mystical poetry thread

[mYTHmAKER]

Die,

it is set.

Destiny.

 

Sure,

surrender,

end,

under.

 

Deceased,

cease,

dead,

ease.

 

Goddess.

God.

Dog.

Sod.

 

Mother,

moth,

hot,

home.

 

Earth,

father,

heart,

her.

 

Trifle,

life,

if,

lie.

 

Death,

eat,

heat.

 

Decompose,

cope,

depose.

 

Bode,

goodbye.

Body,

good-

bye.

 

Corpse.

Rose.

Edited September 16, 2014 by mYTHmAKER

[zerostao]

 

edit>> this preface was included to the poem by Eliot from Dante

 

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Edited September 21, 2014 by zerostao

[Taomeow]

Strong

ties

bind me to the world of space and time

can't break them if I tried they are such strong

ties

strings of pulsing light

I feel their pulse strike

break

and crystallize

I feel the rip tide

pull me out into forbidden skies

 

Strong ties

mystery of mysteries

I've heard

lies

ringing in our histories

of strong

ties

pulling me along into the wrong

skies

where the sun is wrong and where all songs

are

mirrors that reflect all other songs

 

Strong

ties

and a deeper secret yet

the wrong

skies

roaring like a turbo jet and strong

ties

pulling me along

they know where Time

flies

when Time flies home

and where the sound

dies

in the depth beneath the crystal dome

[Silent Answers]

Self, projecting outwardly like a wild flame
Beckoned by wood, the guest consumes its host
Else it be extinguished

Flickering at first, seemingly without direction, until
Shielded from disturbances, emancipated
Illuminating equilibrium

5 presidents gather in a point, piercing pure potential...but beware
For the blunt sword cannot cut, what is charred cannot ignite
The patient, no doctor need repair

 

 

Just still not sure about having it rhyme at the end

Edited September 25, 2014 by Silent Answers

[ThisLife]

*

Kindness

 

Is more important

 

Than wisdom,

 

And the recognition

 

Of this

 

Is the beginning

 

Of wisdom.

*

Edited September 25, 2014 by ThisLife

[Silent Answers]

This doesn't really count as mystical, but I just wrote this for my son:

 

You Were Born a Winner.

 

Congratulations!

The odds were slim but you pulled through

Your timing was perfect

You dodged and weaved

through a sea of impossible scenarios

Seeded first and entered into the hall of fame

That's right my son, you won it

It's time for a major upgrade

As this body of yours grows

just remember to keep in mind

The race is already over

and that...

[Title].

[Nungali]

Sufi Dance

 

 

On certain nights I attend Sufi dance.

I can't remember where it is or how I get there,

or, for that matter,

how I get home and back into my bed.

I talked to a friend about it.

He told me I was dreaming.

But if it is a dream

why do I wake up so sore and tired?

Sometimes I have blisters on my feet.

But I feel I'm getting somewhere with it,

I'm no longer getting as dizzy as I used to.

I seem to be developing more love and patience.

I look good, people tell me.

 

I was practicing a very difficult part of the dance last month.

The teacher wore orange robes and the dance was very technical.

The month before, a different teacher, (who wore a red robe)

taught a simpler stamping dance,

a somewhat angry yet purposeful dance.

 

There was a teacher before that

a beautiful woman who wore a silver robe,

her dance was fluid and graceful.

I didn't do very well.

I think I became a little infatuated with her,

it was hard to concentrate.

 

I liked the blue teacher,

his dance was joyous and expansive.

Good things happened to me after his lesson.

In my mundane life, that is.

 

The green woman! Well, that was easy!

But I was a little confronted.

Well worth it, because after those lessons,

I met her - in my mundane life.

 

The Golden One seemed to be saying

he is what I will become.

I found him a little confusing.

 

I haven't been taught by the black teacher yet,

I have had a glimpse of her style.

She is naked and black

and sprays of stars and spiral galaxies

cover her body.

 

But now, it’s all mixed up.

Sometimes I seem in one level of the dance,

and at other times in another level.

 

But lately there is no teacher.

No particular colored robe

and no difference between

the me here in this part of the dance

and that me there in that part of the dance

and another me over there in another part of the dance.

But at the same time I am out of the dance

and watching myself and the other dancers.

 

When that happens the dance becomes a huge astral entity,

a massive cone of light with layers and bands of colors

and dancers and teachers.

 

Each colored circle, one on top of each other,

diminishing in size;

a huge cone of dancing,

multi-colored,

banded light

floating and rotating

amongst the blackness and stars of space.

 

At times while I am in the dance

other dancers come into my space

and bounce and career off me

spinning madly, grinning, singing and dancing

off to their destinies on other paths and trajectories.

 

In this part of the dance

are wild eyed poets giggling on LSD,

dancers that are leaping and floating

like fauns and satyrs

somersaulting leaving behind them

trails of stars and sparkles.

 

 

When I look up through the translucence above,

I see exquisite dancers.

They are vibrant and ecstatic.

I want to be like them.

They fall and tumble

but this helps then to rise

in their total control of the dance.

Even when they misstep.

 

I want to be like that.

And when I look down

I see the dancers below me

still learning the dance.

I remember when I made those mistakes.

Some are awkward and squabbling

like cranky penguins

but others are concentrating and aspiring.

 

But sometimes, when the dance blends

with my mundane life

and I seem stuck in the middle part of the dance -

a crazy insane part of the dance

that must be passed through to finish the dance.

It does with me what it will

and I can only respond to its energy

and lose myself in the ecstasy

of not being there.

But I know I am there.

 

Just as I know

that at this moment

life seems much too serious

to be taken seriously

and so much is happening

all at once, t

hat it must be a dance

or a dream.

 

But it matters not

because one thing I have learnt

is that no matter how hard the dance is,

if I persevere

and continually attempt to see life

from the top of the cone,

in my higher consciousness,

with purified love,

I will survive

and rise up beyond the cone

to the ecstasy of infinite space

and into the stars of life.

 

 

Nungali.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Nungali

[Taomeow]

Letter to an Archaeologist

 

by Joseph Brodsky

 

 

Citizen, enemy, mama's boy, sucker, utter
garbage, panhandler, swine, refujew, verrucht;
a scalp so often scalded with boiling water
that the puny brain feels completely cooked.

Yes, we have dwelt here: in this concrete, brick, wooden
rubble which you now arrive to sift.
All our wires were crossed, barbed, tangled, or interwoven.
Also: we didn't love our women, but they conceived.

Sharp is the sound of pickax that hurts dead iron;
still, it's gentler than what we've been told or have said ourselves.
Stranger! move carefully through our carrion:
what seems carrion to you is freedom to our cells.

Leave our names alone. Don't reconstruct those vowels,
consonants, and so forth: they won't resemble larks
but a demented bloodhound whose maw devours
its own traces, feces, and barks, and barks.

[Nungali]

ELLENBOROUGH FALLS

 

 

She stepped off!

Oh God!

How could she have done that?

What space must your head be in

to be able to do that?

 

She stepped off,

I imagine,

calm and serene,

not screaming and clawing

and falling down, down

but streaming through the layers

of swirling mist

to the rainforest floor below;

like a rainbow arching down

to ground itself in the earth.

 

She stepped off

beside the plunging waterfall,

at the top of the vast vertical rock abyss,

at the head of the steep, deep,

twisting serpentine gorge.

Right at the top of the world,

right at the top of her world,

she stepped off.

 

Right at the top of her world,

young, beautiful and healthy,

(they told me)

the last person in the world

you would ever imagine

that would do such a thing.

 

I have stood on that very spot

and tentatively peered over the edge

into that vast vertical chasm,

watching the water racing down

and turn to spray

and felt that urge to fly myself,

down to the rainforest below

and quivered and tried to inch back

from that spot,

the inexorable force drawing me down

to where the tops of the giant rainforest trees

are bunched together like far away broccoli.

 

"Get away from there!"

a voice shouted.

I turned (without falling)

the old 'Uncle' emerged from the bush.

He took my arm,

pulled me from the edge

and looked deep into my eyes.

Searching.

We sat staring into each other

by the swirling pool,

his black, crystal eyes

surveying my pain,

his dark skin wrinkled

from searching my face

 

"It's the tail of the Rainbow Serpent."

he told me.

"The twisted gorge is his body.

You have to be careful here,

you'll fall right into it."

He talked. I asked questions.

He looked at me

- through me.

"You ask me questions,

questions about energies and places.

I'd say to you ...”

he said to me,

"... It's all about love.

It all comes down to love,

from your heart."

 

And then I heard the story

for the first time.

"Not long ago

a young white girl

from around here,

stepped off the edge....

It's not the first time.

A few have done it.

- That's why I was worried

about you. -

She was happy they said.

Nice girl, good job, nice car.

Why did she do it?

They didn't understand.

She left a note at the top,

I found that note,

'I couldn’t find love anywhere,'

it said

‘the only place I could find love

was here'.

That's all it said.

She left that note

at the top of the waterfall

... and stepped off."

 

My heart was shaking,

my eyes watering,

a giant ball of emotion

was surfacing

from some deep part inside myself.

I looked down the valley.

I turned and looked into Gunabar's eyes.

They were like black far away pools,

they were like places I have never seen.

 

"The white people didn't understand,

I understand."

he told me.

"They had a service

at the top of the falls,

they floated flowers

in the pool at the top.

I floated a broken branch

and a broken boomerang -

symbols of a broken life.

My offering went over the edge.

The flowers didn’t,

they got stuck in a whirlpool

at the top,

I gently pushed them

over the edge with a stick."

 

I have since returned and stood

in that very place,

high above the clouds

and been drawn again

to that roaring air.

That same place

where Gunabar told me that story.

Not at the edge beside the falls

but around the side,

near the lookout

where you can see the whole drop.

And I can’t help thinking

what space must your head be in

to be able to do that?

 

The shock of the first news is still there.

It probably always will be there.

She stepped off...

Oh God, how could she?

So now I sit,

inexorably drawn

and look at the view,

the drop,

he falls

and I imagine

that young, beautiful girl,

that child of nature,

feeling so much love

but finding it nowhere else,

gazing out over the mountains,

head held high,

tanding on the edge,

beside the plunging, roaring, drawing water

and gently...

stepping on the air.

 

I imagine her calm and serene,

smiling and streaming down, down,

the spark of her soul a streaming meteor

accelerating through the air,

down, down

through the layers of swirling mist,

hurtling towards the far away

now zooming closer broccoli forest below.

 

Not screaming and falling down

but plunging, unstoppable,

totally committed

into love.

 

 

Edited October 16, 2014 by Nungali

[9th]

in the trees, barely by the hive

honey pot drippings

scattered seeds by the branch

wind makes its place amongst the leaves

and the air breathes a sigh

rolled across the ground, dust

spread, braced and takes a dive

into the earth

[Mark Foote]

can't hold a candle

to the poets here-abouts

they think in terms of feelings

they move in epic shouts

 

I'm set down like an old tree

from the roots up to the crown

and I move only in starlight

in the shadows underground

[ThisLife]

.

Other Writers

 

Steve Sanfield is a great haiku master.
He lives in the country with Sarah,
his beautiful wife,
and he writes about the small things.

Kyozan Joshu Roshi,
who has brought hundreds of monks
to a full awakening,
addresses the simultaneous
expansion and contraction
of the cosmos.

I go on and on
about a noble young woman
who unfastened her jeans
in the front seat of my jeep
and let me touch
the source of life
because I was so far from it.

I’ve got to tell you, friends,
I prefer my stuff to theirs.

 

Leonard Cohen

Edited October 20, 2014 by ThisLife

[The Tao Of Alex]

My favorite poet was the Zen hermit/monk Ryokan. This poem always makes me chuckle:

Who says my poems are poems? These poems are not poems. When you can understand this, then we can begin to speak of poetry.

I spoke this poem to my dad on his death bed, it made him chuckle. Ryokan I am forever in your debt.

Alex

[zerostao]

 

edit>>>

Edited October 21, 2014 by zerostao

[Nungali]

rozellas twitter

cockatoos scream

indigo storm front

on late afternoon horizon

peak hour traffic hums

dreamtime in suburbia

 

my garden is a sanctuary

blue tongue lizards

their skins like jewels

stalk through

ancient middens and caves

missed by suburban development

if you sit there in quietness

you can still feel their presence

kadaicha mans chanting

whispers on the wind

 

but the neighbors complain

tidy your garden

while across the valley

vast cubes of sandstone

topped with bush

are carved out

and replaced with

pseudo-spanish villas

the very earth cries out

but no one seems to hear

what I hear

to my own people

I am a stranger

 

no one ever visits

perhaps they feel intimidated

large and spacious

empty and spartan

where is the tv

no lights but candles

 

its the weekend

and the monsters are loose

neighbors splashing in the pool

tinnies cracking

and roasting dead cow pieces

strange summer solstice

bar b que rites

helicopters patrol overhead

ka-whoomps thud through the ground

it’s the army

at the firing range

and I pray

that a shell doesn’t go astray

and land near the nuclear reactor

- again

 

what sort of people

build a nuclear reactor

near an army firing range

 

everyone else seems happy

perhaps they don’t notice

after all

it’s the good life here

south-side Sydney paradise

panel vans and jet skis

converge on the beach

the rivers and bays

are a cacophony

of high pitched two-stroke

 

but at night

after the long traffic snarls home

and the electronic montage

of tv distraction hypnosis

I feel their pain

etched in criss-crossed lines

across the night sky

the childrens nightmares

oily poison air

thick stinking rivers

sprouting mushroom clouds

 

they awake with a start

parents reassure

don’t worry

it was just a dream

at 3 am

in their awake dreaming state

they realize the truth

suburban dreamtime

but somehow

it doesn’t get through

they shirk the unconscious

thinking it a dark abode

not realizing

it is a guiding light

no one seems to know

that when they sleep

they awake

 

its morning

the adults uneasy

the children playing

with empty cicada shells

but where are all

the giant psychedelic christmas beetles

I chashed and marveled at

in my youth

 

the summer dry is gone

rain and steamy smog

is the order for today

and still the tinnies crack

the dead cow roasts

the surf turns brown

and the people laugh

it’s the good life.

- Port Hacking, 1982.

[Silent Answers]

^^^ awesome

[Silent Answers]

^^^ awesome

 

This is a double post, but I'm awesome too...so it's staying.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Silent Answers

[zerostao]

The Tiger

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

william blake

Edited October 24, 2014 by zerostao

[Silent Answers]

^ Red John

[zerostao]

one misconception i find is that laozi is almost always thought of as a philosopher, bleh-eck

when someone finds laozi attractive and appealing, they need to look more towards poetry.

laozi is a great poet

zeros steps back off his portable soap box

 

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

 

rilke

Edited October 26, 2014 by zerostao

[zerostao]

The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

1867--arnold, Dover beach

Edited October 31, 2014 by zerostao

[Taomeow]

Regret

 

by Yuan Chi (A.D. 201-263)

 

When I was young I learnt fencing

And was better at it than Crooked Castle.

My spirit was high as the rolling clouds

And my fame resounded beyond the World.

I took my sword to the desert sands,

I watered my horse at the Nine Moors.

My flags and banners flapped in the wind,

And nothing was heard but the song of my drums.

 

War and its travels have made me sad,

And a fierce anger burns within me:

It's thinking of how I've wasted my time

That makes this fury tear my heart.

[Taomeow]

The Scythians

by Aleksandr Blok

(1918)

 

 

You are but millions. Our unnumbered nations
Are as the sands upon the sounding shore.
We are the Scythians! We are the slit-eyed Asians!
Try to wage war with us—you'll try no more!

You've had whole centuries. We—a single hour.
Like serfs obedient to their feudal lord,
We've held the shield between two hostile powers—
Old Europe and the barbarous Mongol horde.

Your ancient forge has hammered down the ages,
Drowning the distant avalanche's roar.
Messina, Lisbon—these, you thought, were pages
In some strange book of legendary lore.

Full centuries long you've watched our Eastern lands,
Fished for our pearls and bartered them for grain;
Made mockery of us, while you laid your plans
And oiled your cannon for the great campaign.

The hour has come. Doom wheels on beating wing.
Each day augments the old outrageous score.
Soon not a trace of dead nor living thing
Shall stand where once your Paestums flowered before.

O Ancient World, before your culture dies,
Whilst failing life within you breathes and sinks,
Pause and be wise, as Oedipus was wise,
And solve the age-old riddle of the Sphinx.

That Sphinx is Russia. Grieving and exulting,
And weeping black and bloody tears enough,
She stares at you, adoring and insulting,
With love that turns to hate, and hate—to love.

Yes, love! For you of Western lands and birth
No longer know the love our blood enjoys.
You have forgotten there's a love on Earth
That burns like fire and, like all fire, destroys.

We love cold Science passionately pursued;
The visionary fire of inspiration;
The salt of Gallic wit, so subtly shrewd,
And the grim genius of the German nation.

We know the hell of a Parisian street,
And Venice, cool in water and in stone;
The scent of lemons in the southern heat;
The fuming piles of soot-begrimed Cologne.

We love raw flesh, its color and its stench.
We love to taste it in our hungry maws.
Are we to blame then, if your ribs should crunch,
Fragile between our massive, gentle paws?

We know just how to play the cruel game
Of breaking in the most rebellious steeds;
And stubborn captive maids we also tame
And subjugate, to gratify our needs…

Come join us, then! Leave war and war's alarms,
And grasp the hand of peace and amity.
While still there's time, Comrades, lay down your arms!
Let us unite in true fraternity!

But if you spurn us, then we shall not mourn.
We too can reckon perfidy no crime,
And countless generations yet unborn
Shall curse your memory till the end of time.

We shall abandon Europe and her charm.
We shall resort to Scythian craft and guile.
Swift to the woods and forests we shall swarm,
And then look back, and smile our slit-eyed smile.

Away to the Urals, all! Quick, leave the land,
And clear the field for trial by blood and sword,
Where steel machines that have no soul must stand
And face the fury of the Mongol horde.

But we ourselves, henceforth, we shall not serve
As henchmen holding up the trusty shield.
We'll keep our distance and, slit-eyed, observe
The deadly conflict raging on the field.

We shall not stir, even though the frenzied Huns
Plunder the corpses of the slain in battle, drive
Their cattle into shrines, burn cities down,
And roast their white-skinned fellow men alive.

O ancient World, arise! For the last time
We call you to the ritual feast and fire
Of peace and brotherhood! For the last time
O hear the summons of the barbarian lyre!

Edited November 7, 2014 by Taomeow

[ThisLife]

..

 

 

When young, I knew not the taste of sorrow,
But loved to mount the high towers;
I loved to mount the high towers
To compose a new song, urging myself to talk about sorrow.

Now that I have known the taste of sorrow,
I would like to talk about it, but refrain;
I would like to talk about it, but refrain,
And say merely: "It is chilly; what a fine autumn !"

 

 

Yue Fei

 

.

Edited November 9, 2014 by ThisLife

[Taomeow]

From Tzu-yeh Songs

 

All night I could not sleep

Because of the moonlight on my bed.

I kept on hearing a voice calling:

Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered "yes."