poetry

Night of Things (Mayhem)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 33 Comments


“There are methods to creating a mayhem that sounds different from your usual mayhem. Because mayhem and a heavy drum backbeat end up sounding like Green Day or something. But if you put a different beat within it to create some air and lightness, the chaos comes through better.” – Nick Cave

It was mayhem to drive up the mountain at midnight, to visit my father’s grave. A night of things, both describable, and some not, that guided me up the sliver of a winding road to find my better angels. Perhaps daddy spoke to me, perhaps he did not, but something did. Something deep and dark, that deals with mayhem in the most effective way.

Whisper’s whisper all around me, from the mountains, crags and high plains. Whisper’s whisper ere, thy name. Blessings to this night of things, ere mayhem love is still the same.

Ere these feelings, ere these symptoms on this highway, underneath your heavens a spinning shell. Ere I am dying, awhile I am driving, ere I am dying, silence around me I die so well. For mayhem finds me upon your starlight headed toward highlands, beneath crosswinds, nothing happens, when something happens near well. It has been a long while since I came here. To your graveyard, here upon this highest vale, oh daddy you brought me, to speak of mystery of shine that blinds the heart when mayhem the truth will not tell. What a fortune, what a beauty here near your buried ashes, the book of secrets the night does tell. In the snow shining by car light night of things save me from the tides of hell. Ere I go up on this mountain, sing a night song my troubles fail, in the gloom of skyward shadows of timeless winter trees so pale.

Ere oh purpose, why I cry out, begging mercy from those who sleep. Laying snowbound in all their ashes so frozen here beneath my feet. Ere the circle turning faster stealing secrets from this a keep, just standing before Ezekiel’s wheels all I can do is weep. Ere the mayhem of the signal. Ere, what is hidden beneath cross beams? What comes from all around me before one A.M.?

Whisper’s whisper all around me, from the mountains, crags and high plains. Whisper’s whisper ere, thy name. Blessings to this night of things, ere mayhem love is still the same.

For something here is me, something comes on this night of things, and through all nature, begs me bind, thoughts of treasures beneath frozen vines, I think I finally see. That for all mayhem that stays inside, it reveals the signs of life indeed. For where there is death there must be life to see. – 01.23.21-
דָנִיֵּאל

Victoria

/ Daniel Swearingen


” Sing your death song and die like a hero going home”. – Tecumseh

If I should claim how great thou art, my lady. With thy pale dress, and thy white face. Moving G-d like before me while angels wait.

In and out of minutes, heartbeats slowing, I see her dancing upon a dawn filled sea. Planting footsteps that are visible to only those who would see. And it seems that she would kiss me nicely. And it seems she would fly with me. For she is of the beginning. The beginning of my eternity.

If I should hear her if I should go to play. If my shoes should not fit and stay unlaid. If voices should become a second place. On a present morning before the sun has thought to raise. If change should happen, music and light replace my pleasant grace. If G_D should find me willing to ride the wind on her beckon of faith. My heart broken, my breath that can longer taste. My taste for earth fainter than my fading face. Oh, then Victoria I will ascend in numbers across this water so chaste. While there are seconds moving, time that I no longer make, my soul moving, into spirit beyond the tides that break.

If moving morning shadows should bring me angels. If their high notes should barriers break. If I should find myself willing, to touch her face. A distant journey, now a present place. No longer a question, indecision, or an unintelligible race. If I should no longer suffer, descend to a stoic held together by man’s science or medical case. Know that I am moving upon that water, my eyes wider, no terror left to shake. If I should claim how great thou art, my lady. With thy pale dress, and thy white face moving G-d like before me while angels wait. In death I trip, but so quickly I reach and touch your blessed lace. That which makes you in me. That which you let me take.

If I should walk in mystery, into thy ark with such an airless ease. If their would-be Seraphim that fold their wings when I, upon my journey make. Touching syllables, that only immortals make, crying holy, while she dances for me. If I am growing lighter, closer than, closer than my G_D to thee. For here there would be no lessor freedoms than what she has made in me. If she would make an equation, a variable to a prophesy, it would be that I am with Victoria, for in Victoria I have come to be.

If I should claim how great thou art, my lady. With thy pale dress, and thy white face moving G-d like before me.

Jovine DeMarcus’s daughter carries his thoughts and blood deep within her. I am married to her. Jovine taught me how to pull wire, hammer a nail, and put together the most intricate electrical wiring equations. I taught him about the mountains. He wanted me to call him dad and I fought it. I fight it no longer. Jovine went to his Victoria, his woman of the water and mountain on December 23rd, 2020 at 4:15 AM in the morning. Sweet travels Dad. Sweet travels. Miss you much more than I ever thought I would. 12.31.20- דָּנִיֵּאל

 

Magnum Mysterium Phantasm

/ Daniel Swearingen / 94 Comments


“The unknown is not that the soul never changes. The mystery is that the spirit does.” – DS

I thought myself a haunted house in a deep darkened wood, and every December I changed and became whole again.” -DS

There were angels dancing in shadows. There were angels darkened in shape. Singing magnum mysterium. Magnum mysterium. Awake!

Magnum mysterium phantasm is a spot in my mind, a haunted memory of pictures I cannot find. Darkness, darkness hello my old friend. A world floating with numbers, where does reason end. Houses for living, a house for the dead. Houses for living, a house for the dead. Houses for living…

There sits in a wood a house broken, scarred, and battered and worn. It has eyes on an inward soul searching, haunted on the eve of a storm. The snow it falls on it duly, the ice it makes its way in. There is no way to know if now truly how to separate the ghost from within. So long ago its construction, upon faith and a matter of fact. Articles concentrated by a convention, signed by a builder, his cloak the color of black. This house has a foundation laid in the winter; its windows sealed by the night. What is one to say of this haunting, what is one to say of this errant decay? Can a house be a home really, when absolution of night rules the day? Failing the lack of an answer, the house will let phantasm take it away.

Oh, house that could be a mansion filled with light and magic within, on the eve of a great holiday glorious, how you sit there shrouded in din. How it is you, revel in stillness, pushing magic farther within. Forming union with all the legions, the darkest daemons of unconscious sin. Your inward walls collapsing in terror, your paint peeling within. For the lack of a coherent answer, the only sound is the noise of the northern wind. Did your blueprint not hold some passion, a design of song to begin? Was there never strength in your timbers to hold you up when the darkness began?

As I set here writing this missive, in the sunlight on a bright December day. Thinking how the dark words flowed so smoothly, I was shaken by what they relayed. An insight of a fool really, I am the house, and it is time for a change. I am the house, and it is time for a change.

Magnum mysterium phantasm is a spot in my mind, a haunted memory of pictures I cannot find. Darkness, darkness hello my old friend. A world floating with numbers, where does reason end. Houses for living, a house for the dead. Houses for living, a house for the dead. Houses for living…

There were angels dancing in shadows. There were angels darkened in shape. Singing magnum mysterium. Magnum mysterium. Awake! – 12.17.2020 – דָנִיֵּאל

The Spirits of Bisti (Patiently)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 106 Comments


“The future for me is already a thing of the past –
You were my first love and you will be my last” – Bob Dylan

So long ago, first man, first woman, first love a song sung so patiently. Stars and angels, ruins beneath the eggs of Bisti, let what we do be born patiently. My love, my love I will love you eternally. My love, my love, I will see you again in Bisti eventually,

She, moves and summons so patiently, in threes, sixes and nines, the Bisti moving she on bended knee. Moving these images throughout these dreams. Swaying in song so delicately, her whispers dialectically. While Steve Perry wails, she kisses me, under rocks above me, oh another world that beckons me. Ruins that spin, while she touches me, here to live eternally. Sand pouring methodically, the notes of stars above fall melodically. The universe outside my car, our score that no one see’s. Just the spirits of Bisti so patiently, in you and me, moving, eyes closed, incessantly. We burst, worlds move, so patiently, light shines incandescently. Inside and outside of me, only this once. I succumb patiently.

Night winds fly higher than we can see, desert moon in November touches the ground in prophesy. Your hips bare the secrets inside of me, together, first woman, and first man, mythically almost tragically. Still there is a song forever, I keep gloriously. Later I learned you died, on a highway knowing what you did not see. No doubt your eyes closed, just like in Bisti, so patiently. November 29th so early. The morning star falling on a frozen desert sea. To your grave, in my head you kept me, so no one could see, the trail we blazed patiently. The spirits of Bisti, a covenant in immortality, tall columns of rock of relevancy, that watched so quietly, while we shared so patiently. So patiently.

Spirit I summon thee, so patiently, just like then move with me, let doors open like her with me. First man, first woman, let guardians shelter us in this moving desert sea, while we move too. Her to me. Me to what I cannot see, above these ruins, where shadows recede. Let what we did bring immortality. Let our love be patiently.

So long ago, first man, first woman, first love a song sung so patiently. Stars and angels, ruins beneath the eggs of Bisti, let what we do be born patiently. My love, my love I will love you eternally. My love, my love, I will see you again in Bisti eventually. – דָּנִיֵּאל – 11.29.20

Tippy

/ 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

/ 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 Ghost in an Old Man’s Heart

/ 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)

/ 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

 

When on Red Mountain

/ 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

/ 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