Poetry Diary: Part 4.) Pushing the limits and going deeper . . .

(New Poems below...)

POETRY DIARY: PART FOUR: 

Going Further 

HOW EASILY AND UNCONSCIOUSLY creative expression becomes enmeshed in conventional practice and current trends put up walls. But all around us are living pictures of ourselves, which can give insight into that crippling universal reality and set us free. As it is in the world of nature, so is it in all things: - 

  The living ‘flowers,’ of a single ‘plant,’ come to ‘bloom’ for awhile then die for new ones to flourish. In their continually necessary, temporal cycle of life and death continuous renewal, and the way of LIFE for all things! But, we are not so wise as the flowers!! We hang on to ‘the stem,’ refuse to fall, and miss out on what’s next. But not so the flowers! They know, this is the way of things, and fall happily; and therefore, they continue flowering! And, Solomon, we are told, ‘in all his glory,’ was not so wonderfully or wisely arrayed as one of these! 

   In no way aspiring to be instrumental here, perhaps, it might be true, that without pushing the limits, without crazy-seeming innovation and experiment, people and literature, and all forms of art, would stagnate ~ and without knowing it ~ because you can’t know something, without something to know it by. If you cannot recognize it, how can you tell whether you are doing it, or not? Stagnating, or not? So, maybe, we ought not to resent or resist those things which we cannot yet understand ~ even though fearing The Unknown is a natural human instinct ~ but rather brave that intangible place, plunge into its dark, and delight in it: and increase within, the wherewithal to know it by! Else, what will we gain from sticking to our pride’s right to comprehend everything before we approve of it? We will gain only diminishing pools of reluctant water and perpetually paralyze our powers of perception. But anyone who has once learned to surrender their impressions finds a new world forming there, where they let go, and an eager surge of lively water, rising in a new awakening!

                                                         *

THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND: VOLUME THREE:  ARKIAHH DREAMING:  (Vol. 3 / 9.(b.); 10; 11.(a.); 11.(b.); 11.(c.); 25.)

9. (b.) Born of the Spirit

YOU HAD NOT to wait too long

Or worry it would not come

The inspiration that gave you

The illusive words you looked for

Within the secret world you lived in

As the branch cannot help but wave in the wind

Unresisting you moved . . .

In not thinking you knew you received

As the wind blows and you know not

Where it comes from or where it is going

So is everyone who is born of the Spirit

Bound as one with the Wind

Tied as two in the Branch

Creating the living thing

Was in you as unconscious as breathing

You did not even know when you had begun

Or when, or where you had finished!

            

                                         *

10. Created Out of Nothing

WHAT WAS created out of nothing---

Was full of everything

What was created out of love

Contained all that was needed---

Love was everything

Love, taking everything away, but itself

Was a Book of Answers in riddles 

Giving all of itself---to find them out

                                     *

11. (a.) The Land Ends, the Water Falls

WHERE THE LAND ends---the water falls

All my earthly effort gone---my spirit upward soars:

The fall---and rising again

The needed thing---its lack attracts:

All my asking done---the thing is given

Never one without the other

Where life fell true---and so---rose again

                                    *

11. (b.)  Kaleidoscope Wrestling

This love which wrestles in my pool of lights:

Time in a kaleidoscope of coloured glass

This wheel which turns my light to puzzling dark

A patterned picture forms from lighted brokenness

New life shining out of former darkened order

From shattered fragments bent by light in truth

One turn---one flickering light---one moment there

And all my pain---turned over

Making crazy sense

Love’s inner wrestling wheel---life turns

And all my parts of knowing spin---a whole

One patterned way of seeing---passing over

For another---and over and over---

And I dance inside---

As coloured glass in liquid form

Goes pouring through my veins as burning oil

It takes all the cracked and shining bits of me

To form the whole---and make of brokenness

The better maker of beauty than any flawless image

                                    *

The moon descends the nightlight changes

My own light darkens as my sight’s dangerous

The Sun arises daylight broadens---

He---seeing for me as his light brightens

And seeing's---safe---seeing with my eyes shut   

                                    *

11. (c.) Jacob Wrestling

The letting go of one---for the other

And lights falling upon lights

One clearer than another

Yet each dark by comparison

With the one above it

From which it receives its light

But---we won’t let go

The one rung on our ladder

For the other which is above it

We won’t let go of what we have

For what we haven’t:

It is still as darkness to us

Because we haven’t got it 

And so, we reject it:

We turn back

Step down

And travel earthwards

The truth offends

That’s why we have so little of it

All our knowledge

Is as darkness to him who is light

All that I can ever know

Is as darkness

In comparison with his incomparable light---

We have it for a moment and it’s gone

                                        *

25.  To Keep Going

TO KEEP GOING and not give up

To take the flack and not fling it back:

The stuff of jaded jewels in velvet

And the pricelessness of patience

In being wise as serpents

Harmless as doves

                                    *

Poetry Diary: Part 3. ) Looking-Glass Stones... Reflecting back at you whatever you see in them...

POETRY DIARY:  PART THREE:

When I first tried to write an explanation to help people cope with the strange language that came out of me, it sounded rather antiquated and strange in itself! But much of what has come out in this book (and in this blog) is not exactly what I had intended; a hand other than my own writes deep inside my life. 

   (I have written more on this in: THE LIGHT TREE JOURNAL: Portrait of a Lost Door: Creative Memoir.) Anyway, the following is what I first wrote after I assumed I was rejected and had begun calling them ‘ragged writings’ instead of poems . . .  

   A piece of ragged writing, which upon first reading appears incomprehensible, will, to the diligent searcher, slowly render its secret treasure upon each subsequent reading; enlarging the faculties of the inmost being to taste and eat of a whole new kind of fare. If we will but let go the incessant demand of our intellect to understand something before we can enjoy it, we might develop the spiritual capacities that are within us instead – the ones which make us who we truly are – the exercise of which will bring a more satisfying reward than we could ever imagine. 

   It is hard. But narrow a river and it will flow more swiftly. All our lives we have thought that it was the nurturing of the mind that was the way to knowledge. But over feeding the intellect has hindered the heart. And we have been frustrated, albeit unknowingly, in our longings for what was beyond and never finding it: for the way of knowledge, by heart and spirit, is the reverse of the way of it, by mind. And anything in reverse in us is hard. To turn around is hard. But help a butterfly escape from its cocoon and it dies. Its wings never develop. It needed its struggle to fly. And so do, we!  

   Read without wanting. Read as though you were being read, yourself. The ‘ragged writings’ are as looking-glass stones, reflecting back at you whatever you see in them. You could work them out, with some mental effort; or, you could soak them in, with no effort at all. In both are joys! Most of all you will discover that you are given, out of not demanding to understand; and you will find surprise and delight in it! 

                                                                    *

THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND:  Volume Three:  Arkiahh Dreaming:  (Vol.3 / 28; 21; 16; 7.)

28. A Splay of Light in an Assembly of Letters

A SPLAY OF LIGHT in an assembly of letters

Prisms in shining rain taking form in a book

All that was poured in one falling of sunshine

A shaping of radiant life light as a feather

The furtherest beacon from an arbour of booklight

Isles in written rain building lands in leaves         

All that was shining in a breaking of heart-light

A sculpting of sacred life bright as a fire

                                 *

21. A Run of Light in Silver

A RUN OF LIGHT in silver

Rain in sun from leaves

Lit lingering drops fall

Bright pages spring back

Dawn dreams awaken

Eyes let in the daylight

Looked-for things come

The set-apart see them

Birds are gone beyond

The flighted find them

The broken live in air

The picked plant dies

Snatches take the stand

Grasps nearly get there

Only letting go we find

Unbroken hearts hold on

A fall of light in gold

Dust in sunbeam paths

Life’s chaff held secure 

Books of vanished sound

                              *

16.Set Against the Light

SET AGAINST the light

I see through my fine bone china cup

Facing the light---

I see through my delicate flesh---

Find there the level of that which fills me

Not running from the dark amount I see

Embracing the whole of me---there---

Where there is a wealth of reality

To wrestle with---

To hear the tiny sounds in its substance---

The sweet dark---the light I haven’t seen yet---

In the struggle---before the distilling---

And then the joy in tipping out---

Pouring out my light---in its silver streams---

Freeing me from the hold of dull living

Accepting and not rejecting all I see---

Within my fragile brittle cup

                                         * 

7. Trickling Down the Lines of Sight

TRICKLING DOWN the lines of sight

Bright beads of raindrops, dripping, meeting

Falling sight in mirrored window eyes---

And light---in rivers running---

From a sky of tears that never asked for them---

Never dreaming they’d be needed

Though nothing truly good

Was ever made without them

Even those that outwardly never emerged---

Locked inside---were the secret channels

Of true perception---

Lines of sight that could come no other way

Though we tried every other means

And went through every outer-part of knowledge

No other way worked so well as sorrow---

The un-thanked-for gift---the other side of joy

The un-looked-for dark in tomorrow

Which today was bright

*

Poetry Diary: Part 2. ) Seeing with your Eyes Shut . . .

              Light and Life in the Unknown . . . 

9. Seeing with your Eyes Shut

We see---and yet do not see

We see with our eyes open

We see not---and we see

Our eyes shut to our own perception

Open to one greater---

Eyes within eyes and a new world entered

                                     *



(More New Poems below...)

POETRY DIARY: PART TWO: THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND 

Definition: n. a “ragged writing” is basically a poem rejected: being as it is an affront to the intellect because the most used part of the mind can’t make much sense of it.  

     Some years ago I submitted a few of my poems to a poetry society and had received a sadly scathing reply in return: it seemed people could not understand them; and this was a problem. 

   So the rejected poems I began to call ‘ragged writings’ because I was left in tatters. Mortified I gave up. Misunderstood and confused I didn’t write in this vein for another two years. Then, turning it around, choosing to count it all joy, love filtered through and understanding came; and with it acceptance of my strangeness and I began again where I had left off.  

   The sap rose once more... and more powerfully for having endured such a harsh winter. Up through the stem, the fiery pillar in the dark came ‘the force that through the green fuse drives the flower;’ (Dylan Thomas) and in renewed creative energy new leaves of writing began to appear from the pruned branches of my broken life. Only now it seemed, that from a surface perspective my ‘ragged writings’ were harder than ever to decipher; and were perhaps even more incomprehensible. But that didn’t matter. I knew it was all right: delight washed over all that I wrote: I knew I was where I was meant to be -- in the unknown with love. And in love, all pervading, all present and all knowing confidence revived: the door opened. 

   If art went abstract, but not without a battle, couldn’t poetry, also; and ‘the rejection-battle’ be quite normal -- as it is in any living process of onward development and change? Although, these poems are not abstract: every line is full of known and intended meaning. I had simply discovered that my heart, torn asunder, could carry my mind’s every finding, further and deeper, and that it wasn’t necessary for the outer parts of it to understand: the measure of ‘value’ had entered a new arena.  

   I was shown the primary purpose of these poems: 

   It was not so much that they be literally understood, but that they are literally stood under: making us littler! For the littler we are, the lighter we become; and the lighter we become, the happier we are; which isn’t by more, but by less.                    

                                                                      *

THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND:  VOLUME THREE:  ARKIAHH DREAMING:  
(Vol.3/ 9; 12; 6; 14; 8; 1; 5.)

12. Aligned in Rows

ALIGNED IN ROWS the seeds were sown

In cryptic lines of fallow furls of earth

And only those that grew in dark

Found life in death and from the earth

Rose in words of living light in rows of flesh

And flourished there---

All those whose words were not their own---

Until in time they fell---the full head of wheat

And worked a rising thing---of life complete

In circled secrets the sower sows his seed

Aligned in rows in ever deepening lines of sight

In fallow furls of earth in cycled turns of life and death 

   

                                          

                          *

                        6. Alone

ALONE--- and almost not lonely

Cast aside--- but only waiting

Dropped like a plummet line

Measuring vanity

And stripped like scapegoat

Assessing deceit

Stretched out and cut in half

Mirroring souls

Pain in my inner wealth

Stripped of friends

*

           
     14. Where there is Space

Alone--- in the unknown of light---

Fearless in wisdom--- un-crowded

Dark closed caves in mountains

Bright lit caverns in hills---

Places of inner myth and legend

And the uncomfortable holds

Of knowledge---few would treasure---

Where flow the tears of heaven---

But from the ruts in the road

And the hollows in the sea---

Where there is space---

There is hope of a pouring-in

Where there is space in me---

There is room for grief

You have taught me what space is

And I learn of you---

How to let you make it in me---

Everywhere---

For where there is none

I cannot be lonely---

And without being lonely

I cannot fathom the gifted depths

You have given me to roam---

Yet so lonely am I---

One vast ocean of space in me---

So much loneliness---

Room in me for sense and sensitivity

Like nothing else

                              

          * 

8. Falling through the Daylight

FALLING THROUGH the daylight

And taking me with it---

The breathing streams of your love---

That through eternity

Touch the very marrow

Of my earthly existence

Lifting me nearer

Clasping me closer

Giving me the all of life

That I might never be parted from you

Never having left your side

Not since---

There was ever any beginning---

All my breathing done for me

In me---

Before ever I was made       

*

                             

1. Love Never Entered Deeper

LAST BUILT of all beginnings was the twelfth

Which was amethyst of shining royal purple

And in there, in that final foundation was faith 

All utter and terrible as an army with banners

And things not lawful to mention on the earth

Were there, full-unknown to the minds of men

But hid in God, in him who is all light and love

Where nothing that wasn't given from the first

Can be found, where all is of and in him and 

Nothing that wasn't pure was ever there, at all

And there all hid she speaks of a ray a true one

For no shaft of piercing love ever entered her 

Deeper: no shaft of piercing light ever brighter

And never of the like ever heard in God, at all

No other love ever entered her deeper

                                    *

5. To Have a Hope and No Regrets

TO HAVE a hope and no regrets

To have given everything

And know it’s nothing---

To be secure in not-knowing

Assured of your own calling

To take the burden lightly

That was beyond bearing---

And know that one was unworthy

Of any of these---

A moon-path that always follows you

A star that was always there

                           *