Psalm

Frost (The Third Lament)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 44 Comments


The watch came upon me at three, the tenor of voices outside, or maybe in the vale of my sleep. I thought, I heard my daddy say, it’s frost outside, but still it’s okay. For trouble in winter is better than spring, your wrapped and you’re ready to weather most anything. It was a dream, or not, for of this I cannot say, for my daddy is dead, and I am in winter, and the frost how it grows, layer upon layer eating my soul. And these hollow hallways where I am not wrapped, my bones feel like the parchment, and my body is bled. And I was not ready, and it was the first lament.

Visions change as hearts do, and so it was a different watch upon a post night, before morning, but still winter. The landscape was white with patterns, I thought myself a child again, in New Mexico, raised upon a high plateau with nothing but frost, that devil so cold. There was nothing else to view. And the spirit of G_D came in lights, racing round my young naked form, cold, and baby blue. It seemed while I wept their raised a testimony, in a voice that sounded like the ghost of my daddy too. And while the frost filled me, I heard the specter, say Hashem has made you the head too. But I was not ready, and it was the second lament.

And the watches changed, for there was no one left before me, and the skies above became like copper, and the earth below made of white iron for the frost knew my name. The dream became me, and I the dream, and I thought of all the clothing I had lost, and what had changed. And I was ready, and it was the third lament.

The dream was morning, with the fire of the December sun burning the frost of the Colorado sky before me. And Adonai burned me, and the third lament was ever within me, a possession, changed and new.

Deuteronomy 28:13 – 12.10.2016 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Ruins

/ Daniel Swearingen / 2 Comments


There oh Ruach fulfill in me, springtime of a destiny,

Rain in ruins, and what’s now green,

There my shadows build a hall of kings,

A hall of kings.

And Ruach fills my ruins with glory.

The train of his robe fills my shadows with glory.

Are we not candles in melancholy black, falling like ashes while no one looks back? Neurons in transit, a darkness of attack, ruins in corners hidden, a high so many lack. Falling like poets on a dusty road, writing to edges where nobody goes, and ruins and pieces, these parts that give back, oh those lonely byways, light that pain attracts. Have you built a cabin, one that leaks in rain, wood that is your story that celebrates your pain? Ruins on dusty highways, pictures looking back, an issue of our century, genius of our tack. Ruins, I’ve seen them bloody, shells of men in pain, and a glory of what’s hidden, in the writer’s rain. For when the brow is furrowed, worried, sights unseen, that ruin of all depression is where G-D’s light is seen.

Tested in great fury, scratches on your back, those who do not worry are those who should look back. For their sits an angel, dark temper in his sleeves, watching special failures, to see those who do not leave. When in all dark passion, when in charm you lack, G-D will kiss your blindness your ruins he will take back. For lonely is a fullness, shadow is a rite, unto you who do not see straight, is a way for light. Come now build your character in ruins that are unseen, gold in tested fire of anchors staid by kings. Ruins that call a people, where only ghost still sing, rising in your fortune, turn around and see.

Settle with the liar, those who hold you back, those who pretend that ruins are things that you lack. Go beyond the picture, those definitions seen, descriptions of your weakness, those teachers that cannot see. Delve into your darkness, pastels that turn to black, commandeer your shadows, your G-D he wants you back. It is now here in all Ruach, that breath that shakes the sun, your night that’s held you’re willing, and the light that brings you back. Your ruins they are spirit, a conscious of your past, a forward of your person fulfilled you should look back, your light is shadows past, your light is shadows past, your light is shadows past.

There oh Ruach fulfill in me, springtime of a destiny,

Rain in ruins, and what’s now green,

There my shadows build a hall of kings,

A hall of kings.

And Ruach fills my ruins with glory.

The train of his robe fills my shadows with glory.

Ruach – A Hebrew word meaning “wind” or “spirit“. In its prophetic form as Ruach HaKodesh it is derived from the Talmud equating Divine Inspiration (Ruach haKodesh), and a Divine Voice as the word used to refer to the Spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, in the Tanakh. For me Ruach that most holy of holy’s resides in the ruins of my soul. – 07.16.2015 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Seeth

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Seeth is a place in mountain woods, when I was hungry I came and I stood, and there did I stand to see your face, and there did you beckon and glow. There did you seeth. A branch not a cup that came in place, and grafted my heart, I was afraid. For G-D claims his own in dignity, there is no need to run or flee, and when you reach higher than you can breathe, he makes your life larger, and gives you reprieve. And he seeth, oh he seeth.

I thought myself farther along that trail, in near a cave where a daemon dwelled. And it looked like a mirror a way of my youth, it reminded me of all that I took. I thought I must cut him out by the root, kill him and leave him there ever forsook. It was a surprise that G-D lifted me, and gave me the sight the eyes of dignity, and he said for at that moment it was he, that cave is part of your home, when you understand that, you won’t be alone oh always looking, at that moment you’ll be free. For seeth that which is you sometimes is wrong, sometimes it takes that, and mends your bone, and here in these woods come forward and see your way is my way in dignity.

So in those woods I climbed a tree, and reached for authority from heights, I sold myself to see, and then I was falling, the ground it came fast, oh speed from heaven like when Azrael my brother of old went past. I thought myself lost, just like him, groaning and lost, bound by a fawning my loud gratuitous thought. But then my arms reached for dignity, that clear decision that was born in me, from holy to holy, from sky to sea, flying above domain of wood and tree. From the midwife of spirit of mountain seed, I birthed my way forward beyond the trees and seeth rose into creativity, beyond all time to a frozen sea. Adonai, Adonai, are you here, in this blanket of freeze, do you hold several keys that will help me believe. In it all I am cold, and it’s so hard for me, said a rhyme from his lips, where’s your dignity. You are one in the wood, where light falls through trees, unified with your fear in a cave, where your heart thought deceit, climbed you high reached below, fell you fast; till you flew in your dignity. Now you stand on the edge of a vast cavernous sea, frozen here in my time for your great inner need.

Melt me, take rime from me, seeth me now in dignity, seeth me now in dignity. For I am a spirit, sometimes lost from thee, and my heart, it craves, like all that seeth, beyond and between to know you in my dignity.

Seeth is a place in mountain woods, when I was hungry I came and stood.

For it is not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but Adonai looks upon the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7 -04.07.2015 – דָּנִיֵּאל 

My (A Psalm of What we know not)

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Graphic courtesy of Weaving Grace

My heart seethes, my texture turns into a rough and challenging sand, my shadow becomes another image of man. My danger challenges, my kiss leaps and catches sorrow where it lands. My distance stretches, and catches suicide, where daggers play, my eyes catch the deadly doctrine in the palm of your hand. My age is worthless, my time is your skin, and forever I am the interest of your anxious need to watch equality swagger drunken in a spiritual wind. My womb is open, my alphabet of relief, my Aleph to your fallen need to know why your love smells like roses and genesis to me.

My breath conceives, my air, a tumor that grows, and overtakes your softer need to touch the earth. My movement, my blood underneath your broken skin, a moment you know not, sheltered whispers I place upon your cracked and barren lips. My craven balance, my scent upon your brain, a footprint a Yod in mind from where all law begins. My oh my how you know not, my nature, my gift, my flame that touches bone the sound of Samech, endless divinity, that defies your end. My face that mourns not, a language long before you thought, forgot. My stars, my earth, my ethereal wonder in all of you.

My Tzadik, my faith shimmer of righteous shine, my sun before morning and my moon blood red before the blessed rise. My Zion, my tangled freedom set in Tav the impression of stone where nations die. My lonely fate, my rush in changing statute just to hold you with me. My Vav from end, my beginning in dreams that utilize the earth, my love for you, my light on and on, my expression, my Hei, my action in thought, fore thought in psalm music played, my you while letters seek the day. – 06/06/2014 – דָּנִיֵּאל


Selah

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Artwork courtesy of Gitzengirl.blogspot.com

Selah

Do you touch Orion, Hashem do you thread my clothes, do you really take me to the places I hate to go. Is it really thought, Hashem, philosophy or time, have I really given you too much credit in this rhyme? Sometimes weak as ashes, blowing in wild wind, I turn myself for lack of water, I cannot let you in. Is this really a covering, escaping from my life, is the name I call as one, laughing while I try. Who is made in heaven, leader, who is sown in hell, what remains a given reason, why my spirit fails.

Selah

Did you know my chosen heart, you never really fell, I touched you like a perfect love, and kissed your soul as well. Light as cold as darkness, and holes as deep as hell, have passed you from their judgment, when I destined that as well. You are like a feather passed upon my dream, in a place that fire can’t find, I will never leave. Take your place from sacrifice, bleed yourself no more, you ask for reason in sullen grace, I ask for so much more. Pause yourself a moment, breath and say Selah, simple as a twinkling caught, a prayer in double thought.

Selah

Fears and thoughts of afterlife, they make my world turn black, cast my lot with cross and nail, and then it nailed me back. Is this the way you planed it, a sacrifice of war, a starving wound of death and age, a lust that feeds my core. Where is my ride on star field skies that lets me touch your face? Alone I die a strange sharp glass indignant, lost upon this human race. What pause is this you give me, when darkness it moves so fast, is this a place of silent stares lost in a cold caress?

Selah

Quiet, in thought, and touch the air, and pause your thoughts of grief, I did not bring you from my mind to watch your unbelief. What is the time that you have made, that I cannot make more? Stillness is my love for you, I’ve never loved you more. Selah in place of higher air, a place worth far much more. In mortality a light is changed, your shadow leaves the room, fair beyond the space I’ve made, is pause I heal your wound. Selah in land that moves and shakes, in witness it does shine, a pause for what Selah creates, I claim it all as mine!

Selah

2014_07_05 – דָּנִיֵּאל

SIX

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Photo Courtesy of Panoramio

You summoned me six fold white art for an ark, and belabored me questions of favor. The blessing of passion, divining a core, a cost of the treasure of labor. Why mass me together and feel with my heart, why guess at your creations endeavor. The stillness around me instinctual law, the call that still echoes forever. Historical pathways, an altar for kisses, a cut on a rose when I’m tender. Affective deflection what is, or is hidden, your spirits of senses forbidden. You’ve spoken of tortures that break into wounds of tender young lovers lost in a swoon, beauty worth stolen under the moon, and still do they not find my pleasure.

Six times you struck me, and asked for a sense, a body to warm you with love as a gift, while interest is building on life as a breath, a common affection with G-D in your wound. What curse of emotion, religion as farce, to say loves a feeling, that’s felt in your heart, a stranger seduction that cuts when it’s done, allegiance to feeling, not owing to none. Six times did you travel, and fail in your mind, and still you did not find love an answer, division of grace, a grief of black lace, a flame, a psalm lost in shame, by the talons of raptors.

In six beats a rhythm, a time of true might, a place of instinct formed before night, a constant that keeps now forever. A point, a plot by six times forever, a love of law written in charm, by craft, by skill in sound before dawn by ether. A touch, a start, indefinite shine that lifts me from my knee, and breaks me now a man, not so clever. A puzzle, a gift, six times a seal, a star, that open heart, now wrapped forever. –דָּנִיֵּאל – 05.03.2014

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Sweetened Day (I Want to Dance With You)

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I want to dance with you on a sweetened day, when the lines are still perfect, and your hair is gray. I want to open up the womb of time, and let those past shadows melt away, and when you glance at me and my breath just fades, know the testing of my thunder is the sound of your fears running so far away.

I want to bathe your body in a living rhyme that knows not of your sickness, or your wasted time. I tested dialectic on what you might claim, is your bloodied cuts of heartbreak, on your arms of shame, and when that moon of justice turns its head away. I will hold you in compassion on a sweetened day.

I want to birth your worries on a field of grace, when the details of dark anger seem too much to face. I instigated pattern, when you chose this way, and your stumbles ever awkward, are stillborn into wonder. Your fear will know love’s knowledge, on this sweetened day.

I want to burn your guilt, with laughter, on this sweetened day. When I turn in wind before you, and my words they light auroras, emanated law before you, living Torah, chosen weakness. In your failure, adoration, all above my own creation, genetic glory of grand elation.

I want to dance with you on a sweetened day, let you stride in sapphire and touch my face. I want to summon light forever, dry your eyes in my hereafter. For in my creation, of atom and rhyme, perfected reason of destiny’s time, to watch you breathing so unashamed, has made my day grow longer, a sun forever stronger. I turn to take you with me cross the hope of man with love for me, on this sweetened day. – דָּנִיֵּאל 04/26/2014

Blessings of the Writer (Psalm of Tiferet)

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Poet, you chase me, contain me in a breeze. Creator, a story, that’s born in me to believe. Wonder, first footsteps, a child you must first feed. Chastened, by darkness, you lose your mortality. Listening, stirred inward, your desert takes its toll. Hear now of a fever, a story never told. Haunted, by a sonnet, of a ghost that thieved its soul. Spirit’s, drunken soldiers, the pleasure’s still untold. Firelight, in a canyon, a pen it scribes of love. Silent, before magic, the rum it finds my blood. Tattered by the critique, the one who cannot see, the blessing of the writer when lost in mystery.

I defined G-D casting lighting, felt summer when it’s cold, written of assurance, with demons in control. Old men that were Merlin, have written in my sleep. Valleys, retained by witches have sown the words I reap. Candles, in leafless forest have chased me with a rhyme. Daniel, you have dominion, Bel’s prince has summoned time. You helped me scribe the starlight, from high born desert nights. Etched my thought in shadows, and led me to the light. The ode of throne and sapphire, a dreamed that stopped my strife, the blessing of the writer, the sparks that changed my life.

Compose, now I a changeling, an alchemy not taught, a summoning of fusion, tainted by some thought. Write I, now the sound unmade, deficient of first light, reform it to its bed now made, and ask to have real sight. Honor me with writing that changes form and deed, give me striking wisdom that grows this tree of peace. Let delight seize me, and write down song in me. Constitute the psalm of sea, and let me sail away. Establish on my forehead and arm for time to be, the blessings of the writer, my familiar trapped in me. – דָּנִיֵּאל 04/16/2014



Whispers by autumn (A Prayer of New Days)

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Whispers by autumn, they rise and they go, no voices just writing and bearing a witness of the light that raises my soul. Sweet gift of the union, the magic of man, the budding reunion of Torah, a kiss on my forehead and hand. You take and you sing me, like psalms of the heavens, a child’s understanding, a deep heavy rhythm, incredible numbers, the wording, for glory like comfort when sleeping in the seal when you gently pass me by. Adonai-Nissi, a breath worth chanting, a ratable cleansing, a curse or a blessing, the words are written in autumn by my hand.

Whispers by autumn, like shadows of love, your gaze in my fallen hands, suddenly, that critique so old is commanded in shades of sapphire. Scores are summoned, who will understand, impulsivity, the wind of YHWH reeling like thunder in the cortex of my passion. Now my pen dances, and will not harbor what used to be me. You will not judge me like some forlorn spirit disgraced in this electrical fallen age, rather you consider me immortal, and my sin you consider equal in phenomenon to your compassion. My autumn saves me with vespers enchanted, and in my thought I write the wonder of you.

Whispers by autumn, beholden grace in syllables reserved for the nomenclature tangled in the wakes of angels. Sight well hidden now risen, born and elaborated, given to numbers and directions, measuring figuratively by given perspectives this new temple. That building of written psalm that Teit-Vav has considered constructed under autumn sight for me. What was silent, has disappeared, a phrase believed is written living, a word holy, committed deeper than any living memory. Now invade me, cast me to that place of living, and I will praise you in rhyme. Whispers by autumn, they rise and they go, no voices just writing and bearing a witness of the light that raises my soul. – דָּנִיֵּאל 03/07/2014

Praise Your Brokenness

/ Daniel Swearingen / 4 Comments

Image

Breathe my name, over there in a private place.  Not to elusive or too brash, just a psalm of tenderness.  You are mine formed in Pre – Adamic rhyme, not a warrior or a test, just my praise to brokenness.  When you sigh, do not regret, take a moment to look behind, at those dreams that left your side, when your demons took your mind, when you cried and asked to die.  Here we are just G_D and man, linked together in loneliness, from the beginning of your need.  There is no creed just one promise between you and me when you finally free your light, I will praise your brokenness.

Just bargain your way from compassion let judgment rest, what you cannot seem to find, is resting in this rhyme.  Hold not, nor idolize a creature that draws your tears.  Suffer not an excitement that treasures gold, or a deceiver that shames and scolds.  That’s not my way to shame or depress, but in its time my Torah will confess, my face will turn the dye will cast, and I will offer tears of fire just to praise your brokenness.

The dance of intervening time has come, the moon has chased you to my shore.  Stand inside the place of stars, deny the sorrow of inner war.  Redeem your plan of sacred sign, delve in spirit that moves with sight, here in light you breathe your last, not by thought but brokenness.  I am not master if I deceive, I will not judge your unbelief.  I am your G_D that hides my face.  I turn to you and you are mine, and as you pass forever more, from beginning to evermore, we are two in one belief, we began as one infinity.  Breathe my name it’s all I need, just my praise to brokenness.

Scream and cry like bones when shattered, loved and hated when defenses are broken.  Something in your prayer has always set me free.  Funny this association between breathe and freedom, the joy between your loneliness and my eternal plan.  In and out of time we have clung to the last of days, and I have healed your shame.  Here in this private place, while your home grows faint and distant around you, I your G_D will take your grief and I will praise your brokenness. – דָּנִיֵּאל 02/22/2014