The Dancer

Forgotten Orphans
Under the wings
Muses unknown
Oracles of the world
Starved to experience
Living in extended warp speed
Never to know normalcy
Forever caught in the upward spiral
Looking for the here and now in the after

Our Earth is wounded. Her oceans and lakes are sick; her rivers

are like running sores; The air is filled with subtle poisons. And the oily

smoke of countless hellish fires blackens the sun. Men and women,

scattered from homeland, family, friends, wander desolate and uncertain,

scorched by a toxic sun....

In this desert of frightened, blind uncertainty, some take refuge in

the pursuit of power. Some become manipulators of illusion and deceit.

If wisdom and harmony still dwell in this world, as other than a dream lost

in an unopened book, they are hidden in our heartbeat.

And it is from our hearts that we cry out. We cry out and our voices

are the single voice of this wounded earth. Our cries are a

great wind across teh earth.

~The Warrior Song of King Gezar

i am a little church, ee cummings

i am a little church (no great cathedral)

far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities

-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,

i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;

my prayers are the prayers of earth's own clumsily striving

(finding and losing and laughing and crying) children

whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing

birth and glory and death and resurrection:

over my sleeping self float flaming symbols

of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of moutains

i am a little church (far from the frantic

world with its rapture and anguish) at peace with nature

-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;

i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to

merciful Him whose only now is forever:

standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence

(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His death)

~ee cummings

The Genizah at the House of Shepher

"I cannot help regarding the city [Jerusalem] as a strange accident. It is not positioned on any trade route. Nor is it really in the ideal position for a political capital. The region is hostile to both industry and agriculture. For centuries the nations have dreamed of returning it to some state of glory which supposedly it once possessed, but Jerusalem remains obstinately provincial, gripped by that spirit of desolation so often associated with the presence of God." ~Tamar Yellin

Shanghai

Cold, wrapped in furs of a faded past

Future built on empty skeletons.

小姐，小姐！这是单位！

I'm sorry,

Why isn't the garden open though?

Gated communities.

FOOLS! DON'T YOU KNOW?!

The future is built on your present, not your past.

What a past

Concessions of confused citizens

Who are we?

They don't ask.

They don't remember the masses of May 4th

The red that was shed

Instead, the city mourns, but the people are dry.

A city of exiles, accidental residents. You are

The loving, kind-hearted whore that always hopes for your prince, your saviour.

You welcomed and supported the dreams of many,

but none asked you who you are, what you are.

For you hide behind a mirror and each only sees himself when gazing into you.

And they all left

You,

They left memories, the most painful gift,

because you feel the joy but know it to be over.

But I am also guilty, because I have

to find myself.

And you faithfully shine back my solitude.

You understand me. When I look at you--

I see myself.

A brief anthology of sorts

Familiar friend,
with strangeness greet.
Little changes from times past
Your silence speaks to me.

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I often imagine how it would be to live with you for a day.
Would it make the morning magical?
A suspended pause amidst bliss.

Coffee would be heightened with a sense of fullness.
A dance engaging in juggling the bathroom, closet, shower, shoes, and a door
to
head out to the world.

The solid assurance of confident smiling when eating lunch in solitude, meditating on the shape of your memory.

You are with me always--beckon, retreat, withdraw, pulsate, vibrate.

Dinner, filled with glamorous sizzle of mundane vegetables.
The day is finished

The dream is over as I slip into awakeness, the gleam from greyness has dissipated.
There is no morning juggling dance

Just your shape in my memory, an impression waxing grey
As I wonder how it would be to live with you for a day.

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ZHDAT


Autumn leaves swept into loose piles
Discoursing on future dreams
Fluttering anticipation
Kisses beneath a stream.

Waiting is lonely merriment
Waiting is the dear friend of tomorrow's anticipation.

The architect of dreams, the silver lining of
mundane, everyday things.

Traveling across pale blue skies, streaked with orange, yes and pink,
in the middle of the day
retreating or advancing into the dreams of the now, it is hard to say.

I challenge myself in forbearance.
To not eat, not love, not kiss, not think, just be.

Such is waiting, being, not thinking, not breathing, not striving, not trying
But
not
ceasing.

Waiting is an ING, an investment in cultivating.
A gerund they like to say, which denotes the act of carrying out an action

I am always waiting.
Waiting to start, to stop, to go, to come back.

Waiting is the defining action, the ultimate in between step, the common thread.
It is Xenus, who always is, but is not.
Each action is waiting for the next.

Waiting is the pregnant nano dot that created the Universe.
Waiting is hope filled with expectancy, not given up.

She is my good, constant friend. On her shoulder I rely,
She is my solace that it is not over. The one that brushes my hair a hundred times to a beautiful sheen, the one that gives me to nights filled with looking at jewelry and old outfits, and we giggle over make believe wedding fantasies and dreams.

She cries with me at broken hearts, like broken beads, and she is also silent assurance.
The constant.

Waiting is all these which greet me daily, waiting is being.

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THE COFFEE CUP

Rainy holiday morning
The loan seagull soars to the
accompaniment of the solitary car crinkling down
the still asleep street

The coffee cup drips amidst the
incessant trickling of heaven's
baptism.

Even the ant seeks shelter in his tiny hill

Soaked, drenched, frozen, but alive
I sip the darkness, like a vampire.
The warmth spreads and infuese my
veins, down into my belly, igniting fire

I cradle the cup like a babe who
is nursing, and enjoy the lonely seagull
soaking in the peace-infused morning.

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BREAKFAST

A fast of silence, a fast from life
Breakfast time is the rude awakening of reality.
Breakfast is when children are once again
told that pigs don't fly. When mortgages resurface. Jobs loom ahead and desires are covered beneath mounds of honey oats and milk, a way of trying to sweeten the bitter pill of reality.

Let me live in the time before. When everything is on the cusp, when the promise of a new day, hope, excitement, anticipation charge the air, when I am walking on water and take me to the hilltop feast with you. Where breakfast becomes a continuation of expectancy, an awakening of dreams.

The sizzle and drip of the kitchen become the violin and snares of a symphony tuning.

Let this breakfast be the overture of possibilities.

I want to see the Pegasus at my door taking me to the valley where people dream awake and the breakfast meal is a holy convoctaion.
Cereal is the bread
The coffee cup is the wine
and we drink in new life.

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