Life

Beyond Red Feather

/ Daniel Swearingen / 106 Comments


“If you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.” – Beryl Markham

His spirit came upon me on a fourth night last before, and he laid out all the burdens that I thought once solved once more. And I worried all about it, and I prayed to G-D above, but it was in his insistence and according to his word that I followed my dad the phantom, on into a different western world. Into a different western world.

I set my mind on answers and I lay them at false feet. The Ying and yang of could be, the Ying and yang of disarray. And I climb that lonely mountain. Just the one I climbed before. Oh, here I stand a mountain, on it rest a hollow core. For if there was an answer in every peak, I’ve climbed than surely, I would be a wise man or perhaps holy divine. But oh, this Ghost upon me. The churning of my mind. This answer for a reason. Time to move, nothings left to find. Nothings left that’s mine.

Red Feather, was my fortune in the fall of ninety-nine, and I built it to a temple. To a mystery within my mind. And it’s true my daddy lies there with his ashes that dirt binds cold this very day. It’s all a part of history, the kind the spirit moves with time away. Oh, Daddy why all the mountains, that you breath into my mind, when you whisper out of the cold gray “Lay, sweet lady lay.”

And all I want is wonder, that beckons to my word, changes me forever, frees me like a bird. Makes me to an angel, just the only kind, that flies beyond your mountain to something that won’t fade away. That won’t fade away.

For maybe it’s a treasure, or just an extra breathe, maybe I’m just naked while an eagle makes a nest. Could be I see Jesus, in the beer from the night before, or maybe there is a miracle, laid in my inner core. But somehow, I know there’s a sunrise exploding in the west, laid out like days turned windy with time and secrets to explore. For ghost you are now upon me, mapping my seconds to the day, and what tomorrow may find me. With a grace tracing lines upon my face. On a distant shore of mystery where new muses come to play. A miracle of the day. A miracle of the day.

His spirit came upon me on a fourth night last before, and he laid out all the burdens that I thought once solved once more. But this time it was different, so strange in a good way. A miracle as my daddy bowed his head to pray, and I moved away. I moved away. – 01.24.22 – דָנִיֵּאל

The Ides of Harvest

/ 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

Snow Canyon (Hallelujah)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 83 Comments


Giving thanks is that: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of G_d when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant. – Ann Voscamp

I have been incarnated for such a long time, from my birth before the beginning of all time. I never knew how powerful I was, I never realized. To be humble, has in its way its own pride. At last I come to a great winter canyon which does not give a shelter in its great snow filled side. Elijah, Elijah your blessed mantle that won’t let me hide. I am risen well before I ever thought to die, here in Snow Canyon the walls so tall they can’t contain all tides. Hallelujah! A shadow for the new year, a blight I can’t associate with from this wind-swept floor, a daemon I will not call forth. For legion calls only that from the human side, and I am destined here in snow canyon to breech the great divide. I have been waiting here from this egg my entire life, and I say hallelujah.

What is a haven, when it pushes you outside, closes in its doors and lets you try? What is a mercy that lets somebody hide, not a compassion, but covering in a life? In snow canyon you make me realize, I have earned my real lines, on my face they ride, a greater glory in this new, new time. The soul is cleaner when your shame is rhymed to hallelujah. Though snow is judgment, falling through this air, though points are moving, it’s not in time I care. My only freedom is not bound by any air. A little secret, a little find, a great big canyon, without a sign. I’ll give it to you, as the new year shines. It’s hallelujah, its hallelujah.

There was an old world some would have most find, its filled with memories both good and bad, all kinds. It keeps the freedom of those it’s keep they find. A darkness backwards, an entry most can’t unwind. I tell you memories, must be bound and tied. Here in this canyon is the presence of current time. No clocks or seconds, just Infinium of what’s right. In hallelujah, in hallelujah.

I have been incarnated, I travel through all time, I have seen me born, and I’ve wondered if I died. Still now no matter in this canyon here, with snow clearing, the coming of a new year. The stars above me the way is higher and clear. For hallelujah. It’s hallelujah.

Happy New Year!

For Susan, Ryan & Kaitlyn – 12.31.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

Occultavia (1988)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 63 Comments


“Because no retreat from the world can mask what is in your face.” – Gregory Maguire

“What is strange, when the strangest things are born from G_D.” – DS

I thought for a moment that it could be the late hour, the tricks of the night on the eye, the curves of the highway. I thought too much on it at first, and then I thought not on it at all, as the hillside parted, and that which was movement moved.

The space around her appeared barren, the frozen fog closing gaps around her lithe figure, changing not it’s form, yet somehow it changed. That she was the first witch, that I knew, and although there is reason that I should have known it not, yet in that late hour it became a part of me, something in reflection, I would rather it be not.

The years since then, that is something most would address, those many years since I saw, that cold dark spirit. She there in the wood. Still, so still near the highway. She in shadow, not a tale. Not a figment of thought to frighten young children on eves of reckoning. Rather she a witch, a true shadow in the leaves on that winter night. Standing with arms unfolded, inviting. Her song in alien syllables not of this world, but of that which we do not see until we die. But yes, it is the years since then I now address, and I do so carefully, for I think I have seen her once again in the corners of my dreams, and in that I think there is something I should see not.

I could describe that night, in detail, the Ozark mountain highway, the very monochrome world that I drove through. The cold, the moment KFAQ out of Tulsa, went silent, that bend in the road. That place where giants were born from falling angels, after the flood, after Ha Adam. The sifting of red clay and rich dark sediment, where the flood began, and ended. I could tell you all. Still, all would not describe her, standing there at 3:04 A.M. The first witch in darkness. The first witch I have ever seen.

It is written for I cannot say it aloud, that, my darkest thoughts contain G_D. It is in those thoughts that I am judged, for as my name beholds, G_D is my judge. Also, in my thoughts, those darkest thoughts, stands a witch, the first witch. She too implores and judges, and often, as my life moves, I do as I should not, and I look if only briefly into my mirror.

She runs, with her billowing swaths of black cloth moving all around her, she follows chasing, frost and cold about her. and her face I pray, oh her face I pray, I never ever see. – 02.25.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

Black Tree (La Plata Song)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 37 Comments

When you bade me hello, standing near the road, it could have been farewell, you probably were the truth. For on that day in July, Saturday, of thirteen, nineteen seventy-four, you came on past me. Said you from my eyes, bathed me till I cried, I no longer knew, what was me, and what was you. Black tree you covered me, fared me so well. Silver lining blue, La Plata what a spell. You spake to me in lies, you wounded me in truths, you prophesied my life, a little boy I’m you. Highway in my dreams, a neurological new, always standing there, black tree who knows who. What came before, a child, a spawn before a man, is that child inside me, afraid of who I am. Cover me like that, black tree turned in earth, fight the light of heaven, opened here on earth. Above you only color, a silver lining roof, down here near earth tones, it’s what I’m fortuned to. It’s what I’m fortuned to.

Now I am a man, with silver on my scalp, but still in dreams like tunnels, my inner vision south, I drive along the La Plata, the state line so near, that black tree is waiting, swallowing up my fears. It says to me your different, not full of sap of sky, but introverted passion, the answer to not why. And in your inner vision, along this highway true, you’re not a transgressed beggar, you’re not what’s new. For there are many forest, along the plains of earth, but only one black tree, near the state line, around a curve. And just like it was summer in nineteen seventy-four, when you were still a virgin, craving an open door. Reach inside my mystery, let covers float on high, let all my black leaves cover, all your broken mind. For there are book of shadows, and shattered broken rhymes, that could not best the riddle, like I can in your mind. Like I can in your mind.

Along the La Plata, a curve that leads towards birth, a younger me waiting, a black tree in the earth. A sign of the coven, a sign forever new, a curtain of the calling. The me forever new. I will not forget you, I bet your standing real, forty-two years, a yesteryear but still. But still…So still. Black tree. – 07.13.2016 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Ticket to Ride

/ Daniel Swearingen / 12 Comments


She said to me,

Your tradition says you follow, think without your mind, place yourself into the furnace, suffer and be kind. Rebel only in civil ways, do not mark a cheek. It’s not so far a distance between self-ego and being weak. You seem to say it’s all about you with heaven to gain. You say you, want to make it through, masochistically blue, to the opposite flame. Why indeed it’s true how humble of you, perhaps simple not to realize when love is by your side. Your walk, you say has all the marks of someone saved and blind, not at all interested in that you have a ticket to ride. You say change is nonexistent in the straight path that you climb, and therefore your covered, even as it bends your spine. Well if that’s your chosen strategy, to suffer through this life, I beg of you, know it’s true, love is by your side and it can be, your ticket to ride.

Perhaps you might consider not following but walking side by side, may be fill your spirit with that ticket to ride, and don’t think of being a victim, nothing wrong with pride, raise yourself and know your virtue true, choose where you would fly. There barely is a reason, to not take your path in stride, open all your veils of disappointment, take your ticket to ride.

She said to me,

You think that loves elusive, you say it’s hard to find, maybe that’s true for a follower, when that loves right by your side. You intimate your so frightened of reality and life, your waiting on the hereafter to take you up that hill. Love can go on before you, but I say it’s with you still. Of all the worlds you’re not afraid of, why choose to fear the one where you live, that’s the one where breath is certain, that’s real faith to give.

Now maybe heaven’s a future, filled with gifts and myth, maybe when you draw your final breath, you’ll smile at what is. But why wait on the spirit, to move you when you’re still? Look to your side, maybe decide. Your ticket to ride needs, to be fulfilled.

She said to me – 03.29.2016 – 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

GHOST (blessed be)

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At nine years of age I saw my first spirit, a gangly woman munching on an ear of corn down near the post office in the valley. Her eyes held different colors, one green, and the other blue. She was dressed old, nothing new, and when her voice came, it rolled in riddles and clues, and she talked of confidences, of what held my feet under me. She moved suddenly and quickly, stretching limb upon limb, and her words, came like a revelator, calming me, calming me… “A question is a shadow, that faith deletes, deeper is what you don’t see, blessed be, blessed be”.

And so I wondered, and I wandered, at night through the field of dreams. It was April, with the Hydra shining down. Smiling at me the large constellation spelling my name, telling me what I might see, and the reasons for my simple insight, that faith locked in a wild sea, within my mind, or maybe I was lost. But I thought of the gangly woman, the spirit, the words, and the revelator, and it seemed that when I looked at Alphard, that heart of the sky beast, it winked. That voice of the spirit with the different eyes, one green, and the other blue, fell upon me, calming me, calming me…”A question is a shadow, that faith deletes, deeper is what you don’t see, blessed be, blessed be”.

At twenty-eight years of age I crossed the tracks at Burlington, and saw the presence of the old man, levitating above the ground, pointing his wishbone of a tree toward the mountains of Colorado. His eyes held need, and they were the tan of a sea of wheat. He wore the dress of the farmer, perhaps the same as my Pappy had. He spoke in syntax, in verbs, words of rolling action that moved me upon my way. He was a water witch, the stick moving, waving through the air, through the window of my heart, and his words, came like a revelator, calming me, calming me… “A question is a shadow, that faith deletes, deeper is what you don’t see, blessed be, blessed be”.

And Meeker Meadow found me like the old ghost claimed it would, brought me kneeling chasing answers when shadows questioned where I stood. For I thought about what’s just beyond the boundary of life’s breath, and how most only settle to see who does what’s best. And the moon above November skies bewitched me till I swooned, made me reach beyond those shadows in the deeper faith of gloom. For beyond the wall of separation, which shows toward the real, were the oceans of electrons, without bodies who still feel. And the old man who led all, held the witches tree of old, waved it unto me, his voice calming me, calming me… “A question is a shadow, that faith deletes, deeper is what you don’t see, blessed be, blessed be”.

At the change of life at forty-six years of age, I saw a ghost of a witch’s child at play, weaving phantom pictures from his mind, sitting bombarded in his special chair, while nefarious dimwits taught him, that life was not fair. *His eyes were brown and shiny like a spectral sea, those thoughts beyond the circumference of what his teachers could hope to be. He looked to me, to be, what I hadn’t seen. Called me daddy, and it was clear why I was me. For genes of fortune handed down, ghost seen, when no one else hears a sound. I understand son, why you would say, say to me between our minds to this day. Your words a revelator, calming me, calming me…”A question is a shadow, that faith deletes, deeper is what you don’t see, blessed be, blessed be”.

*For my son who teaches me silent faith. – 07.26.2015 – דָּנִיֵּאל


Boaz (White Sands 1945)

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He Said, “She came like a woman’s body, of incandescent light upon his own, it could be as the poet said”, “So death doth touch the resurrection*”.

In morning he wanders the high plains above, Boaz searching, looking for some kind of answer, maybe angelic where ever he roams. His sheep find the border, the white sand of home, sometimes under sunlight the lambs look like snow on a mountain, he once used to know. A high arid climate, a place made for the unknown, the Eden of sea sands, Boaz the Shepard, finds his dreams coming home.

A morning in summer, a darkness well known, in white sands a first quarter, of moon now not known. And Boaz he walks through the shadows and hue, and looks out there yonder for the land that he knew. His lambs they lay waiting in shelter and home, their white wool of goodness, a dream he has sown. He wanders still waiting is she with him still, Shekinah, the wisdom, the spirit that follows, her hunger, wanting its fill.

She sounds like a soft word, a whisper of blossom, a syllable, a rhyming, a rod of learning, a yearning in hips perhaps a moan. A seraph of witches, a majik, this herder finds unknown. She surrounds him glory, her face not twisted, the truth of a mistress, a wife to be known. Oh Boaz of white sands in thoughts of a herder, perhaps she is waiting to take you home. No better truth in this world has his body ever known. The wind is quiet now, perhaps a dream, the lonely shepherd groans.

She joins him like atoms, a mass of just one, and a falling omission of choice in the sun. A woman of burning, a treasure won, her legs wrapped in union of cry’s when ones done. The air of the mighty, the dawn of dark morn, when all around Boaz, the desert adorns. With wild roars of fury, and lightning behest, unleashed of her gash, lust duty beholden, at all times request. The changing of fission of all he now sees, the raining of white sand, an all moving sea.

For Boaz the shepherd, his sheep now awake, the desert before him, the ground still it shakes. His visions from red to purple in sky, man’s purpose for living, lost in the fires eye, but still she does stand there, that purest of kind. That purpose of wisdom, her smile heals his why. And heavens fall harder, in white from the sky, the bomb of destruction, the cancer of lies. For Boaz the shepherd lives in the dream, for some ark of beauty, has kept death unseen.

*(So death doth touch the resurrection) – Hymn to G_D, My G_D, in My Sickness by John Donne

Boaz Martinez, was a sheep farmer who lived south of Socorro, New Mexico. On July 16, 1945, he claims to have seen G_D rising up in the desert, in the white sand, reaching high into the firmament, dancing perversely before him, and then coming down, settling he said, “She came like a woman’s body, of incandescent light upon his own, it could be as the poet said”, “So death doth touch the resurrection*”. Changing him, rearranging his thoughts and beliefs, removing a mask, and helping him to see a different life from any he had ever known. I met Boaz at the Hatch, New Mexico Green Chili Festival in September of 1979. The above is for him. – 7.25.2015 – דָּנִיֵּאל


Sometimes (1978)

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We listened to Dan Hill sing a song thirty-seven years ago, underneath the desert skyline where dead spirits came to glow. A voice in contemplation that led to a rhyme, a memory of Orion, when in words you told truth so. I guess my friend you ventured where the lions do pace and fight, I guess you came looking for what made the words I wrote that night. A level head of something or a heart so full and bright, you touched my arm, I shivered, and we looked into the sky. A friend as soft spoken in your Asia sort of way, you told me about your brother how he died so far away, I couldn’t understand it for the words spun in my head, making motion pictures of the scars of what you said.

A little late to say it after all these many years, but when you leaned to touch me, I shuttered in my tears, for just as Aries moved to sweep a bit of dust away, I learned to love a friend for what she didn’t say. Sometimes in the summertime after all these years, I smell the ghost of desert skies, and think of love so dear, a place of friends who touch and know, that everything’s okay, for secrets that they share are blessings, that life can’t take away. You touch me once, you float away and then your voice comes clear, a better understanding of where I go from here.

We talked for many hours as the sky moved in sashay, arms holding secrets only goodness gives hearts to play, and when the dawn came falling you grabbed me and you said you’ll go away, just like my brother did, when the army came that day. In Asia, we have words that shred the soul in tattered wounds, to tell our love for others, when it can’t be, or it’s too soon. But now let’s touch in silence never kissing, it’s not my way, for we are friends forever with what we do or do not say.

And then we touched, and sometimes…

We listened to Dan Hill sing a song thirty-seven years ago, underneath the desert skyline where dead spirits came to glow. – 07.19.2015 – דָּנִיֵּאל