Photo by Betty Bell Sanders
I’ve seen the world
From the mountain top –
From the tops of trees
Where branches reach
So far above the fray
You only hear the voices
Neath the whisper…
Though I have walked
Along the streams
With dreams
Beneath the ripples
And touched
The virgin muse
On tumbled stones –
I still can taste
The salty breeze
From dawn
Upon the ocean –
To wander
Though —
Still lingers in my bones
Michael33
Perhaps in one’s search for perfection… our sense of what is beautiful becomes lost… searching for what has really never existed in our world. Perhaps we search because of a sense of remembering from where we came.
Maybe one could imagine what is perfect within their own mind… though my mind wanders in such imperfection that I don’t believe it would ‘know’ if ‘perfectness’ wandered through it. Maybe one could dream the perfect dream and linger in that moment… but then… their awakening would be filled with the cruel emptiness of reality.
How does one portray the ‘beautiful’ they find inside their dreams? There have been those who have attempted to paint them upon a canvass… There are those who have tried to express their dreams in rhyme… Yet… there seems there are no hues of color nor words in rhyme that can cast before our eyes, filling our hearts and souls with the ‘beautiful’ that lies within our dreams.
Gathering wisdom through my many years spent on this earth, I have found nothing of perfectness… There is nothing that exists in nature that stands with perfection. Yet… I have found more that is beautiful in all of nature’s imperfections than I could have ever imagined.
Perhaps that is in itself, part of the ‘beautiful’ within us… our own imperfections… our imperfect attempts at creating reflections of what does not exist. Of course we must realize the often heard phrase that “beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”… and isn’t that one of the ‘truths’ of the universe.
So… I will remain in my imperfection… continuing to write my thoughts… my dreams… While others remain in their search for what is perfect… While they are listening to the beauty of the song birds… I will be finding what is most beautiful to me… in the voice of a sparrow.
A Sparrow’s Voice
Caught in a dream
Finding myself half there…
Half here… although here is not
Where I feel the most at home…
I dreamt of all the beautiful
That lingers beyond this world…
Sometimes finding its way
Into our forgotten consciousness…
I find no way to trace the lines
For there are no words
To engrave upon the mind
What lies beyond our human comprehension
If I were an artist
I would search this world for a canvass
That could bear the magnificence of a masterpiece…
And paint for you… “my dream”…
Though I have never found
Within my humanness
A palette borne of such brilliance…
Yet it is often within
Those very shades of other worlds
Where our soul discovers its longing…
Perhaps the effervescence of ‘coming home’…
Though Vincent tried to paint his dreams
One lonely “Starry Night”…
The morning star… the light before the dawn
His paintings often lined the walls
Of silent kings and queens…
Yet, never did he find the hues
For portraits of his dreams
Though I am but a sparrow’s voice
Upon the parchment bare…
I have searched this world
And that of another
For words that could paint
Upon this canvass…
A dream…
Yet I have found only lyrics of my humanness…
Caught between the reasons
Of life… as though it seems.
Never having found the words
For portraits of my dreams…
My mom was an artist… and a dreamer… a painter… and a poet. She often wandered this world and that of another and I thank her profoundly for sharing just the thought of that possibility… and for her endless encouragement… from this world and from that of another. There were times… while painting her heart upon the canvass… I could see the frustration upon her face… feel the pain of her compassion… for she too… could never find the hues to paint her dreams…
And yet…… We still can dream.
Namasté
Michael33
A little about the author of what some may think as poetry… and some perhaps of nonsense… As some of you may have presumed from my writing, I have delved deeply into meditative and altered states of consciousness. Although I actually think that ‘altered states’ as some refer… really alters nothing and is just the result of a more direct focus of consciousness. There I have found words of the ancients… insights… poetry… often, they share their mysteries.
Perhaps I am an ‘old soul’… perhaps I am merely a lost soul in search of the unknown. I seek adventure… to wonder of the world… of the many worlds that surround us… those that linger outside our normal, human vision… the most alluring.
On one of these meditative journeys, I found myself sitting at a wooden table in what appeared to be a kitchen area resembling what one would think existed in the 17th or 18th century. I was wearing somewhat bulky red and black clothing from head to toe. My fingers were adorned with several large gold and beautiful gemstone rings. Staring down at the marble floors, I felt a tremendous sense of sadness… to the depth that I have yet to shed from my memory, the intense feeling of heartbreak and sorrow.
In a bit of synchronicity… the morning following this meditation… this encounter with what I must at least consider as a possibility of an image of a past life ((hope I didn’t lose too many of you on that statement))… the local newspaper had a very small, irrelevant article that spoke of Louis the XIV having placed marble floors in the Palace of Versailles.
Now… I certainly had no presumption that I was a king… yet… perhaps I ‘could’ assume by the way I was dressed… the rings on my fingers… the setting… the marble floors… that just perhaps… I was in some way associated with someone of significance in that era of time.
This Friday morning… at 3:30 a.m… I awoke with poetry in my head. I laid awake repeating it over and over to myself… to avoid letting the words I was given from worlds unknown, slip from my memory… That same feeling of extreme sadness, loneliness, longing… again overwhelming my being… At 4 a.m… I could wait no longer to place the words in safe keeping…
These are those words…
She has lingered so near to my heart
The sound of its rhythm
Echoes in the silence
Of a cold winter’s night…
Words never spoken
While bare feet danced
On cold marbled floors…
Yet faded runes
Still fondle walls
Of cryptic cellar stone…
Loneliness hath no forgiveness
While souls still wander
Down castle halls
And whispers soft… in garden bloom…
She has lingered so near to my heart
The light of my soul
Now burnished hues
Of morning’s light…
Yet voices heard in dark of night…
Keep mortal flesh in silence…
Namasté
Michael33
I would truly like to explore those cryptic cellar stones!
Perhaps this was all just coincidence and dreams… but perhaps………..?
Copyright © 2017
Beneath the Sea
I sailed away
Into the night
Upon a sloop of papyrus…
Into a fog so thickened in brume
That vision into the darkness
Was far beyond mortal comprehension…
There was nary a breeze
To carry me into the distance…
The silent, sightless night
Appeared to have abandoned time
Leaving a changeless, static semblance
The ambiance of a naked soul…
No sound from the wind
Nor that of the albatross
Nor even from the sea beneath me…
I could see nothing but the ebon of the night
Hidden deep within the cave of remembrance…
Darkness ladened upon me
As if the earth could no longer find the sun…
I wondered in that moment
If I would be witness to one more dawning of the morn…
Or awaken within the twilight
Of another world…
I stood in the quietude of reality
Hushed… upon the bow
In awakened meditations of the unnatural…
Where time does not exist…
Where pietistic silence
Consumes the marrow of one’s being…
Embalming the soul in wonder
Of what is real…
Of truths of a mortals existence
Longing for human vicissitude
Into worlds of immortality…
A flash of light in the distance
Translucent through the discountenance
Of my reality…
Perhaps lightning from the storm…
A bolt from Thor…
Perhaps the light of the gods
In search of lost souls…
Another flash from the sky
Igniting the sea in hues of crimson
Lingering on destiny’s horizon…
Shadows ascending from the glow
Perpetuating through the smother
Foreboding above the sloop
Like the vulture over his prey…
Yet, fear had not wept within my tears…
For I had wandered
The streams of consciousness
And flown without wings
To celestial bodies that
Linger not upon the parchment…
I have fallen beneath
The surface of the sea…
To depths where life
Exists for only the most
Un-ordinary of beings…
Perhaps a place where I would feel
Most at home…
If only I could breathe
Beneath the sea…
Michael33
Copyright © 2016
To Walk on the Moon
I’ve always wondered just what it was like
Traveling through space at the speed of light
Thirsting to fly in a silver balloon
And to know what it’s like to walk on the moon
I once had a dream that I wore golden wings
And flew round the world upon silver strings
Thirsting for love fore life came undone
And to know what it’s like when touching the sun
I traveled in tunnels from my world to theirs
And climbed into heaven on back alley stairs
Searching for passion fore time disappears
And to bide in the light of celestial spheres
I would not nor could not dwell on this earth
If hope had not entered my soul upon birth
Seeking the light neath shadowy brume
And to know what it’s like to walk on the moon
Michael33
Copyright 2016 All Rights Reserved
Weaving Webs
I sat before the window glass
Watching morning shade
Creeping from the dawn
To light of day
Wondering just what it’s like
Existence without time
Walking through the rhyme
In shades of gray
I sat before the crystal pane
While crimson blushed my face
Drifting in and out
Of certain fate
Imaginations, lucid dreams
Wandering in passion
Vestige in the rust
From Iron gates
I sat beneath the skylight’s bloom
Awaiting moonlight’s ruse
Sensing virtue veiled
In make believe
Illusions bode Cimmerian shade
The dawn reposed in hate
Tangled neath the shade
Of webs we weave
Michael33
Copyright © 2016
When I awoke…
I could not find you near to me
Nor taste the breath of salty seas
Just empty rooms with silent throes
And raindrops on the rose
I searched beneath the willow tree
For eyes that wander memories
But parchment spoke in rhymes and prose
And raindrops on the rose
Conversing with the ones who know
Where ravens speak with telling crows
When I awoke where no one goes
With raindrops on the rose
I could not find you in the pain
But heard your voice in gentle rain
Found footprints neath the sparrow’s pose
Near raindrops on the rose
When I awoke in lucid dreams
And walked along cool mountain streams
I found you there… where lilac grows
In raindrops paused… upon the rose
Michael33
Copyright © 2016
All of us have had to face the storm
Perhaps from Mother Nature
Perhaps from within our own minds
Or perhaps… from loving so deeply…
This is for all who have faced the storm
Victim of the Storm
Today I saw a rainbow’s birth
In half-light of the dawn
Briefly blush its hues of grace
Ere breath of nature’s yawn
A raindrop gently touched my face
My eyes could taste the mirth
As if I wandered through the dreams
That linger in my berth
The storm blew in from psychic throes
As rainbows fade to gray
While sagely voices speak of truths
From neath the crimson clay
A raven came to muse my mind
While distant thunder rolled
And whispered words of prudence bare
To ‘nevermore’ be told
The tempest seized its vapored vaunt
And raged in mortal bloom
A vortex into heaven’s gate
Passed through the darkened brume
All truths of which were ever known
Poured through the souls in wait
Enlightening their marrow’s poise
For those who tempted fate
Then silence fell on huddled hearts
While love cast shadows bare
Swallowed tears from vagrant grace
Transposed the stoic stares
Today I saw a rainbow’s birth
In hues of setting suns
Briefly blush its hint of hope
That death was left undone
A drop of rain wept down my cheek
My lips could taste the mirth
As if I wandered midst the muse
That lingers in my berth
Michael33
Copyright © 2015
The following poem was chosen as a finalist in the
United Poets Laureate International (UPLI) Global Poetry Contest
“The Natica Angilly Award” for Dancing Poetry
I am very honored by their recognition…
In Dreams of Another
I’ve wandered in your lucid dreams
Of forest mist and silent streams
Monastic robes in hues of gold
Where secrets never stay untold
You’ve walked with me on foreign shores
Exposed my fate behind closed doors
We spoke with faces on the wall
Reciting rhymes in whispered drawls
You’ve wandered in my lucid dreams
Of vagabonds and sparrows wings
The dawn absorbed in Persian hues
Where artists find their lucent muse
I’ve flown with you above the brume
Shared passions thirst where laurel bloom
We penned the writing on the wall
And changed the fate of raven’s call
We are but one in lucid dreams
Our merging souls like luscious creams
In poetry, our secrets told
Where lucid dreams and love enfold
Michael33
Copyright © 2015 All Rights Reserved
Tomorrow
I’m standing upon the hilltop
Gazing beyond the sunset
Attempting to see tomorrow
Before today can slip away
© 2015 All Rights Reserved
Michael33
The Vision of Poets 