Tippy

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 87 Comments


“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.” – Milan Jundera

Tippy and I sit on the river bluff looking down at the muddy water. A cold November wind shifts from the direction of Shiprock, and hangs over us briefly before dispersing its frosty feel to the high desert plain behind us. “I think, I have always had this same dream”, I say. “You always have”, she says, pausing for a moment to let her words get beyond the cold wind. “It is an eternal dream”, she says. Older eternally.

Tippy stops the clock in the desert, muttering in my dreams. “Once you are young, once you are old, forever you’re turning with me.” “Forever you’re turning with me.”

Tipp’s within me at thirty, dancing around by degrees. Her hair all assorts in mystery, a muse that creates or a witch that deceives. Eyes that sparkle with hellfire, a body that constantly conceives, of odes and rhymes, sermons that find, the Ark of the Covenant in me. Tippy parts weeds in the darkness. Separates them while I sleep, those webs of my mind built out of time, she removes them where I can see. There, their, there she whispers to me, licking the inside of my ear, she is she. Be old, be old, be older, than me. She grins such spells wickedly. Come be old, be older than me she bites her bottom lip, and looks into me. Treasures in deserts to search, she smiles, and I am lost infinitely, at thirty. Remembering ghost, in shades ere aloof. Tippy she floats, through time of my youth, always a shadow to me. Instead of behind, she quickens the front of me. Older eternally!

Tipp is right there when I am seven, buxom and ready, brunette to a tee. Watching me grow, incessantly, I cannot escape her eyes of hard brightness, stars of a night’s mystery. Behold the glow of paradigm’s mold, broken when she is with me. Plotting my thoughts not spoken, they line with her stars by degree. Sitting by muddy cold rivers, speaking symbols to the moon, watching the desert clock ticking, she whispers, “I birthed you from my own womb”. “Someday soon you’ll be older, no longer a familiar I’ll be”. “That day we are older eternal”. Older eternally!

Tipp invades me at sixty, a summons that blocks a plea. She looks to be the same shadow, standing in front of me. Somewhere a clock is ticking, in a desert that holds a key. My life has been so backwards, so much there that I did not see. Reflections and ghost, daemons that host the haunted spirit believed. The question comes to me now ways, what mystery is there to believe? The answer somehow comes from her now. Challenge and interest free.

She says, “When I had you by muddy cold rivers, in the high cold desert naked and free, you knew this day then. Older my twin, older eternally.” Older eternally!

Tippy stops the clock in the desert, muttering in my dreams. “Once you are young, once you are old, forever you’re turning with me.” “Forever you’re turning with me.” – 11.19.20 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Valiant

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 95 Comments


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Sandpainting

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 94 Comments


“They find joy in motion, which transforms their lives into unending odysseys. Their souls are brightly burning streaks of light across the universe—constantly traveling in an endless dance across space and time.” – Zita Steele

We are two chums in the high desert, out near the dump, near the dragon!  We are here to paint the sand to seal our destiny, and to travel far away, on this long dark night. On this long dark night.

From the center out, we brushed our way through, colors of the earth and sun, with our own different hues. A painting under constellations that gave us clues. While first man talked, first woman brought us through, to the other side, on this long dark night. On this long dark night.

One by one we turn to two, dark filled Ravens by a cobalt blue, folding dragons our wings non flew, an ark from heaven, my friend me and you. Desert stories while young men sleep. We paint the colored sand from deep, to deep, drawing lines between our times, closing out the devil and the evil eye, on this long dark night. On this long dark night. Bended shoulders to what may come, the better we are, when we count as a sum, first the planet and then the sun, drawing a labyrinth where we may run. When time has ended and the world has stopped, we will step through the doorway, where our painting plots. To a new galaxy, a different moon. We will draw our new lives to escape our doom, while there is still time, and the sand is cold, on this long dark night. On this long dark night.

The mesa vultures, and the scorpions too, came and surrounded us while we drew. All dead creatures of things to come from the twenty-first century, when time is done. Dark angels, and soulless men, depraved demons in the craft of sin. All the past and the future too, hovered nearby but could not come through. Our seal of lines, on this long dark night. On this long dark night. First the pollen and then the corn meal, the San Juan sand, and the gypsum to heal, the universe of layers within us we seal in a turquoise bind. His brown eyes open, mine open too, we chant then we sing of the bridge on through, to the other side. To the other side. Boys translucent to the dead of night, a new moon existent, it will be all right, on this long dark night. On this long dark night.

From the center out, we brushed our way through, colors of the earth and sun, with our own different hues. A painting under constellations that gave us clues. While first man talked, first woman brought us through to the other side, on this long dark night. On this long dark night.

We are two chums in the high desert, out near the dump, near the dragon!  We are here to paint the sand to seal our destiny, and to travel far away, on this long dark night. On this long dark night. – 10.18.2020 – דָנִיֵּאל

Shéy

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 94 Comments


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

Shéy does sing,

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

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

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

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

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

Shéy does sing,

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

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

The Ghost in an Old Man’s Heart

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 99 Comments


“The secrets that lost boys keep birth ghost” – DS

Here in lies the power, the place that G_D has made. Here in dwells the temple, and it is a ghost that both loves and hates in the greatest silence! For it can cast, and it can spell, it can retrieve and deceive. It separates, and hides, and when it is ready it reveals itself. Into the silence. Into the silence.

I heard many words last night upon my bed. They were legion from sources seen and unseen. Strange expressions that built themselves like influences upon my heart. Sounds and strange syllables, lilted tongues of angels or daemons, one or more, one thousand in a reflection growing louder from each shadow around my room. Together they forced me into the silence. And I saw myself young, and found myself old, and though I felt cold, there was some comfort for indeed I saw I had never been alone.

For there were ghost with me in spring and fall.  Under cold winter moons, and summer storms of awe, and they chanted, chanted that I should heed their call. And they said so many things I could not take it all. Out of sky and earth and fire from my birth, till the day I heard a final song. And they sang inside my head in the silence of it all. For I saw them as a child, in the tumbleweeds that the wind would hold and blow, and I felt them kiss my lovers, with their familiar touch and glow. Yes, I felt them shake inside me when my anger did not let go. In the silence were these ghosts, as an old man where do they go. Oh, the power of all that is me, how much of it do they now know. Oh, the power of all that is me, how much of it do they now know.

Oh, the silence that awaits me, where the angels would have me go, the knowledge that leaves me, as these daemons fold. These ghost that have been with me, knowing what they know. It is not in my defense that they hold what they know, it is the power of recognition of letting this secret go. Oh, ghost that has become legion, how your fears have grown. Now here into silence I watch you go. Now here into silence I watch you go.

Here in lies the power, the place that G_D has made. Here in dwells the temple, and it is a ghost that both loves and hates in the greatest silence! For it can cast, and it can spell, it can retrieve and deceive. It separates, and hides, and when it is ready it reveals itself. Into the silence. Into the silence.

For the molested that turned into lost boys, that turned into old men with ghost. It is time to take those ghosts into the silence. – 09.10.20 – דָּנִיֵּאל

 

200 Years (Every Praise)

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 61 Comments


“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”-Alexander Fraser Tytler

(Every Praise)

Now oh Judea before what rides, a strain of white lightning across the Galilee sky. G_D of all your mercy before you I rise in every praise.

200 years of lies and scorn, against the better reasons we all are born, how will we rise to greet the day from years of nightmare, of nuclear decay. 200 years of crazy thoughts, anarchist dreams of the fiddler’s knot, of that purgatory that knows no end, a socialist dream, a socialist sin. Where are you when black shirts come, to deliver your daughters to prosecute your sons. Know it now, know it true when they come for the weakest, they come for you. Oh believer, oh my heart, know thy love when all this starts. Know thy faith, honest true, what is forever starts in you. 200 years a circle starts, look toward the future is it dark? Clap your hands is it still dark?

If I had a telescope, in that saw real time, I would train it skyward and look for the shine. I would send it forward through present gloom, 200 years beyond our ruin. What would I see, what would I know? Would we be mortal, or demons without a soul? Would we still dance, or move around, would we have ego’s or would we be a part of a collective sound? For the want of an answer then I pray, for the need of a vision I turn my back on this day. For an open conversation I kneel and I say “YOU are my G_D”. For an open conversation I kneel and I say “YOU are my G_D”.

200 years of going before the storm, finding you in lightning in a different form. Finding you in weakness when I cannot see there you are in all that I believe. Night birds calling before the end of time, plague and persecution from what we thought was kind. Not an ideology or personal belief there you are. Going forward now from way back then. 200 years backwards and 200 till then, you are light eternal, the better of sin, you are every praise. Now oh Judea before what rides, a strain of white lightning across the Galilee sky. G_D of all your mercy before you I rise in every praise.

200 years of what we are. Bowing in our terror of what we see afar, every cloud, every thought, every praise. Oh, my creator of thought and psalm, oh my creator of thought and dream, bring me to you where I can see. Where I can see. Every praise of thought from inside of me, past present future to the ides that be. 200 years that goes beyond me, let light be. Every revolution before the dawn, sing hallelujah our inward song, oh my little children that our yet to be. Sing every praise. Sing every praise.

(Every Praise)

“I said it in the darkness, as the change flew under head. G_D is not changing, and neither is he dead.” – 08.17.20 – דָּנִיֵּאל

 

Below Hague’s Peak (Eve)

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 94 Comments


“She is your before, sawed from your spirit, formed before, you were an atom, she was an Eve, before you.” – D.S.

She said, “I have always been above”. She said, “I have always been below”. He said, “I have found myself in each place, you go”. She said, “That’s how I found you”. He said, “It’s a dream of clues, isn’t it? A sweet dream of you”. She said, “No my love, it’s really you”.

It could be a refraction, or a dream from our birth, climbing ever northward from the highway where it curves. Around steep stones and cedars bearing snow crystals, beneath the Mummy’s range, strange dreams of deeds forgotten, your dress a long wedding train. Carrying us both laughing, your lips upon mine, shadows moving aside from where we tell them lay. Lay shadows lay. Oh, I could have been a lyricist that wrote of wrong love’s pain. But no that’s not the way we hold each other when life begins to rain. When it pours. When the screams come from where ghosts have lain. When it snows right here on top of a mountain chain. When piano keys tumble down, sounds my love, my eternal love for you.

It could be an essence, that leaves us here, scattered among the mountains, somewhere our love lost, somewhere standing together solid in the altitude, near Hague’s Peak, so cold. Our lines draining from our hearts, old places our lives together, familiars, no longer alone. Scattering, and hovering through this winter and last summer too. The windows of this high house breaking, opening, speaking. Frozen tongues, warming where eagles show, speaking to what has become me, and what will form you. For Darwin has not made us, nor are we of an archeological mold. Petrified angels, our stories just waiting to be told. More we are more. More we are more.

She came speaking my name near the rocks, close to the high stream, and she became a part of this everlasting poem. In a haste I asked her, her name, and I was blushing. She looked at me from high above the Colorado Mountains, those eternal thrones. She sighed, a sound which is of eternal syllables and symbols, and she said, “I am you”.

She said, “I have always been above”. She said, “I have always been below”. He said, “I have found myself in each place, you go”. She said, “That’s how I found you”. He said, “It’s a dream of clues, isn’t it? A sweet dream of you”.

She said, “No my love, it’s really you”.

For the spirit that has always been before me, created in that light that holds us both. For Susan. –08.03.2020 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

When on Red Mountain

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 67 Comments


“And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Adonai-nissi.”-Exodus 17:15

Northern Colorado some twelve miles North of Fort Collins.

It was a natural altar, alluring in the July sun. Red and jagged against the blazing sky. A normal place to celebrate both life and grief. Mortality and immortality. A place to call the lightning, and watch her come.

O’ great lord of Red Mountain, I need a new perspective that is very clear, need your veins of metal and granite to breathe heavy in my ears. I need you to lift me higher, bend my back into the sky, let me feel the heat of summer, release the challenges of July.

I send a storm unto your heaven; your heaven sends the storm to me. Everywhere I feel dry lightning, grabbing inwardly. Whip lashing me. G_D you are the chair of energy creator of twisted me. One that is made of angry illusion, one built on quiet complexity. You have asked me to the mountain, now burn your inward soul in me. Let me not succumb here earthbound, like a wailing, shrieking need. O’ grandeur of this arid edifice that rises up to me. Let not scorpion and rattlesnake reside beneath my feet. For I am one with wind and place that taunts eternity. Do not I pray let me slip beneath this sandy sea.

O prayer that rides the summer skies beneath a sun drenched leak, a boomerang of sounds and syllables a want, a need, a creed. I strode this path to someone’s calling, was it you or a mental disease. To feel the touch of this “Red Mountain” when I cry “Adonai Nissi” When I cry “Adonai Nissi”.

O’ draught that is unquenchable here on your immortal brief, that I would always own this moment, and not its grief. That I would see you counting my compassions one by extra one. Touching my body with your kisses, under this “Red Mountain’s’ July sun, and its third week black moon, on once the night begun. O’ terror may you find me not bedeviled by this form, the one created here on creation the one that is often torn. For it is frame of just reflection, that you stilled in me. That you stilled in me.

O’ great lord of Red Mountain, I need a new perspective that is very clear, need your veins of metal and granite to breathe heavy in my ears. I need you to lift me higher, bend my back into the sky, let me feel the heat of summer, release the challenges of July. – 07.13.20 – דָּנִיֵּאל

When Daddy Came Through

Featured / Daniel Swearingen / 76 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)

Featured / 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