OR A SLICE OF LIFE |
BY
JOHN LAIRD
Book II
Copyright © 1998 - 2005
Concocted from
and
Subtly flavoured
by
Daily exposure
to the
Australian Ethos.
Dedicated to
The Family -
around whose tables
rich fare has been offered
- much exchanged.
Allah made poetry a
Cheap thing to buy, and
A simple thing to understand
So that all men might
Profit from it.
Cooking instructions
For FOOD OF THE GODS
All poetry should be read aloud.
The symbolism and often used poetic license
is solely to emphasise the underlying fact.
It adds poignancy, pungency and
flavour to the dish.
Only be still
Commanded the Zen Master
And the unuttered may be heard
The mind illumined with
The unspoken word
Be still
Advised Gurdijeff
And let the work unfold
Effort destroys the work
Govern the unconscious flow
And Spirit will instruct without words
The seeker on the way
Be still
Said the carpenter
In the quiet mind speak with the Father in secret
Be still
The lord Buddha said
Put all desire away
Only be still
And enter into unity with him
Be still
The lord Vishnu said
Be still
Calm the mind
Master thought
And so escape the wheel
Be still
Counselled Mohammed
Be still
And he will reward thee with peace
The Masters teach us thus
To be still
The vision is seen only in deep quiet
The gift granted to the still spirit
The treasure is nurtured in the soundless centre
It is a great vanity to seek it beyond the self.
Framed with sure purpose to unfold
Unseen it rests recumbent in the seed
Ensures each generation's special grace
And with rich bounty meets
Each individual need
Bright entity
The living spirit none can ever see
It is the joyous ecstasy
Of this world's life
It speaks
Beyond all doubt -- all fear
And the day's strife,
Of Spirit
Of my soul's home
Of immortality
And wordless sings my soul
I am - and it is me
It is the substance of our faith
Transforms the visioned thing
It is our own enduring love
Transmutes the unsubstantial dream
Into the firm fleshed reality of being
Such dreams, such visions
And such radiant hopes;
They need our faith; our love,
And hands most caring skill
To bring them into being
Fuse them with life, and make them
So real -- so beautiful
The savage energies of lighting
Electric powers and fire
The growling Thunder roll
Yet the same storm
Energies now spent
Covers the high hills
With the white purity of snow
Magical, blue shadowed
Smooth contoured, Silent
And so beautiful
And the same steadfast sun
Bright over all
And the still voice demands
"Hast thou girded the heavens
Weighed the winds, or know
The secrets of the waters,
The treasures of the hail
Or of the snow?"
Humbled, I said
"I know that all things
Are the work of thy hands
Thou art dreamer
And fond dreaming
Precious
Beyond understanding
Dust though my body be
And thou unseen but clearly known
I worship Thee."
Words I can say, but they mock me
They sunder us, keep us apart
From the deep tender yearning
And caring
The passion and love of the heart
How can words say what love is?
Words speak for the hungry heart
Words and the magic of loving
Are the depth of the spirit apart.
The song so artfully crafted -- the delight
Garnered of practical day to day living
Bird praise for daily bread -- for peace at night
The dawn hymn of melodious giving
Listen my soul, in the grey dawn waking
Lift spirit at the wild melodious song
Let heart sing, with the black and white bird
In the quiet dawn
The fluted magic of his concert
Musical song
My Scottish grandmother told us, we had a pet magpie at the time,
that the birds foretold the future.
So long ago, I cannot recall all the signs but I am sure the
number reached ten, though one rarely sees magpies in such large groups.
I do remember that nine was real trouble. She associated this with the
nine of spades --blackest card in the pack and the curse of Scotland, related
in some way with the "clearings" of the crofters and peasant families throughout
the British Isles, which infamous work was the foundation of the wealth
of many of the British landed gentry. Ireland also has bitter memories
of those troubled times.
Through the first hot flush of manhood
And the strength of the middle years
There's never a thought for eventide
For the bitter hour that nears
Regrets are poor consolations
The bright hopes now empty and vain
And of the years rich treasures
Dim images only remain
And the young men take up our burdens
And the young women take their men
And the young world hurries by heedless
Of the old man dreaming again
He smoked a heavy Capstan plug, shaving a pipe bowl full at a time with a tiny pocket knife kept for the purpose in the pocket of his waistcoat; all now so rarely seen. He replied:
"It's all I have left now, that and my memories."
Not till our striving cease
Shall the seeker find
Shall the restless spirit find peace
Light flood the mind
Then the soul -- now cabined and pent
Imprisoned -- of full beauty shorn
Shall be free -- when the veil of death is rent
And through death be reborn
My Japanese friend told me
When I spoke with him on this
" We have a proverb
Of a man gathering radishes
When asked the way, he spoke not
But pointed to the west
With a radish"
Long years afterward, and tiring now
" How goes the road from here?"
I asked the Reaper
He likewise answered not
But with his long blade
Pointed toward the west
Now trusting (well beyond hope)
That the long road nears its end
I think my Mother wisest
Her loving touch, the loving words she said
" Be confident dear boy
Just look ahead."
Tho priest or guru guide
My feet must walk the way
None but myself can discipline the mind
Control the swift river of thought.
Sanctify imagination
None but myself can cleanse the images
Destroy old gods, master the will,
Master desire and master black doubt.
Place feet in the way with faith
Direct new purposes with intent
Forsaking old ways, and
With greater vision plan the new.
None but myself -- and mark this well
My confidence in Him.
Thine is the bright observant eye
The spirit strong
The will to follow
The way, as stumbling on
We see -- clear, more clearly
On the morrow
For ever was it so
The dream, the vision and the grail
But the body
Oh the well loved flesh
With all its stubborn will to fail
We need must pray
Dear head of gold
Be still and pray
Dear heart, in faith forever strive
That other better way to hold
And stumble on with feet of clay
The golden dream to keep alive.
Within the hedges, trees and willowed streams
In windswept waves a sea of ripe wheat gleams
And bold the bright sea of fruitful gold
Mock at the deep blue arch above it rolled
And sweet, the hot wheat scented air
In shimmering waves ascends
The rich broad acres carefree flaunt their wealth
Whilst the hot sun marks the ripening days with smiling stealth
( And in the barn the farmer oils the reaper.)
Eagle -- spread on the wall
Resting firm and securely
The hard enduring spirit of the rock
Flowed in and through me
Sweet moment! Bonded on the wall
Secure -- exultant
Sweet moment, rock and man
Spirit triumphant
Lord the vision on that wall,
Such utter sweet content
One ageless -- one eternal rest
Such gifted moments
Ambrosial
It breathes a fragrance
Lost with Eden
The sharp incense ascends
A sacrament
It sings exuberant praise
Through all our weary
Or more delightful days
What wonder that we access peace
By such pleasant simple means
The generous aromatic gift
His humble coffee beans.
And the peaceful blue
Of the quiet full sea
And the sun warmed air
And we alone,
That sweet quiet day.
Just you and me.
Dear heart, could ever
It happen again
Just you and me
With the quiet bush
The quiet rock
And the murmurous sea
Such a day and such a sea
And you dear heart
And me.
Broad and smooth, the great road
Runs fleet thru the great hills
A visionary thing
Splendidly engineered, bold
With the great cuttings -- the vast fills
Magnificent sandstone bluffs
Display the engineer's skills
To colourful perfection
The cuts exposing the beauty
Of the heart of those ancient hills
Layer on delicate layer
Age upon age seen there
Ages of dappled -- of prisoned sunshine
Truly the sands of time laid bare
Biscuit n' beige
Soft gold and russet brown
The sunny colours bear
Mute witness of the long years
The long hot summers
The long gone ancient sea that lies
Encapsulated there
Crowns on the dark green hills
Great slumberous boulders
Dark skinned, alert, recline
Dark spirits of ancient hunters
From the long gone dream time
Against the azure sky
Great road and ancient land
Boulders, hills and trees
All bars or grace notes
Of an endless song of praise
A song from the heart
Praising the Maker.
The good earth
And His engineers
And what is the deepest thing in the world
And my little boy said -- why Dad
Its the sea, every one knows its the sea
And that's as it was and ever will be
And what is most blue in all the world
I asked him next, and he answered me
Why Daddy, the sea, of course the sea
As it was before and ever will be
And my little boy
Who listened with glee
To my simple riddles
About the blue sea
Cried with delight
As the little waves curled
" What is the wettest thing Dad
In all this world?"
As I pondered the riddle he put to me
Saying " Now what could that possibly be?"
He laughed with joy
And answered me
Why Daddy, of course the sea, the sea
The sea is the wettest that ever could be
And that is just as ever has been
And, praise be the Maker, will ever be seen
Away through ages of living
And dying -- of birth and rebirth again
The tired souls flee for refreshment
In sleep to the Mother again
And soon we shall bed down forever
In the ancient sleep of death
And rest in the good Mothers bosom
Till once again we shall draw breath
We can learn from the riddle of sleeping
The truth and the meaning of death
This land boy
When first we came
Fed thousands -- birds
'Roos and all their kind
These now parched fields
Were rich with game
And the trees rich with honey
And birds flocked in hundreds
Far as eye could see
This land -- this parched dry land
Was beautiful to see
When first we men looked down
From the gap above
It teemed with life
And at night
Scores of native fires
Twinkled across the plain
A pretty sight
Then was no man called Master
None said -- Do this -- Do that
No man black or white
Slaved to pay tax
The good earth managed itself
Without fence or mortgage or an axe
It was so rich
It warmed our hearts
And to our shame
We took it
Without mercy or justice
Or even common sense
Just put in the fence, gave it our name
And moved the natives on
Only a few years argument
Then they were gone
And we put the axe in
Ring barked the trees
Stripped the rich undergrowth
And cleared
Birds animals and bees
We had a few good years
But look at it now
Its the same sun, shines in the sky
Its us made the drought
We made and we crazed these fields
Its us made the creeks run dry
So don't curse so, boy
At God or the drought
Boy, the lesson is grim but clear
We brought it all here
So stop swearing at the sun
And stop growing grain
Stop over stocking
Replant your hills
Protect the watersheds
And you and yours
Will live in peace again
She is most lovely
Lying with me there
The quick electric's of her skin
The moonlight mystery
And the delicate fragrance
Of her unbound hair
What folly to destroy
Such magic moments
The beauty of the trust
That held us there
The gentle spirit
The pale limbs
And her lovely face
Framed in the magic
Of her unbound hair
Eves steadfast eyes
Eves loving gaze
Entranced me
Gave purpose to my days
Eves gentle lips
Eves kiss
The Mothers sweet caress
Lovers shared bliss
Eves scented hair
Eves crown and filigree
Unbound a wonderment
Most subtle mystery
Dearest daughter Eve
Dear Eve -- eternal lover
Dearest woman Eve
Dear Eve eternal Mother
It’s only a step or two away from fabled Eden.
Entranced, I saw complete and rounded whole
In that bright stone, an image of my soul
The secret steadfast core of me
And clearly and as strongly as my own
I glimpsed the steadfast spirit of the stone
Ah both, bright fragments of eternity
I saw most clear the fire in the stone
And I was certain then, that the stone saw me.
Let the work unfold
Effort destroys the work
Govern the unconscious flow
Of thought -- be still
And spirit will instruct without words
The seeker on the way.
Showed in the bloodied
Embattled life of Troy
Sad image of the haunted human soul
How we ourselves destroy
The image of the splendid self
Ravish and lay wanton waste
Our own souls true untarnished wealth
Lined out, full fatefully and clear
How we, most plain each day
Shape willful our own destiny
The fates and circumstance that slay
And that ourselves do weave
The sly deceptive webs which we
Cast wide our own souls to deceive
And that no peace at all
Will great Ulysses find
And he so surely limned as me
That with long toil of mind
And bitter daily strife
Find his own way to long sought home
And here at last
Destroy the suitors and the faithless maids
And no more roam
But there regain the Bride, and the good life
And there peace, and sweet communion earn
Till at the journeys end this life forsake
And last lone voyage undertake
The mystery of our last dark secret journey learn.
Seed of all matter,
Seed of all spirit too?
A most improbable parent
Of the rich world we view
Magnetic yin and yang
Sounding the quick pulse
Of long eternity
So long the journey, just begun
For thou dear heart and me
What subtle precepts
Does it employ to shape
The impalpable concepts
That order life and fate?
Such improbable place
To engender Justice and Mercy
To fashion concepts of love
And of grace
The wonder of love dear heart
And of thou and me.
The difficulty is not the physical universe, but the origins ( in an atom ) of the great spiritual concepts which govern and direct life. We have a long long journey before us before we understand.
Dreamed of something unknown
Something lovely
Something loving
Something new
Dreamed of a great desire
Dreamed of a gathering profound
Through all his senses
The stirring of a nameless hunger
Dreamed of woman
And awoke
To find Eve there
The crowning glory of his world
Crown and glory of Eden
Lover and Mother still.
Beauty dreamed those limbs of beauty
Envisioned the mercurial mind
Fired the lovely work with passion
Framed the mother of mankind
Beauty wrought with urgent purpose
To shape creations noblest earth
And sealed within her richest treasure
The ageless sanctity of birth
Beauty twined a spell about her
Compounded of all charms and art
And woman was, when beauty bound her
Dear companion in mans heart.
I believe though, that in spite of the idealism it is a better vision than that presented all too often by the entertainment media of today.
I believe with Barbara Cartland and others that our modern world must, for it’s survival as a civilised society, recognise women as the lifebearers, the nurturing heart of the family, the equal partner and the good companion.
It was Saul, hell bent on persecuting the early Christians and who, after his dramatic conversion was named Paul, imposed his own distorted celibate attitudes toward women upon the new faith.
None of his strictures are of Christ's teaching.
They have imposed an enormous burden on the human spirit through
the ages; it continues, sadly, to influence the Church to this day.
Such clear pure colour
Refracted from the curve
Of the pristine droplet
The secret central nerve
Pristine pure, superbly beautiful
This sparkling morning dew.
The bright sweet hours that we enjoyed
In that so distant day
A never failing memory
Each in our different way
Better the parting then, it seemed
Such sad decisive days
Sad end to all the love we had
And went our separate ways
Time healed the wound and other friends
And other ways were found
And other loyalties were forged
And other loves were found
Once more we meet. My heart leaped up
Rejoicing that we found
A warmth of friendship has replaced
The love so long unbound
Oftime it seems we sometimes both
In that warm friendships safe embrace
Across the crowded room will look
So glad to see the once loved face.
The silent voice within,
Our surest friend
On that uncertain way
Between the unsolicited start
And the sad unwanted end
Death surely but the waiting room
For the next ( and still unchosen ) birth
A resting, growing, waiting
In the rich womb
Of regenerative Mother Earth
It is so clearly seen,
Eternal life
Is but the ageless wonder of
Eternal birth.
Yet millions believe devoutly in reincarnation. There are some thought provoking stories around which tend to support the belief, many documented individual stories of apparently clear experience of reincarnation. Many give credit to the Indian belief that at a certain level of development, the human spirit is freed from the wheel of rebirth, and there is a western concept which relates the orthodox Christian view of immortality with continuing rebirth. Modern channelling is rich in very detailed stories of past lives, many of which to me, have the bright ring of imagination, an imagination which has perhaps glimpsed the bright reality.
The high wide sky is azure blue
White thunderheads around it stand
The roar and the crash of the surf and spray
And the sea is a deep dark blue today
And the dark forest brooding the hills is seen
Deep shadowed, and thousand tinted green
And a tired city man
With his children
Silent about his knees
Stands, warmed with the sun
And the beauty, of the earth
And the skies and seas.
And his children too
Rapt with the beauty
Laughed as they ran to play
And the wings of their minds
Were unfolded, forever
To earth's beauty that day.
"What" Cried Spirit, "What is it all about?
What is the purpose. What the Goal?"
"When" Cried Time, dazed with the riddle of infinity.
"When will it end?"
"Where" Screamed Light, shattering darkness and revealing the Void
"Where the centre, where the source?"
"Why" moaned Brute Life, "Why life at all?"
"Why death?"
"Who" muttered First Man,
"Who the Maker?"
"How" question His Sons, unravelling the dark aeons of their past;
with questing mind, unveiling the Laws, and shaping the unborn future
in the image of the unknown Maker.
Who -- The Eternal
How -- By the Word
When -- In the beginning
Where -- In the Void
What -- The Universe
Why -- That is the question
Ask it of Him.
The bell tolls -- and the hours return
And time claims our attention once again
But the radiance lingers
Or all were lost.
The journey and the battle.
Not -- no never -- after prayer, in vain.
To fashion species
Did I say?
I'd rather say
To create beauty
Wonder -- colour -- form
With grace and humour -- awe
And a deep impersonal love
Of the subtle intangibles
That make this earth
The wonder that it is.
The wise spirit, sweet child,
Enters into all -- sees all,
Feels all
And enters into life with gladness
And thus partakes of all.
Five thousand years
Along the infinite way
They quarrel still, amongst themselves
And war with their neighbours.
A stiff necked people
One of themselves
A carpenter, in Herods day
And of the house of David
Taught them a simpler,
And a better way
He taught:
But two great laws
Are now defined
With all thy soul and mind
To love thy God
And then,
To love thy neighbour as thyself
This second law the harsher rod
And so we pray
Stern God of Israel
Thy Kingdom come
Dear God, our Father
May thy meek will be done
The modern history of Israel appears but a continuation of their Old Testament history - a rich prosperity cursed with a bitter spirit. They seem to have learned little of their own scriptures continuing revelation of the nature of their own God. The vast development of Adonai Jehovah to the Messiah of David and Isaiah. We know the Jewish reaction to the Son of God - long prophesied in their own books.
The spirit of the law, continuing revelation through the Old Testament of God as Father seems to elude them still.
Only in our lives
Free will -- obstinate
Selfish and self destroying
Intervenes
The might have been
Had I but known her lonely
Before that fateful day
Both lost now, to each other
For the words we did not say
Loving, but lost and lonely now
Each on our separate way
All beautiful but unsubstantial
But good folk all -- and Fairy Queen
The deep loved woman of my life
A lovely shade -- ephemeral
Dear God, an image and a dream
Silver and strange and quiet the night
And with the rose and gold of dawn
All fled in streams of golden light
And I left desolate alone
Cold on my own green lawn
Crisp and clean the mountain air
The stars a blaze of glory
The dark like velvet there
And seeming
Fit source of the long dreaming
And sudden, in the still dark night
In a moment of quiet
We heard a Keening
We stilled our breathing
Better to hear -- half heard
An almost silent ring
Unbroken, smooth -- sustained
A fragile delicate thing
It stirred the heart
A note of half heard silence
Heard, pure and strong, but then
A half note -- just a ring
Above the edge of silence
Heard only
Under the very edge of the great quiet
A hidden edge
Under the soft purple of the desert night
A tone one felt to be
The sigh of the edge of the world
As it sweeps immensity
Never to be forgotten
Mythic voice of the world
Singing to men
Of the lone voyage -- vast spaces
Eons of time and of lonely places
And a music
Far far beyond our ken.
There is a sighing and moaning
Of the ancient slow heaving sea
The deep swells lifting and falling
The grey combers heavy yet free
The fishermen gather their nets in
Their sea eyes keen to the glass
Weigh wind and wave with sea wisdom
Hard learned from the sea,
And know that this too will pass
There is an hissing and surging
Of heavy sea beating hard shore
The rage and the raven of undertow
And the burst and the crash and the roar
And the hard men who sail the great seas
Know well to seek haven and calm
Home, wife and child and the warm hearth
Safe harbour
When the great seas thunder in storm.
Who knows the source
Of dark unvoiced desire
That colours our dreams
And shapes
Our days most willful course
Who knows?
Who knows who feeds the deep
Red fires unseen
The flickering shadows of which
Dark on the cave wall
People the dream
Who knows?
Who knows himself
With thought, will gain reprieve
From the lax life of the shades
And with intent, achieve
His own preferred
His chosen destiny.
The slow disease of stellar dying?
Or shall we, grown so old
Have long outgrown the flesh
This planet and that sun
This body found to be
The chrysalis of a free spirit
And, matured in time, set free
No longer flesh foredoomed
To gilded heaven
Or Hells dark misery
Now free --
Word and spirit one
And our long journey
On the Way, to the stars
And beyond, truly begun
Men melded in mansoul
No longer self, but one,
Creations destiny
Immortal man
Seeding the stars
With glorious progeny
The dinosaurs appeared in the Cretaceous period as small amphibians
and their kind grew and developed over a vast span of about 100,000,000
years. The human being likewise had a lowly start, but developed a rich
consciousness, capable of contemplating immortality, and is still developing.
What will we be in 100,000,000 years? Very different creatures from our
present state. It is more than just a fancy that by then we may have outgrown
the body. Why not indeed. The concept is already held in more minds than
one. While the velocity of light is an insuperable barrier to physical
contact with the stars, mental contact can be instantaneous, and it will
probably be by such means that we bridge the gulfs of space. To advance
such views seriously is to invite charges of insanity; but a poet can envisage
such with impunity.
This is indeed
The long and oft sought truth
The open doorway
To our human earthly heaven
Be still
Only be still
The sad deep tide of human pain
Can only thus be soothed
The sad worn child be folded in
The Fathers heart again
Be still, it is an easy rod.
Be still and know
I AM is God
The rich feast
Scents unimagined by man
All the intricate mystery
Of living and dying
A separate universe
Each tree an empire
With its rich and diverse life
Individual to every separate tree.
Through the sturdy trunk and branch
Delicate twig and trembling leaf
Of each and every living tree
Runs open and free
A teeming ecstasy
And all this,
We wondering see
But they:
Unknowing and uncaring
Of either you or me
But for me,
And the man next door --
The neighbours have a new stereo.
Who hasn't heard it? It comes in a thousand ways. Lawnmowers on Sunday.
The cacophony of highway traffic. Brakes and gear changes at the traffic
lights. Muzak, thank God, dying. Music, competing against music from competing
stores in the shopping centres. Aircraft -- helicopters prying and spying
or crop dusting all day. Speedboats on quiet waters. Trail bikes in the
bush; discos, jackhammers, bulldozers and compressors, the rubbish collectors
at 5 am! And above all a ghetto blaster in charge of a don't care neurotic.
Clear it is that thru the ages
The long unbroken line has run
In the sifting of all nations
For the building of the one
And that yet the ancient purpose
Still evolves its ancient plan
The consummation clear about us
In a brotherhood of man
The races and the colours mingle
In Commonwealth and free estate
Strange that the single line that bred them
Should find in Commonwealth its fate
Search mind
Seek and find
In the brains recesses dim
Truth and light
Wrong and right
All is hid within
Seek mind, search and find
Far beneath the flame of youth
For the primal
Infinitesimal
Point of truth
Seek and find
Searching mind
Seekers shall rewarded be
Search and find
And finding bind
Peace and power unto thee
But, faraway, glow briefly
Rose amber and gold
( How she loved such colours )
The spires, the domes, the minarets
Long sought, often dreamed
And sometimes brightly visioned
The tenements of the celestial city
The warmth of her spirit again
Heaven
Loves nest
Hunters home
Palaces of dreams
Vision of Peace
The ineffable light
And journeys end
Intention never revealed
Purpose inscrutable
Law adamantine
Law irrefutable
Ask not -- so vain to seek
The author of the Law
Dreamed only and imagined.
The stern reality
Fierce -- unendurable!
A vision yet, beyond our ken
All such are but
Our dreams, our names
Our vision of the Real
Bright, or sad, images of men
Long ages yet, along
Our infinite, still dreaming way
The law, adamantine thru such age
Will still hold sway
Over mans spirit
And we, by the same Law
Will deeper wisdoms have
And sweeter grace
And deeper faith uphold
And deeper truths will face
Through long dream time
As in faith we saw,
We gain a deeper knowledge of
The still immutable Law
And surely will fashion then
A wiser and a greater God
Who will keep fealty for
A greater and a wiser
Race of men.
A continual saga of discovery, of unfolding, of understanding and of mystical intuitive revelation of the content, and infinite potential of the adamantine laws of nature in which inscrutable framework we find ourselves not trapped as some feel, but deeply interwoven.
By the time we're three
The twig is bent
And round about seven
Is shaped about his future
-- Hell or Heaven.
At 21 -- or thereabouts,
He takes a wife
Maybe, for the rest of life
And strangely,
As was shaped at three
Determines whether love will be
Good or bad -- or both
Happy enough, tho sometimes sad
Or tragic when the childhood's bad
In age, the pattern is no other
Than that impressed on child
By Mother
When he was three to seven
And his sere years
Will be embittered Hell
Or, Mother loved, well taught
Grow old in earthly Heaven
But the strong blood diluted
As the sons of God then
Married those most delectable
Daughters of mortal men
So the strain weakened
And three score years and ten
Became the normal span
For the surviving men
Those delectable daughters
Still make
Life's burden worth the strife
And three scores years and ten
Are clearly plenty for
Both husband and loving wife
Men's daughters of today
Really wouldn't - now or then
Want a passionless century
In any way
With any of this centuries Ancient men
Fear not
Great mysteries
Hover unresolved
Not yet divined
Nor yet imagined
Within you
The future seed
Of tomorrows tumult
And its beauty
And the wonder
Of unborn years
Such seed is yours
The reason and the work
Of the long years to be
Are germane to you
The art and architecture
Of the new world
Shaped by your spirit
Contained within your seed
Safe in your children's hands
Their unborn progeny
And I said
" Father I rest my faith in Thee "
Praise without words
The words are but the breath
Of the passionate song
From the spirits depth
And I with her
Explored that deep
And found rich treasure
The deep waters keep
And rested in peace
On that deep timeless sea
Having tasted waters
Rich with flavours of
Our immortality
Yes rested in peace
On that quiet deep sea
Where love
Is a deep tranquillity
True, the water is deep
Just as my lover said
But there was nothing ever to fear
Though the waters ofttimes
Were deep -- and over our head
Her legs were divine
And the blue dress
Outlined them, clear to her hips
And my eyes,
Traversed the rest
Of that lovely frame
To where the blue dress
Outlined her breast
And my eyes rested there
Happy moment!
Then drifted on to her hair
Delightful, her dark hair
Silk smooth, a lovely tress
Curled gently down to her shoulders
Which are rounded and shapely and fair
Then flowed round her beautiful features
And fell, soft, on the lovely blue dress
And her lips,
They glowed in the sunlight
I could see they were soft and cool
And her eyes
The mild eyes of a roe deer
I nearly drowned in that pool!
But,
She smoothed the blue dress about her,
The shoulder,
Gave a cold unfriendly goodbye
And she flaunted those hips
As she passed me
With a flash and a gleam in her eye
The language she used
As she passed me,
Tho never a word she said!
So she's gone,
The girl in the blue dress
But I; I still have the beautiful blue dress
Wind blown and bright
In my head
Who knows
The twist of fate
The hard decision
That transforms the hell
Into desired heaven
Who knows?
It is best to pray
And have
That inner guidance
On the long hard way
In spite of all the errant ways
The stubborn broken will
The wasted years and willful days
He is my son, I love him still.
I plead his cause dear Lord again
Restore to him his rightful place
My pleas to him alas in vain
Grant him, my Lord, Thy saving grace
I pray not Lord my hearts release
I pray my son, that he may live
The good life, calm the bitter spirit
And find his peace.
Come to himself, and truly live.
He was a perception
Of mans new brain
That great domed cortex
Which doomed Neathandal man
Spawned then doomed
Myriad families
Of mans ancient Gods
The great earth Goddess
Cybele --
Mothered all
Lilith, Ashtoreth and Isis
Marduk, Entil and Baal
All had their day
Governed innumerable destinies
But went their ordained way
Chronus and the Titans
Their dynasties and kind
Prometheus, when unbound
Those ancient Gods did bind
Then rose the Olympians
These served the Greeks
Through all their glorious years
Then Latinised served martial Rome
Inspired that architecture
Framed laws and literature
And with their loves -- their wars and tears
Nurtured a thousand years
Shades of their glory
Cling still about their names
Zeus and Jupiter
Hera and Juno
Venus and Aphrodite
Mercury and quick Hermes
Latin or Greek the same
It is the spirit that quickens
Whatever the name
Cupid and Mars still hold
Some tenuous sway
Though neither altar or temple
Marks now their errant way
Their slow declining day
Thus thru long years
The pantheons of Gods
Inspired the hearts and hands
Of men; conditioned the hearts
With awesome hidden magic
And played out their parts
So lived and died the ancient Gods
Following them
Jehovah -- stern jealous God,
Yields to the Son
Tis His star rises bright and clear
Through the Western world
Toward the millennial year
Modern man
Pondering the clear unfolding
Of revelation thru the ages
Reads clear the message
And with vision raises
A new God,
One able to meet his needs
Knows the Eternal Unknown
As Father
So the Son revealed, and thus
Wit humble heart
We worship Him
Southport 9/87