poetry

The Precious

/ Daniel Swearingen / 100 Comments


Kaitlyn Swearingen

“The most precious on this earth is Love” – Lavinia Valeriana

“You are my “Peter Pan” she said, her bright blue eyes dancing reflecting the bright full moon that cast it’s magical beams through her bedroom window. “What are you then, “squirt”, I asked her trying to look as serious as possible. “I am your precious”, she said, her blue eyes turning into stars and planets and becoming a universe all-consuming.

In a world where time stood still, when all memory had gone to sleep. All our secrets held our hope, spinning circles, jumping rope. To the moon, you would cry with the fiercest look that made me smile. Such is this, and such is that, you drew the pictures, of our compact. Beyond two stars, second from right, magic perfected, when we took flight. In dimensions did we ride, upon the words of which we spoke, incantations so inspired by a story or a joke. Came we to another land in a box made for a boat, rowing water with our hands, until our laughter finally broke. Tis the season, which I fly, fight the witch was your reply. Make me precious throughout the land; I said I will for I am The Pan. Be they ghouls or evil cares, I will fight them upon a dare. Be my precious, my princess lord, as she knights me with a cardboard sword. Be my precious for all the years, never let this magic disappear.

So it went from night to night, when the dusk turned to moonlight. For the full moon went nowhere, stayed it steady within our lair. How full enchantment can make you grow, when your own seed has turned to gold. In a minute of childhood find, immortality in your mind. Not an interest or a care, when the moon is in your eye, throwing caution to the wind with my precious by my side. Thinking time will never end, thinking this time will never die.

Now the day came when time appeared, second hands from everywhere and on my scalp appeared a gray, and my precious went away. Such was this, and such was that, fading pictures of our compact. Still at times upon the phone, when I hear her voice so clear, just a bright note in atmosphere. How it takes me to a time, never ending how sublime. Moves me beyond two stars so near, second from the right, this way my dear. Succumbs me to a different land, knights me as “The Pan”. From the cradle to the grave how my precious saved the day. From the cradle to Neverland, full of wonder through times of sand, through the veil hand in hand. Through the veil hand in hand.

“You are my “Peter Pan” she said, her bright blue eyes dancing reflecting the bright full moon that cast it’s magical beams through her bedroom window. “What are you then, “squirt”, I asked her trying to look as serious as possible. “I am your precious”, she said, her blue eyes turning into stars and planets and becoming a universe all-consuming.

For my own immortal precious Kaitlyn. -04.02.21 – דָנִיֵּאל

The Jerusalem Theory

/ Daniel Swearingen


“We contain the shapes of trees and the movement of rivers and stars within us.” – Patrick Jasper Lee

His screams awaken me again. “You saw the holy city again”? The question slips from my just awakened mouth. I instantly regret the sound my question carries. “No daddy”, he says, his eyes filling with tears, “I am the holy city”. “I am the holy city”.

He awakes within his battles, turns an inward eye to see and it rolls an observation, of intuition around the holy city, which he conceived. For his mind, it is a treasure, built from time on eternity. An eschatology that confounds a modern world immersed in academic degrees.

He awakes within his battles, and fashions safe high walls. Thick in stone and drying mortar, higher towers to see it all. He circles round and round his sanctuary, placing angels four fathoms tall. His altar deeply buried in the center of the great all. He hums his body is the temple, he grasp the illusion of a call, an obtrusive whispering dragon woman, who says the time is his to call. For his mind is the eternal city, that withstands all carrion calls, underneath a canopy of G_Ds great favor, he watches dark large figures fall. Now center to this theory, of time, and what he sees, is the notion that his mind is a city in the Judean Mountains between the Mediterranean and deep Dead Sea. It’s a notion built in neurons and synapses we cannot believe, that the senses of an individual is in a world we just cannot see.

His nightmares are built in Babylon, by guile and snakes out of trees. The touching sounds of withered fingers scraping across a skin he cannot see. They want to hold him captive in a darkness ruled by grief, a unipolar world of chaos, the one inhabited by you and me. They want to tear down the walls of his Jerusalem to discover what it is he sees. They come as warriors clothed in confusion, not the peacemakers or helpers they claim to be. For in Babylon they do not understand the thoughts so different, or the visions they cannot see.

So, war comes against his city. In a rolling raging sea, armed with all of life’s armchair seers from the science of life that is brief. They call upon their allies from the Euphrates; bring your archers to shoot the breech. Let us understand this city’s weakness. Let it fall beneath our feet. Call down our god’s of human frailty, of science of no degree, let this be that, and that a lesson, not forgotten for all to see. Let us learn this place of mystery, let us in by self-decree. What we know from our own learning is what we worship as our deity.

In the end as all in final, in the end that comes so brief, there stands the ruins of Babylon, while Jerusalem can still be seen. In the end is still the mystery, the blessing of his thoughts to be, for the magic of his inward motion, is a city that holds its keep. Is a city that holds its keep.

He awakes within his battles, turns an inward eye to see and it rolls an observation of intuition around the holy city, which he conceived. For his mind, it is a treasure, built from time on eternity. An eschatology that confounds a modern world immersed in academic degrees. – 03.21.21 – דָנִיֵּאל

For the millions who fall on the spectrum in this alien world.

Ivanhoe (An Addendum)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 82 Comments

“Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last final awakening.” – Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe

For Ivanhoe sailed on a blue cold sea, ever present from what could be, to be a knight of war no more, to embrace his final score. No more dust and blood of war, just better passions on heavens shores.

Hold still thy Eastern windows, those upon the North Sea, facing toward Jerusalem, where there I will soon be free. Breaking now my spirit that, which is a loom, weaved by darkened feelings, comes the witch before the moon. What was my father’s fortune, tithes and land and silk, lay I now before thee, thy daemons and their ilk. Forge the steel of Canaan a double-sided seal, who knows if it is really, really real. Here now I pray, between the stones from another day. Standing still, I cry as all men cry, “will G_D let me stay”? Whom is now upon me? Darkness or the light by day? What is its fashion, poet or warrior fallen by a blade? So, this night, this starless, soulless night, filled by shadows, great with evil’s plight. Is it mine to reckon, to stiffen with my arm? By these shores of England in a calm or storm. Still I hear thee bade me, come unto my breast. Oh my G_D you know me, in this you know me best.

I thought upon this hardly, when first a sword I sheathed, to carry death upon my hip, better to give unto than receive. For all the years of battle when my mind saw blood red, I never thought that demise could come peaceful for men once bled. For what the passion of all true things, those men of oath can often decree. Their minds lacking character in the power of control they deceive. Their laws held high on banners, held to heaven’s doors. From love and savage battle, they are laws that never bind to us subsequently once we are no more. For here, it makes no difference, this crusade now described, in final breathing moments, to a black angel. Oh her eyes.

Names, names, names I would be remiss, not to say my true love’s name, in death I truly miss. Daughter of the misty lake, Saxon queen whose sweet lips I often taste. She who leaves before me, now by a flowered filled lake. For all the swords and lances, have I thrust, to give unto this dark angel all my trust? To view Rowena in a land so faire. Very different over there. For ever Loxley perhaps I shall miss, its stone and thatch and heavy mist. For what has come in what I see in these boiling eyes nonmoving before me. Just a calm within a storm, in a circle that feels so warm. In a circle that feels so warm.

For Ivanhoe sailed on a blue cold sea, ever present from what could be, to be a knight of war no more, to embrace his final score. No more dust and blood of war, just better passions on heavens shores. – 02.20.2021 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

Night of Things (Mayhem)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 73 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 / 95 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