of which I care. I travel in a nightmare, I speed my moving with special care, I go beyond the frozen tundra to the bosom of all time that’s shared. A ride that goes always, sending my soul into gray, and what is always there. A reminder of all that’s present, of beating hearts and taken dares. Before I leave all with abandon, I look around me at all I share.

For by thanks this life is glory, in gratitude believed, not with such a perfect setting, but in much I have received. For a man that feels so broken, terrorized in so many ways. My life has been made more than a token to stand in all of G_D’s light and be okay. For by grace to understand it, what is in my heart alone, a simplified yet complex commandment. By reason on its own.

She turns in all directions, bringing in a newborn day. She spins in apparitions, G_D is much the all to which children pray. In all this I wonder the mystery, shrouded in a darkened place. Why it is that I’m awakened by the signal of a cold embrace. Should not there be a forgiveness, a warming in my tears. An atonement in emotion going back for backward years. A relevant salvation, an its okay, that makes it clear.

But nothing ever happens that way, not for me anyways. Life is life when it’s lived to a fullest in the dark snowy morning on a cold November day. The continuum of the minutes, the seconds of breaths relayed, to know that all of G_Ds judgment and compassion is not past or future delayed. For the past holds much sadness. The future much angst that no balm can sooth. But by thanks there is the moment, and that is where G_D knows you.

For by thanks this life is glory, in gratitude believed, not with such a perfect setting, but in much I have received. For a man that feels so broken, terrorized in so many ways. My life has been made more than a token to stand in all of G_D’s light and be okay. For by grace to understand it, what is in my heart alone, a simplified yet complex commandment. By reason on its own. – 11.28.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל