soul

Snow Canyon (Hallelujah)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 83 Comments


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

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

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

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

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

Happy New Year!

For Susan, Ryan & Kaitlyn – 12.31.2019 – דָנִיֵּאל

Roadside Souls

/ Daniel Swearingen / 51 Comments


“The praises of a man are that he did not follow the counsel of the wicked, neither did he stand in the way of sinners nor sit in the way of sinners nor sit in the company of scorners. But his desire is in the law of the Lord, and in his law, he meditates day and night. He shall be as a tree planted beside rivulets of water, which brings forth its fruit in its season, and its leaves do not wilt; and whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked, but they are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore, the wicked shall not stand up in judgment, nor shall the sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish”. – Psalm I

Somewhere in Colorado on U.S. 50

Fall this prodigious open night; keep dropping, thy great dark curtains wide. Inclosing this abandoned road, this lane of loneliness, fall now shy daemons, left and right, darkened with your errant light. What lies so barren, between my eyes, what doors are open, what lies so quiet, here by this corridor under moonlight? The patched top pavement where patterns glare, pointing to roadside, the dark tree is there, as if a corpse upon this plain, without a leaf it‘s sap decayed its limbs in grief. Bob Seger‘s notes and raspy odes would not begin to set the scene of what arrives here near this tree, this light of Babylon this unholy see. It is a highway in the dark, a sliver of moon that dices my heart. I stop when nothing is around, to go and turn off my headlights, they die without a sound.

Oh grant me composure on this I pray, as the circles of hot wind comes near my face, the tree so near me it takes some shape, that of giants from hells own gate. There seems a question, that I should ask, or some password, that would let me pass. May be a doorway into its way, and further on maybe a cave. For sure, I read upon a time, that Luz is waiting on the other side. Or, it could be a desert opened wide. What do you want I say inside looking around for a sign of life, but nothing happens, at least from sight of common origin, that will not fright.

Instead, a voice, inside my head, it could have been thought, of things I dread, it opened dialogue from by the tree, upon this night by U.S. 50.

“Tell me contrary to all I ask”, said something withering from life gone past. “Give me the opposite of all I say, this is your challenge to pass by this way”. I tried to reason within myself could this be Lucifer, or my own self. Had I gone mad out here away, without the confines of rules to obey? I had no time, as the night closed in, and the roadside went out within, the voice it intoned a game to play, and it was too late then to drive away.

The words flew fast then as words do, with syllables clashing, in darkened hue. It said,

“What of your origin”, I said, “your past”. It said “your future”, I said G_D‘s plans. It spoke of opera, I spoke of blues, it mentioned Bocelli, and I hummed “Howlin Wolf“. It said, “Your soul”, I said, “depends”, its shape was shivering, so I said, “Psalms one, all verses are within”. The conversation lasted past a quarter of three, no lights on the highway, no birds in the tree, and the ground was still but not so the sky, for it seems my answers had pleased something high.

For just a moment, there was a split in the night sky, a moonbeam shot downward, and illuminated my eye, and I saw before me the tree now a stump. The souls of the roadside flying up. A release had occurred, for why I know not, could be an illusion, you decide if it happened or not. Yes, you decide if it happened or not. – 03.10.2018 – דניאל

The Fisher King (Gratitude)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 57 Comments


Be still, so still, the spirit says to me, the Fisher King need not speak, but oh how you will weep, in lessons learned you will weep.

The Fisher King, the last in line, set upon the pale. A gloom it comes, a devils wound, this way it fly’s as well. the angels how they failed. Fish on, fish on, your heart may it break, let nothing conceal your pain. Instead be thankful for this tender day. For one who test you, your mettle known, has given you the field to play. Then play it well. Play it well.

The Fisher King, he’s covered in ashes, buried in places, that no dream can ever come to be believed. This distance it’s covered not in words, a broken place. Spirit and ghost, it be. Here beneath a crooked tree. And all this brings us to the place, a weeping shadowed well. Where a broken pride, turns to the torn sepia sky, that my friend which holds your key in spite. And it screams till the daemons cannot keep their peace, yells to the yellow sun. Falling like Gabriel fell, crying to the holy mystery. My G_D, my G_D, how dust thou find me. In a place where no one sees. The flames licking my destiny, destroying this lame effigy. My Adonai, the malice once planned, in my secret places, dusted clean, burning with the things I need. Burning with the things I need.

The Fisher King is lost in adventure, a bend in a river, the moving waters, the waters so deep. One moment a question, the next a frustration, all this for a journey, that isn’t complete. This cup for the dying, not for the living, could be its better, the life we don’t reap. And not in a forest glen, or a hallowed Arthurian chapel then, with crosses and swords or bows of kind. But deep in the bedroom of my mind, I see what’s hard to believe, the Fisher King is me, such a simplicity. And then in gratitude I turn, to climb the lost steps back through the wound, to fly into the sky, moving in magic all boundaries removed. Motionless, beautiful, the sun in my eyes, my lips held together, I kiss the face of my sweet Adonai. In gratitude.

In gratitude! – 07.15.2017 – דָּנִיֵּאל

Songs in the Attic (I’ve loved These Days)

/ Daniel Swearingen / Leave a comment

Billy was playing the other night on the patio, the grill going, and as I stole from Billy’s soul, I realized I was finally home, and how I’ve loved these days.

Would you reach me, teach me, here on my stoop, before summer comes, before the rain, falls and ruins this food I cook.  Billy, Billy, songs a time of hello and goodbye, while the world goes by, as the time reaches, and “Captain Jack” tokes me high  And I stare, woman I’m so high. Scales, and keys, octaves and pleas, for love, for lights on Broadway. The lights on the patio go, but hell no, not Billy’s show, the music, I hear it all the way from 42nd street. The Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan goes right out to my grass to my weeds, and still he sings, on he sings.

I say this is a mighty time, the best of rhyme, a beer, and as Highland Falls plays, either sadness or euphoria, a wonder of all Gloria. She looks through a curtain a glass, the grill glows, a house still standing, a slab of concrete with a street life serenader, complete, this life so complete.

I light the torches, Los Angelenos, for concrete cooking, a song that sways. For all we know now, in all we listen, this song of city, and on he plays. My, my it’s past time, the darkness falling, Long Island Billy just makes my day. She’s got away now, beyond those curtains, she’s inside now, and soon I’ll reach like Billy to take her away, where grownups play.

A mighty time, where music forces light to still stay, over the foothills, “Songs in the Attic” continue to play. The house needs painting, but for tonight, it just looks okay, for just a little push, and yep, I’ll be smiling. It strikes me then, as I listen to the gypsy, to the devil in Billy’s soul, the kid he wants me to say…I have everything, for everything in this life has gone my way. It’s a mighty time, to end the day, for Susan, your right here, “I’ve loved these days”.

Billy was playing the other night on the patio, the grill going, and as I stole from Billy’s soul, I realized I was finally home and how I’ve loved these days. – 06.15.2015 – דָּנִיֵּאל

All Rights to “Songs in the Attic” – Billy Joel

Love as (Everything) a Challenge

/ Daniel Swearingen / 12 Comments


She writes, “I’m learning to love me despite me, to lovingly sweep the crumbs of that love lost“. I thought about it for a moment, and it occurred to me, perhaps this is the best description of love I have ever heard.

Will she say a circle without end, a predator or victim, the winter she couldn’t bend, will she cry before or after the sin? Does she move her finger like an art, tracing the scar that should hold her heart, does she move in shackles from past ruin? She tells a story that switches a divide, from personality that bears a broken tide, she counts in numbers, backwards, her clock from way inside, she freezes her shadows from her womb. Some parts they come to break apart her craft, to whisper difference, a violence from the past, the unseen cuts of emotion and glass fill her room.

Does she take her chances without start, a burden or a trust, a sometimes worthless spark, does she wear her emotions without wounds? Is she alone, just reading in a room, asking for a gospel, meaning under the moon, has she bound her Daemon, and named his doom? She answers with a question, of innocence inside, the tendency of wonder, to the great outside, a delicate foundation of learning that G-Ds confide, while she blooms. A small simple voice that speaks with falling fear, growing ever stronger, as pain disappears, the chance of love forgotten, the instant of real tears. The mapping of her stars, a leap beyond a tomb, the love of everything, the chance of sudden ruin, the jump that answers questions of life, beyond mood.

Will she bet on love, on love to let her down, will she love always, when love is not around, will she count the moments created for her too? Does she move away from a solitary stance, breaking her aloneness, love that takes a chance, does the creature moving farther in her past, provide her room? For two steps forward one that takes her back, but one gained forward can never set her back, a circle is a strong-willed chain when latched to what it lacks. To what it lacks. To what it lacks. To what it lacks.

She writes, “I’m learning to love me despite me, to lovingly sweep the crumbs of that love lost“. I thought about it for a moment, and it occurred to me, perhaps this is the best description of love I have ever heard.

Thanks Vicki, I copied the above words from your “Love in Ten Lines –Challenge”. This poem is for you. – דָּנִיֵּאל – 05.20.2015

Shoshanna’s Psalm

/ Daniel Swearingen / 8 Comments

Shoshanna,

Let us go a ride into a life of season, clinging to a psalm of delight, sail upon a cloud of olive eyed spirit, overly the keys of a sighing night. There are tides that I will move within a desert, bring forth a bed summon there upon my thighs. Kisses when the sky falls, and begs for legion, I will bare your shoulders, a thousand wishes by my sight. Let a witch bend your spine, and daze your spirit, turn your fallow skin, on a Judean night, set a seal of oil upon your eyelids, thrust you ever gentle till, the seal is made tight. There are falling sons of seventy nations, a span of jealous lights of heavens far high. They would die bled dry on a daemons altar, watching morning rise to be with you tonight.

Shoshanna,

Bespoken by this summons of a Magen coven, essence of a psalm, that takes us through a life. Would I come to you where the sea is weeping, show me rings of light, while questions learn of why, under open sky, less it pass us by. Shoshanna is a rhyme that consumes reason, shifting in my craft, I cry out take my flight…and then she sees, I’m not a mighty witch, I’m only me.

For honest thought, for spirit that would bring a lady what he’s not, a sudden inspiration from some galaxy, a G-D like change that interacts with me, and purifies my magic, and I’m caught, and spins the coals of life into her fold, and she believes and touches me.

Blessed be, he that interacts, and brings her soul intact too me, a song, a thought of magic strong, between Shoshanna and me, and all the world does turn, for deficient light has ceased, a witch on his knees, and in his place of strength a psalm. What is me, when every thrilling spell is gone, and its two come to one, and it’s special like a private night song. Shoshanna’s Psalm. – 02.24.2015 – דניאל

Daniel Swearingen – Shoshanna’s Psalm

Beautiful oh Beautiful (Leary’s Psalm)

/ Daniel Swearingen / 8 Comments


Timothy Leary saw lightning in the desert, he said beautiful, oh, beautiful. Testing hallucinogenic, thought by drug a master, Neurologic telepathy, Exo-Psychology. Was his life disaster, or did he find the answer, when the sun goes down in his Mexicana town, he said, no authority, question all wisdom formally, do it dutiful, be equivocal. What now you telegenic prophet have you heard from, Richard Nixon, you are dangerous, your thought outrageous. From the thought, of cell you have risen altered vision, synesthesia, spoken pharmacopoeia, tell your children as you leave them you have seen their spirits moving when their dead.

Still you say….

Hollywood in color brings Winona, as your god daughter, he said beautiful, oh, beautiful. Respond in kind you’ll see people treat you as they see. Act so natural, not artificial. Yet we wonder reason, did you live for just a season, did you structure your rebellious thought, were you a tyrant or savant. Flashbacks in your mind, Psychedelic Prayers online. Did you think that life extension comes from biological convention, when the chemical intervenes, falls through neurons and screams, and you hear your voice outside you say, beautiful, oh beautiful.

Still some beyond you say….

May be superstition far away from mind or reason, may be addiction, could you think of it that way. Could be natural creation comes and takes hallucination, could be G-D or Autism could be anything, of being that blows you away. Say there Mr. Leary who took a synthetic to reach beyond the stars and still what did you say. “Hearing, breathing sucking, light dark and laughing, what is come is in the past, beyond my mind”. What about a star that falls from the sky, do you not know that cannot replace your mind, and he says….

Beautiful, oh beautiful!

I first became interested in the writings of Timothy Leary after spending some time, with one of his students who had mastered Leary’s Personality Indicator, a combination of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Myer’s Briggs, and a whole lot of LSD in the Mexican desert. I found that once I got beyond the psychobabble, the addiction, the beatnik, there was a mind, which was multifaceted in its brilliance, and uncanny resolve to find the light. I hope Leary did, for in many ways he was Beautiful, oh beautiful. I have taken some liberty with a couple of Leary’s poems above “Hearing, breathing sucking, light dark and laughing, what is come is in the past, beyond my mind” I would encourage you to read them for yourself here. I think you will agree they are brilliant! – 10.28.2014 – דָּנִיֵּאל

The Start of a Day

/ Daniel Swearingen / Leave a comment

 

Creation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summon you letter, sound of the din, curse of believer, friend of the wind.  Slip of the season, born on the range, more than a reason, pictures at play.  Subtle translation, that bends to the bow, cradle of spirit, bereshit below.  Infants and candles, minor keys play, lost in the physics, of a new day.

Crystal of distance, sight of the glow, death of the phantom, start of the show.  Creation tunic that shields a new start, lightning, and earthquakes, spoken by sparks.  Screaming and yelling while banshees die, balance of two worlds born on a sigh, grace, and passion while bodies play, born like a baby, the start of a day.

Destiny of water, conscience below, immortal groaning born of a soul.  Shadow of wisdom, equal in time, pressure of fortune, song, and pure rhyme.  Imminent kingdom, death of the gloom, systems of motion, under the moon.  Heavens are splitting, while feathers lust, done in pure image, the creators trust.

The first day of spoken creation, what was it like?  Did devils look to the sky and marvel at solids appearing out of chaos?  Did the ‘Ancient of Days’ motion or simply communicate by transmitted thought?  So many languages, from time to time emitting the creation story, some complex, some scrawled simply in stone.  I believe in order for there to have been a first day, there had to have been a last, and before that a first, end to end all in a circle, always spoken, always a first day!  – DS 01/14/2014