Prose

The Ghost in an Old Man’s Heart

/ Daniel Swearingen / 97 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

 

She and Ordinary Men

/ Daniel Swearingen / 2 Comments


“I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances.” – Nelson Mandela

The angel came…

The homeless guy had a slight English accent, maybe from Worcester I’m not really certain though. He had been drinking for three days straight he said, still his accent was fairly firm, and his thoughts spoken plain. “I saw an angel of the Lord“, he said. “He looked right through me and said he was interested in ordinary men”. “The angel told me great things come from ordinary men”, he said. When he said that, I noticed his eyes lost color. Watered down almost. Supernatural almost, and yet quite ordinary. In that moment I wished to be the most ordinary, the most common, for there was the heat. There was G_D

The angel came…

Saw a boy through a thin glass, saw a boy dancing near Tupelo, saw a bright spot, a big bird sailing high above. In the indigo sang a child, under the moon, dancing near the moss oak that holds the old coon. The questions came as questions can. Is he a shimmer in the dark, is he a twist that makes you want to twist too? Possessed by thoughts of what he can’t say. Does he sing to the stars, does he move in you, is he chosen by all sides? Is he fame, or is he shy just lost now as a typical man? For it could be we are all her, exploding in all we could say, chosen by her to be alive, gifts unopened, a dream, an unbearable ordinary man.

The angel came…

Saw a stutterer, a man who needed tamed, saw him leaving through puzzles in the dark, lost inside, for want of purpose, lacking spark. And a big bird flying high, to a burning bush, a symbol, that can haunt you. Words in syllables and flames, G_D of shadows, fire and rain. G_D who chooses losers known by any other name. Is he fame or trying to hide, gone tomorrow, here today, archetypal by test of man? Commandments given; nothing hides. For it could be we are all her, exploding in all we could say, chosen by her to be alive, gifts unopened, a dream, an unbearable ordinary man.

The angel came…

Saw an answer in a dream, walking deserts, moving through streams. Moved through time, watched my children born, what does it mean. Watched a big bird flying close to me, and wondered why. In the open, under star lit sky’s, followed by the G_D of need, seeking answers in what I see. I ask above, I ask again, let me go for nothing ends. Still she sends the bird of prey, holding me until it’s day. Then I understand the art, understand from where I start. For it could be we are all her, exploding in all we could say, chosen by her to be alive, gifts unopened, a dream, an unbearable ordinary man.

The angel came… – 02.21.2020 – דָנִיֵּאל

A Night by the Hours

/ Daniel Swearingen / 108 Comments


“How did it get so late so soon?” – Dr. Seuss

I suppose we discovered our immortality on that perfect night, when the darkness moved by the hours. The night it had no name for it was all nights, all times, and I called you “Sweet Darlin” …

We wind ourselves around the western view; to me it is one color, for you it is several hues. A difference of opinion on a falling sun that takes away our breath, as in the east a large moon has begun. Our spirits take position in a higher place, silent in communion no words can they say. For they border on a boundary, of clouds and grace, an absolution of spatial logic, a jump into ghost held space. I hold onto your tight bodice, my lips drawn back as if to taste.  My teeth a sharpened color, white snow like, chaste that would be debased. In an instant, we huddle closer as if some spell would tell us so, a last walk on the skyline watching the evening as it flows. For it’s a night not held in sorrow, or an evening in shallow touch, but a darkness filled with flying, where no one ever says too much.

We have come to know a pattern, when the gloom draws us here. To this path below the snow-caps of “Twin Sisters” crooked leer. You say, “One looks like she is laughing”, I say, “No dear, that is a sneer”, you say, “what if for an argument”, I say, “you are just so weird. But in that moment when we draw our eyes together hands held wide against the sky, the sun tilting backwards on its even, for the night on which it dies. With our sightseeing further, as we call out to the night, come and take our lives immortal, under over kingdoms rights. It is earth that in the daytime, what it holds cannot appetize, but the glory of the night sky is by that, our paradise. Unadorned by life’s expectations, we have no breath in which to sigh. Glory, glory in our indifference, bodies unwinding, our cathedral the sky.

We separate not when the shades of night taste us; their own light shadows pass us by. We laugh without laughing, and memorize each precious instant, the largest of mountains we have yet to climb. “What say you’re an artist, what say I’m the painted”, I brush my hand against her moon-touched thigh. “What say we are without replication”, she sighs her lips drawn as if to cry. This night of all has moved in time, by hours, rhythms, and numbers that rhyme. We are different as we turn to the east and make our way home to sleep before we would know why. Before we would know why.

I suppose we discovered our immortality on that perfect night, when the darkness moved by the hours. The night it had no name for it was all nights, all times, and I called you “Sweet Darlin” …

For Susan – 01.15.2020 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

World on Fire (Lost Boys)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 80 Comments

“We part the veil on a killing sun. Stray from the straight line on this short run. The more we take, the less we become.” – Sarah McLachlan & Pierre Marchand

For I knew in this world of fire it was my destiny……Still the “world was on fire and it was more than I could handle.” *

The phantoms accompanied me through the real forest to the line of demarcation, that which divides the body from the craving. They were muses, if not daemons, and at times they settled upon my skin as if to travel there.  They thought my soul a rest from the long smoke-filled pathway. We walked on to find the shroud. That veil which separates life from the world on fire, and hurls the soul into the blue forest. They whispered that they had been “Lost Boys” too. Unbound in other creations, their worlds scorched by the burdens of fallen men. So, I listened to them, as we passed by the seared headstones near the trail. Those graves of grandfathers, and pioneers, missionaries filled with evil and good will alike. Males of authority, bastards without a story of where or when. Rich and poor men. Those men known to a world on fire, without their boyhood name. Cut in two by lack of identity. A timidity of soul before the vale. Afraid to jump, or believe, and I walked hurriedly by, for I did not wish to know them, or be as them.

The apparitions with me, poked me with memories, as I stumbled through the ash filled undergrowth, reminding me that the delineation boundary was hidden at times, as if G_D wears a mask. I felt myself humbled, bruised, and I did not wish to be hurt or lost anymore. I quickened my pace, as if in doing so I might eliminate those questions that look for hidden responses, when the answers reside in the question itself. As the burning trees consumed the oxygen around me, and in a state of desperation I begged the specters which gave me haunt to know their names. I wished to know them, and with that acquaintance, I alluded myself to think that there was magic. A quickened as it might be. A mirror with a reflection to know whom I was supposed to be. It was then that I stumbled upon an uplifted root and found myself falling. And, as I fell, I heard ten thousand whispers repeating, “We are Legion“, and I knew they did not know their names, as I did not know mine. For I had become them.

I was dropping, falling as the morning star. A burning orb within me, plummeting within and without the world on fire. Plunging as David after the fall. Moving through lives and beyond burning shadows. Failed dreams, and an eternity of futile desire for knowing not my name, or what it meant. For the world was on fire, and every something appeared in a negative sum. A dwindling cool spot under an uncontrollable flame. A crisis that goes without repent. For the night had become the day, and the day the night.

……And I cried out to G_D to judge me, to know me as I am, to amplify my reasons for living under the calmness of her hand. To kiss me, to fill my soul and feel my face. To become me. To believe in me, as I bless the treasure, the mystery that is his hand. To be like Moses, and know it face to face. To be it face to face. For I knew in this world of fire it was my destiny, to be one with the sum.

……And above me was the sound of pleasure, the movement of airborne wings, and what was separated from me, was in me once more. Kissing me in shadows, knowing me in light. For it was eternity beyond the curtain, and I was a child unbroken. I was in the calling, summoned out of a world on fire. I was a man. I was a man. – 10.15.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

* World on Fire lyrics – Sarah McLachlan & Pierre Marchand

The Dragon by the Dump

/ Daniel Swearingen / 83 Comments


“No, I would not want to live in a world without dragons, as I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith.” – R.A. Salvatore

The night sky ripples in my dreams, a mixture of sun, moon and stars. Something stirs in my bloodstream, and awakens me to whom I am to become.

The spine went from west of the dump in a half circle, unapologetic in its bending latitude, king like, under sun, moon and stars. The jagged edges whispered to us as we climbed them by day and moved tilting inwardly as our feet touched them by night. Although the rains almost never touched our hidden sacred find, the winds often came ripping away the night clouds that formed a curtain on the summer sky. We ran, we walked and we sat upon the back of a dragon, and its form entered our bloodstream, creating all life that we would forever be.

It is summer; it is winter, always springtime or fall. Just a boy then, just a boy now, when I hear the dragon call. Draco rising in a north star, that constellation, oh stars of all. A voice a whisper, a sound that comforts, “I lift you up boy, forever tall”.

“The fires never go out”, my friend say’s from the shadows of the dragon’s tail. He signals towards the dump with his nose, but I know he is talking about the warmth beneath his feet. “They never shall”, I whisper not sure, if I am back then, or here now speaking in my sleep. The sky seems to ripple, perhaps the fathoms of the days heat being released, more likely it is gravity protesting the movement of great silent wings. “Is it a ghost”, I whisper, thinking it might be. “No” my friend whispers back, his voice beyond my reach. For a brief moment, a bit of time that is deep in me, I see us moving upwards upon the spine of a great sand filled sea. A dragon has entered our bloodstream, creating all life that we would forever need.

It is summer; it is winter, always springtime or fall. Just a boy then, just a boy now, when I hear the dragon call. Draco rising in a north star, that constellation, oh stars of all. A voice a whisper, a sound that comforts, “I lift you up boy, forever tall”.

The head of the dragon, resting so still, one eye glazed over, under moonlight, may be it is granite but still. Sometimes it was more than just a rock on that hill. Guarding that dump, that manmade swill. “Sometimes it was us”, I hear my friend whisper, and it gives me chills. For now as back then, I can still feel. The rush of the dragon, the knowing so real, there in my bloodstream, from then on until. From then on until. – 07.18.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

Songbird (OCD)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 89 Comments


“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened” – Michel de Montaigne

I tell him he’s a songbird when he’s terrified, not a simple canary, no not that. Rather he’s a Hawk, a screaming raptor, that hunts symphony, that looks through the patterns of confused stanzas, and bad timing, and finds perfection. For he, this son of mine is perfection. He has flown to great heights, and yes, he has skimmed the valley floors. Tasted clay, envisioned horror. It is there we begin.

First it comes when he’s dreaming, and it takes the dream away. In its moves insidious it turns water into clay. It wraps the things up he loves to do and binds them first with string. Layer upon layer it then becomes rope and finally barb wire that stings. It tests the singing of his angels, until their sound becomes such pain. Night after night they come until, he holds his head screaming as if he’s insane. It blocks off every open space to make a puzzle of dark disdain. “For everything there is an answer”, It whispers, “it’s a fire to a flame”. “Turn the lock just one more time to drive that itch away”. He has heard there are many troubles and diagnosis of mental ache, but nothing beats the worn-out torture of neon thoughts of personal pain.

Sometimes he mourns the private artist that person who rode his silent range. A wild boy inside chasing rainbows so playful in his games. Then it came and brought its people, the nightmares of made up shame. Twisted turned, and bound his anger made his pathway narrow and strained.

I tell him he’s a songbird, in a deep, dark mine, finding the right, tracing invisible paths of oxygen until he breaks into the light of day. Then he’s a raptor, a bird who seeks prey, and he rescues that which was long ago taken away.

I know for now he looks at trouble, at daemons night and day, those thoughts of dripping blood and agony, he wishes would just go away. I wish it too as his Dad, I wish I could take them away, but damn it G_D expects him to fly and challenge what’s in his way. For there is no amount of medicine or therapy that can heal what is a shade. That, is the road of what was chosen by another lord of judgement gray.

For now, I tell him he’s a songbird, that sings a note that’s unheard in the fray, a melody that will soon turn into lightning, and strike the fright to day. When all the world has stopped to listen, his mind storms arranged and stayed.  This thing that takes his pleasure will  bend to his vision, and he will be okay.  My songbird will be okay . – 04.02.2019 – דָּנִיֵּאל

 

Arthurian (Owl Canyon)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 63 Comments


“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” –Albert Einstein

The ghost sum together in the thin early morning beam of light. Their spirits look like a sharpened sword streaking across the sky burying its point into the western red rock face of the canyon. Owls returning to their nest underneath the cliffs, circle the blade of light until it shows buried to its hilt, forming the brief illusion of a star of light.

On my knees,

In the canyon of the owls of purgatory, those that see what I cannot see. Comes the scepter reaching forward by the grace of what is she. Is your sun a path of mercy, cross those eastern skies it springs. Thus I pray, let me be silent, before your turning majesty.  By thy quietness, in thy beauty, what must I see that you bequeathed?  Is it something predatory wanting blood from me? Are you wisdom, are you creepy, do you celebrate disharmony? Are you like that old story from my childhood, thine is the glory, I a servant beneath thy feet? So here, I kneel feeling foolish in Owl Canyon, with a light that I see. Translucent inside of me.

On my knees,

In this canyon, there are lions, those that hunt incessantly. They are archetypes of the dragon when they run, their kill they see. Nevertheless, no lion do I see, no not nothing of a mission for me. What would you have me do, without a faith or knighthood? Should I pray thy angels down? With what would I speak, when I feel my soul has drowned? Underneath thy open skies, with what should I see? The best in this canyon I feel is an inner child of mediocrity. Adonai reverse this sight for me. It is so hard not to see. Impatience rules the man in me.

On my knees,

The rising sun gathers a thin cloud across its midriff, casting a long dark belt of a shadow across the western red rock face of the canyon. Above the dark division, the rocks glow red as if they are breathing fire. Below the shadow cast a prism of colors, as if a rainbow is cast upon the lower rim of the canyon wall. For all the lack of vision, for all the willingness to try, still I have been given a sign, a promise, and a knighthood.

On my feet,

In this still canyon, early spring light bathing me. “Adonai”, Thine the glory of my question, thine that is my destiny. “Adonai”, Thine the glory of my question, thine that is my destiny. In this still canyon, early spring light bathing me. – 03.28.2019 – דָּנִיֵּאל 

Clouds

/ Daniel Swearingen / 63 Comments


“The pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, departed not from me.” – Exodus 13:22 (Paraphrased DS)

“There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me’.” – Virginia Woolf

It is a wee voice, a small murmur like that gift of calling to Father Samuel, the end of a whisper as it falls to reprieve. It is a hum, a syllable or two not known by any tongue. An undertow that pulls with its sound. For it is a question, and everywhere the sky is painted, with colors and clouds. It is a wee voice, and it comes from many clouds.

The boy stands at the canyon, the one that lures him in. The curious art he sees in the obscurities, the mysteries without end. He ask himself a question, a personal thought within. Where does the course carved by this river have a source to begin? Am I to be like this canyon, carved and butchered below a skyward facing rim?

A cloud moves slowly throwing shadows, a humming voice in wind. All my life a cloud just behind me. A small cloud known to move many rivers, and bring them home again.

The young man stands near the ocean, the one that dares him swim. The twisted patterns he sees in its never-ending currents. The dark water appears so dim. Greater than the tempest, an octave of torrents. The face of Lilith looking up from a vast and pale vale. A moment or two of indecision, a fear of drowning in depths that have never seen the stars. He ask himself a question, of which not a word begins with when. Who calls to me? Who calls to me? Am I to be within this water? Dead and plummeting without breath.

A cloud moves slowly throwing shadows, a humming voice in wind. All my life a cloud just behind me. A small cloud known to move many rivers, and bring them home again.

The gray haired man stands on a mountain, above and below some clouds, he sees. It appears just a moment or a prospect to close his eyes and disappear for eternity. The wind has the sound of spirit voices, the eagle it swoops in vain. Somewhere close just nigh of heaven up here, the rocks echo a name. He ask himself a question. Is my destiny still the same? Is my destiny still the same? Am I to fly home into these heavens, finally to be consumed by your flame?

A cloud moves slowly throwing shadows, a humming voice in wind. All my life a cloud just behind me. A small cloud known to move many rivers, and bring them home again.

It is a wee voice, and it comes from many clouds. – 02.18.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

The Blue Forest (Two)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 83 Comments


“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.” – John Muir

And so, with this broken and most terrible day at an end, I retreat to my pillow, with only sleep on my mind, thinking not that the night before me offers a path of redemption for myself and a long forgotten youthful twin!

It comes like softness unspoken, an undertone across bare skin. “The late hour it whispers, is over, the morning is never to have been, and nightfall has come forth to show you a strange forest”. “Rise in your place let’s begin.” I wondered at this kind of slumber, awake or a dream held within. For surely it was as a time I remembered that happens over and over again. For just a second, I thought it illusion, a discording thought of dissonance within. But then the sweet kisses touched all my body. What inner wounds inside sewn, a healing began? As soft sounds sang, I traveled millennium, both forwards and backwards, my spirit extends. To see that place a child called a forest, blue with light, a place I had been. The two of us stand in our glory; mist about the mystic begins. A thousand lights the magic starts again.

Day upon day, my life seems to tremble, so shy in its way, so much trouble it seems. An opera plays Faust with marching daemons, sticking their bloodthirsty knifes in me deep. Suffering thoughts of infinite worry, anxiety, fears there seems no relief. Still, still a thought pervades all this darkness, making its way to the core of my belief. Two is you, tied to survival; night has come, now learn to believe. Night has come, fly forth to receive.

So easily thought of in childhood survival, the blue forest hides as each year passes by, but somewhere in mercy, there sits a kind angel. At night she arrives in my memory she fly’s. Goodbye, I go, the journey enabled, to the blue forest, a memory of trees. Open clock doorways to worlds and their fables, journey I journey with the boy, I know just beside me. Ever this land has brought my heart nearer to something or someone G_D means me to be.

It comes like softness unspoken, an undertone across bare skin, that sleeps next to me. It is so cold outside but here it is like April, teasing and pulling me saying come please. Arrayed by sight, led until I am able to know what is right, in front of me. Paths that gleam white in the blue forest. So many trails, which one shall it, be. A moment a knight, a sword on a quartz table. A sign that says pull forth and be free. Be stronger now and let the child see. What’s two in one G_D has set free.

And so, with this broken and most terrible day at an end, I retreat to my pillow, with only sleep on my mind, thinking not that the night before me offers a path of redemption for I and a long forgotten youthful mind! – 01.18.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

 

Whiteclay

/ Daniel Swearingen / 66 Comments


“Civilization has been thrust upon me… and it has not added one whit to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity”. – Luther Standing Bear

“What must we do, has become what must I do?” – DS

And he looks away!

He sees Whiteclay as immortal sometimes, and perhaps it is. A Northern Nebraska indention between the world of his ancestors and the fifth of Wild Turkey he holds in the very palm of his hand. He feels Whiteclay as an empty faced angel scorching the earth in January, alkali and snow mixing, bringing death to the valley grounds. So cold in winter, there’s not a sound, except the sighing of the last breath of the defeated.  The indigenous, such a nice progressive word, for the itómni man leaving town. The mist it rises barely, over worn blankets hiding flesh, their bottles around them giving unto them a twenty-second century rest. And for the record Bruce Springsteen you can go home, for your song Nebraska, does not come close to atone. Your culture of murder, and thrills. Nothing is real in these Nebraska hills.

And he looks away!

For a million stars that have fallen from this cold sky. A million spirits that failed to gray and die. Look away, he sometimes hears them say. Born to die, die in Whiteclay. And sometimes late night, when he’s so drunk, his greatest grandfather comes riding bareback on the back of a thirteen-point buck. His eyes are smoking, and his feathers gray and black. He speaks in languages that the old ones hid away. Sounds and syllables from way back. In his tongue there is no variance or broken sound, just a rushing river of the winds from the south. The questions he wonders the ones he should ask, always seem to stick in his mind, as his greatest grandfather looks back. For in the morning when he awakes there is no greatest grandfather, only the empty bottle in Whiteclay, and his headache.

And he looks away!

He sees Whiteclay as a metaphor, for the coming future for the whole damn war. For the differences between what has been and the future apocalypse for agnostic sin. He knows it is a place in a state of mind for the drunken Indian that has lost his mind. But somewhere in the springtime when it is not so cold and bare, sometime when the first grass starts to bare, then if he’s alive, he will start again. To drive north from Whiteclay to where this war began. In the dead of night, he will sing a song, do a little ghost dance till the dead of dawn. And from the point of past of where he might have been, he will look away from demons and try to rise again. And then he will toss the bottle of his greatest sin, and he will look away. Finally, he will look away.

And he looks away! – 01.14.2019 – דָּנִיֵּאל