I hold my breath.
When I awake in the morning
I have already caught a lung-full
And keep it there
Refusing to let out
Even the slightest whisper.
I shall tense every muscle
Every ligament, every nerve
In protest of the escape
Of air from my chest.
If I don’t breath
Maybe life won’t notice me
Hiding there trying to avoid
The pain, and the unrelenting
Sting of the numberless
Razors and needle points
That line the walls
And floors and ceilings
Of this place,
And wound upon every
Unavoidable touch.
(Because to be alive is to touch)
Even beauty
Drives itself into me
Such that I suffer it
As a terrifying pleasure,
Sometimes so much so
That I cannot bear it.
I hold my breath.
Clench my teeth,
Biting down hard
To the point of bleeding gums.
Rather would I
Taste copper than salt.
Rather would I the stain
Of blood on my teeth
Than tears upon my cheeks.
I am a string
Upon the instrument of life
Strung far too tightly.
One more wrenching note
Played upon my heart
And I’m sure I will snap.
I hold my breath.
I hold myself
Against the tide.
The waves break
Against my exhausted body.
My body breaks
Against waters inexhaustible.
Battered and beaten
I endure.
For how long,
I cannot tell.
I hold my breath.
I hold my breath.

[Many of the words in the remaining lines of this poem have long since been lost. What ever was once written has faded into blue.]

And then ...
... image of ...
... 
... very soul
Rushing out ...
... wings
...that breath
Now ...
... breath
... set free
When ... see ...
... remember how
... breathe again.

For the best, perhaps. Words when written can themselves become like a held breath. Words spoken are preferable for they must be set free; must take wing on the exhaled breath to be given life. Gaston Bachelard says that the words we use are like little houses we build. Though it is necessary that a house take on the character of those it houses such that it becomes as an emanation of the life residing within it, it is still subject to the winds and waves of time and will be swept away eventually. If the life inside becomes fixed inside that house, it too, will be swept away. Words from the remaining lines of this poem have been swept away, but the life they housed for a time continues on and can be felt through other words and in myriad other ways. Such is the way of life.]

Three drops of Blood on a snow-covered field.
Three drops that causes our hero to yield.
Three drops of Blood there like roses abloom.
To these drops he gives his Soul now consumed.

'Twas the fair Blanchefleur reminded him of.
'Twas the deep crimson 'pon the face of Love.
'Twas the white and red of Heaven’s embrace.
To wash the man clean from stain of all trace.

Into the Dreaming our Parsifal slips.
Into the parting as Blanchefleur’s red lips.
Into the parting, the gateway ‘tween worlds,
In two is he parted, cleaved between selves.

Hear then the fable that holds like the Grail.
Here then the lifting of snow-coloured Veil.
Hear then of Parsifal’s Secret he keeps;
Heart, he now knows, is that Vessel ye seek.

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Lightning is real!
Do you not yet believe?
I have felt it cleave
It’s serpentine path,
Flashing upon the darkened celestial fields
Sowing the seed of Blue
A streak of longing woven through
A thousandfold it yields.
The rolling precession of clouds wear vestments of sweet agony
For the nearness of distance
The Transcendent Immanence
of a Secret Alchemy.
Resounding clamorous in the heavens
The voice of angels in choirs,
The stars playing out their desires,
Shakespearean in their worship
And in their devotion
They will burn up and be desolved.
Their good pleasure
The only measure
Of what cannot be measured.
Eternally in motion and perpetually absolved.
Lightning is real!
Do you not yet believe?
You must see through a certain lens
The colour dance clear
Painting Blue the vision.
Cracked is the sky
Opening wide the mandorla gate
The Athanor of the Eye
Holy transmission for the Heart to revere.
The spark of life’s pulsing rhythm.
The bloods dreaming.
Teeming,
Streaming.
Lightning is real!
Do you not yet believe
I have felt that weaving
Tapestry upon the fabric of my being
Stitching me together.
Were it to cease it would be my unseaming.
Were it not of that hue,
That Blue,
(Ah! that deep Blue)
It could not strike true
Lightning is real!

O Severed Head
You sit there in silence
Who is it, then, that hath done you violence?

You reasoned thus,
In cold calculation,
Surely t'were not the Heart who performed the decapitation.

It had been agreed
A contract was made
Both were necessary, in equal measure weighed.

Ah! Fallen One,
The Hearts ways are not your own.
You wore the crown but you lost your throne.

Seat of the Soul
Is she, life giver
Source and gateway of that primordial river.

Keep your head above
The water, Cap! Avoid the chaos
The deep below, the flux, the pathos.

Master of Sea and Earth
Yourself you have declared
Under your dominion all that dances is now ensnared.

You wield the sword,
O Head, that cuts between
And divides Soul and Body and murders Dream.

And so it was
By your own hands you fell
Forgetting yourself in Holy Eros' ecstatic spell.

And now you lay quiet
Unseeing eyes tremble in the dark
Fear not, you shall learn to see through the Eye of the Heart.

You shall soon learn
The way of formless form,
You shall soon become as the bird in the storm.

First though to fall
From atop that phallic pillar
The enemy of life now becomes his own killer.

The Heart cannot live
Without the Head you once cried
But the Heart, in each pulse, both lives and has died.

The Head cannot live
Once it is, from the body, removed.
Without the Heart's lifeblood it cannot be renewed.

Ah, but the Heart
It lives wherever life itself flows
Wherever it circles and spirals and twines and grows.

Once the cap is put off
The Heart pours out now unfettered
Pours out now in full, pours out now unmeasured.

Tis its good pleasure
To dwell in the distant blue
In summer rains, burnt autumn leaves, and memories of you.

It cannot be contained
It’s nature is to unfold
The Head in its rule would leave it stony and cold.

Seek not to lay blame
Then, O Head, for your death;
If not for your fall you could not have been blessed.

In my veins and vessels stirring,
Not a phantom, not a shadow,
Blest affection closing round me,
Union evermore recurring.

Light and shape from thee assuming,
See, my soul is all thy color;
From afar thy flames enkindle,
Every shred of me consuming.

When my longing kneels and sickens,
Comes thy sweetness to assuage it;
Still thy seed can make me fertile,
Still thy breath surrounds and quickens,

Till the image be created
Out of brightness, out of darkness.
And the dream from tears and triumph:
Thou and I unseparated.

Thin are the night-skirts left behind
By daybreak hours that onward creep,
And thin, alas! the shred of sleep
That wavers with the spirit’s wind:
But in half-dreams that shift and roll
And still remember and forget,
My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.

Our lives, most dear, are never near,
Our thoughts are never far apart,
Though all that draws us heart to heart
Seems fainter now and now more clear.
To-night Love claims his full control,
And with desire and with regret
My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.

Is there a home where heavy earth
Melts to bright air that breathes no pain,
Where water leaves no thirst again
And springing fire is Love’s new birth?
If faith long bound to one true goal
May there at length its hope beget,
My soul that hour shall draw your soul
For ever nearer yet.

The haze of a storm,
Pale blue-grey,
Hides you from me.
I can make out
The shape of you
Amongst the frenzied elements
But the vision never holds.
Sometimes I hear
Your voice through
The rage and the howling.
The tumult.
It cuts through the noise,
Is clear and bright
And for a moment
My heart leaps at the sound
But then it is gone.
When courage mounts
I search you out,
But I have no way
Of finding my bearings.
No way of knowing
Whether I'm getting closer
Or drifting further
from my True North
And my courage is soon
Swept away on the winds.
I pray it goes ahead of me
To find you
Because now the fear
Of losing all sight of you
All sound and all sense
Paralyses me.
Leaves me stuck
In one place.
In no place.
What if one day
The storm subsides
And you are simply not there?
What if the storm continues
Unabated,
Striking at me
From every direction
The lonely cold
Tearing at my skin
And freezing my heart?
What if this blue-grey haze
Is all there is
And I am destined
To chase forever
A phantom.
A shape moving
In the fading light,
And a voice
That passes me by in the storm
As if I am a stranger.

Mine are the dreamings
Of cocooned Caterpillar.
Deep sleeping silent sarcophagus.
Chrysalis clinging desperately to life.
Stained-glass wings glimmering
Unending variously and brightly
Coloured Ecstasies by the light
Of his minds eyes.
Slumbering sun.
Soon to awaken.
See that creature eyeing 
The ornamental asylum
To satiate it’s unchecked rapacity?
What do dreams taste
Like to the digestive machine
Of death?

Write! My Soul, I must compel you.
Let ink flow freely as the Rhine.
Silence not the Hearts deep musings,
Which the gods would their ears incline.

Write! My Soul, tear free from shackles.
Skyward now and take you to wing.
Carve the Lark in her breast a song,
Steal not the Oak from his dreaming.

Write! My Soul. Again, I say Write!
Such a gift should not be withheld.
Open, Heart, to Night’s deep longing,
Find that Daytime's rule shall be quelled.

The In-between
Perhaps a dream?
The Faerie Queen!
The Faerie Queen!

It’s in your head,
Is what they said,
The books you read
Your fancy fed.

But what is Real,
The gods reveal,
Is what you feel
Aflame with zeal.

It was but Fate.
The Heart’s a gate.
The Spell too great
It’s locks will break.

It was to choose,
To bind or loose.
The Soul to fuse,
With Holy Muse.

And so it goes
I spied the Rose,
Then wonder grows
And caught in throes.

That gate to part
That is the Heart,
One feels the smart
Of Eros’ dart.

And so that lance,
A longing glance,
Did so entrance
With true romance.

A vision clear.
A careful ear.
The yearning tear
Of distance near.

Away was took.
The whole Earth shook.
And under foot
A babbling brook.

O Blessed Curse
Of rhyme and verse
Doth now immerse
And mind coerce.

The Birds did lend
Their speech to wend
My Soul, resplend,
To Journeys end.

You’ll find not me
Among the free.
Where shall I be?
Lands of the Sidhe.

The Queen of Fae,
Bound to her Ways.
Caught in her gaze
Till end of days.

I adore autumn.
The Great Work reaching
Its culminating zenith
In the heights of spiralling towers.
Trees whose green is, for a brief time,
Set ablaze,
Fused in union
With Red-Gold Holy Fire.
Before spilling to the earth,
Like a bloody sacrifice
To the winter’s black fecundity,
In whose womb lay
“The flower always found in the almond”;
The spring of the next cosmic breath.

A lamp is lit
In the corner of the room,
It’s glow reflects
In a lone window.
Nearby a book lay open
With pages yet written.
From the outside?
I cannot say.
Perhaps a dim flicker
Seen through the haze
Of the pane.
But the living space
Remains empty,
And the attic gathers dust.
Especially on the boxes.
Chests of future memories,
Treasures gathered up,
Frozen, like statues, in time.
There is no light
Up those stairs,
The night has penetrated
The walls of the whole house.
In the cellar only
Are there signs of life.
Underground rivers
Often flood up to the waist
Pressing uncomfortably
Against the gut.
And even when the waters reside
The place is left chill and damp.
The remaining pools
Give no reflection,
Pinned down from all sides
By the black earth and stone.
But there is the faint sound
Of wandering footsteps
Searching in the deep
Through labyrinthine passages.
Searching, reaching
Clawing in the dark
For something,
Or the other.
A tired voice
Mutters prayers or pleadings,
Conjurations or curses,
In strained whispers
That cling to the bones
Of the cellarage,
Like cobwebs between the rib cage.
His echo calls back to him gently,
Softly causing the wisps
To waver, ripple,
Sometimes becoming unstuck
At the sound’s touch.
The echo seems to him
More real than his own voice.
His heart kicks
Each time it is heard,
As if that first spark
That set it in motion.
Sound and light.
Sound as light.
He presses on.
And still in the house
A lamp is lit
In the corner of the room,
Its glow reflects
In a lone window.
It stands and keeps vigil,
Waiting in day-dream
And hope.
The blank pages
Of the book
Shimmer in the light.
In anticipation.

I hear the sea call her plaintive cries,

And yearning wells up from within.

Sea-scent fills my nostrils,

I can taste it on my tongue.

My watering mouth is a homage to her depths.

I stand upon the shore facing the far distant horizon,

*Of the meeting of two blues who pretend not to know each other.

Crashing waves echo the chambers of my heart,

Slowly crumbling its walls.

The gritty salt water brings pain to an open wound,

And I grip at my aching chest with hands that

rather seek to take hold that old, 8-spoked, wooden wheel,

Or the rope that holds fast the sail.

To beat the tide and battle the eternal turning.

To glide across the surface of that great shimmering crystal,

Winds from each of the seven seas

Bringing mysteries that run their secrets

Across my skin,

Sometimes soft and assuring,

Sometimes course, biting, eating away at my thin exterior.

The gulls begin feeding on my spilled innards,

And the waters become stained with crimson blood,

Spreading like blooming roses.

The high and rolling waves of the unreachable far-off ocean,

Where land can no longer be seen,

Will eventually claim their victory,

And I shall be swallowed up by the Eternal Blue.

Oddly, I have sought it out.

It was my deepest desire all along.

These waters shall unmake me,

And I shall be remade, adorned in spiraling shells,

Like the jewels that litter the corpses

Of the deceased god-kings of old.

With a sunken sea-treasure crown I shall bleed pearls of great price,

And take long walks across the ocean’s floors,

Seeking its lowest troughs,

Wandering within kelp forests and amongst submerged ancient ruins,

Where now making their residence

Only strange aquatic creatures,

unknown to those land-dwellers,

who convince themselves of a firm footing.

The watery language of these citizens of the sea

Is now all I speak.

Then, after a while, I would retire to some dark cave,

Deep, deep within the heart of the sea,

Rushing, swirling undercurrents of deep invading my pours

Into the very marrow of my bones.

Reclining upon a coral throne of many colours.

In contemplation I would sit,

My thoughts awash with the same blue that fills my day-eyes.

No more would tears flow like rivers searching for home,

But would know in an instance their belonging,

Amidst that Perfect Blue.

Alas! My friends, I have no ship.

*Stole that line from somewhere.

Hymn No.1

Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light, with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day? The giant-world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its azure flood; the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it; but more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly closed, melodious lips. Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance. Its presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.

Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night. Afar lies the world, sunk in a deep grave; waste and lonely is its place. In the chords of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of dew, and mingle with the ashes.-- The distances of memory, the wishes of youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapor after the sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents. What if it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of innocence?

What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the soft air of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dark Night? What holdest thou under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my soul? Precious balm drips from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou upliftest the heavy-laden wings of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly are we moved: joy-startled, I see a grave face that, tender and worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold entangled locks, reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother. How poor and childish a thing seems to me now the Light! how joyous and welcome the departure of the day!-- Didst thou not only therefore, because the Night turns away from thee thy servants, you now strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to proclaim, in seasons of thy absence, thy omnipotence, and thy return?

More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those countless hosts. Needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable. Glory to the queen of the world, to the great prophet of the holier worlds, to the guardian of blissful love! she sends thee to me, thou tenderly beloved, the gracious sun of the Night. Now am I awake, for now am I thine and mine. Thou hast made me know the Night, and brought her to me to be my life; thou hast made of me a man. Consume my body with the ardour of my soul, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and then our bridal night endure for ever.

Hymn No. 2

Must the morning always return? Will the despotism of the earthly never cease? Unholy activity consumes the angel-visit of the Night. Will the time never come when Love's hidden sacrifice shall burn eternally? To the Light a season was set; but everlasting and boundless is the dominion of the Night. Endless is the duration of sleep. Holy Sleep, gladden not too seldom in this earthly day-labor, the devoted servant of the Night. Fools alone mistake thee, knowing nought of sleep but the shadow which, in the twilight of the real Night, thou pitifully castest over us. They feel thee not in the golden flood of the grapes, in the magic oil of the almond tree, and the brown juice of the poppy. They know not that it is thou who hauntest the bosom of the tender maiden, and makest a heaven of her lap; never suspect it is thou, opening the doors to Heaven, that steppest to meet them out of ancient stories, bearing the key to the dwellings of the blessed, silent messenger of secrets infinite.

Hymn No. 3

Once when I was shedding bitter tears, when, dissolved in pain, my hope was melting away, and I stood alone by the barren mound which in its narrow dark bosom hid the vanished form of my Life, lonely as never yet was lonely man, driven by anxiety unspeakable, powerless, and no longer anything but a conscious misery;--as there I looked about me for help, unable to go on or to turn back, and clung to the fleeting, extinguished life with an endless longing: then, out of the blue distances -- from the hills of my ancient bliss, came a shiver of twilight -- and at once snapt the bond of birth, the chains of the Light.

Away fled the glory of the world, and with it my mourning; the sadness flowed together into a new, unfathomable world. Thou, soul of the Night, heavenly Slumber, didst come upon me; the region gently upheaved itself; over it hovered my unbound, newborn spirit.

The mound became a cloud of dust, and through the cloud I saw the glorified face of my beloved. In her eyes eternity reposed. I laid hold of her hands, and the tears became a sparkling bond that could not be broken. Into the distance swept by, like a tempest, thousands of years. On her neck I welcomed the new life with ecstatic tears. Never was was such another dream; then first and ever since I hold fast an eternal, unchangeable faith in the heaven of the Night, and its Light, the Beloved.

Is that it knows itself

to be wholly unworthy

Of the mystery

Of which it speaks.

Yet it wraps itself around that

Eternal Secret,

Holding fast.

Holding on for dear life,

Until, inevitably,

It comes crashing down

Upon the shoreline

Where the heart of the listener

Meets the deep of the Blue Unknown.

It is not in comprehension

But it’s own death

that it finds meaning.

A holy sacrifice.

It dies that the listener,

the other,

may live.

It shatters so that the

Heart might shudder.

One’s life should, itself,

Be living poetry.