

### Go to the River

J.E.Warren

Copyright 2015 Jonathan Erik Warren

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Cover design and drawings by Jonathan Erik Warren

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# Table of Contents

Go to the River (1)

The Spirit-Jailer (2)

Faceless Stranger (3)

On the Mountain (4)

Something Close to Peace (5)

Inner Journey Born (6)

When the Wind Begins to Turn (7)

A Forest Again (8)

Within the Heart Hides a Pearl (9)

The Dam (10)

Animal Soul (11)

These Idols Where Never Made of Stone (12)

All but Dreams of Fear (13)

Trapped Inside Our Painting (14)

Wandering Ways (15)

Which Way I Need to Go (16)

So Many Hounds (17)

Worry is the Wall (18)

The Ocean (19)

Dizzy (20)

Silence (21)

Preach of His Own Greatness (22)

Those Who Know (23)

Bedeviling the Children of the Earth (24)

Cry Me a River (25)

Hollowed Hearts (26)

War (27)

Secrets in Ancient Stone (28)

Just My Longing to Be Free (29)

Lose Your Mind (30)

When My Face Echoes the Moon (31)

Carry You Away (32)

The Kingdom Fell to Ruin (33)

Cupidity (34)

False Currency (35)

Let My People Go (36)

There's a Storm Coming (37)

The Selfish Man (38)

High Horses (39)

The Marketplace (40)

Negotiate Her Ransom (41)

Holy Alchemy (42)

Desire's Memory (43)

I Must Still Be Wild (44)

Vixen (45)

Hearts and Spades (46)

This is Really Optimistic (47)

Say What You Came to Say (48)

Howl at the Moon (49)

How the Sand Marries the Sea (50)

The Greatest Joy (51)

When I Forget Myself (52)

Inside Me, Inside You (53)

My Poor Friend (54)

Light the Candle (55)

But to Be (56)

Shared Harbors (57)

The Alchemy of Form (58)

The River (59)

This Beauty, That Presence (60)

Hidden in a Shadow (61)

Love and War (62)

Unresolved Demons (63)

The Palace of Jade (64)

The Sound of Love (65)

Amora (66)

You Can See it in the Eyes (67)

I'm an Elephant (68)

Like an Open Sky (69)

The Light of the World (70)

As Natural as a Song (71)

We Travel Together (72)

All in Search of Water (73)

I Sing to You (74)

Music is the Beloved (75)

The Magic Flute (76)

The Moon Became Full of Itself (77)

Nothing Feels the Same (78)

The Sleeping Image (79)

The One Life (80)

You Can Go (81)

Nothing to Something (82)

I Am Here (83)

The Changing Winds (84)

The Ways of the Spirit (85)

Just a Story (86)

About the Author

Contact

# GO TO THE RIVER

### 1

There has been a revolution, something woke up

Can't quite describe it, but it keeps writing and singing

Picking up instruments and playing

It brings me up and brings me down

It has enriched my life, ruined my life

But I still love it, feel I couldn't live without it

Sometimes a dream that bursts into reality

Or is it reality bursting into this dream

This story keeps unfolding and we belong to it

The wind keeps singing:

"Go to the river, it's on its way to the ocean

And you have become like fish

Believing you can't breathe above water

Stand, you won't drown

Your feet can touch the ground"

Back to the top

# THE SPIRIT-JAILER

### 2

My friend disappeared, so I looked for him day and night, to no avail. As I slept, he appeared disheveled and wretched, I found his soul locked in the heart's prison with the spirit-jailer. The guard of the heart stands in front of the cell bars and says to the jailed: "You have murdered, you have stolen, you have been unfaithful, you have blasphemed the name of God, your selfishness has wronged others through your envy and covetousness, your reason has been smothered by your desire to obtain by means of deceit. Although you have committed many sins, none of which compares to your greatest sin, or rather your greatest ignorance, and is the reason why you are locked in this prison. What sin is that, you ask. The denial of the heart, the lying to yourself!" I then awoke, my wrists sore and bruised, the marks of removed shackles.

Back to the top

# FACELESS STRANGER

### 3

There has been a revolt

In the kingdom of the heart

Whether an evolution or revolution

The king has lost his throne

For only looking through one eye

The singleness of perception has lost favor

Among the inhabitants of consciousness

Haste, the director of the king's will

This limited sight of craving that only sees

Half of the truth and denies the rest

Has brought the kingdom to ruin

Anger and confusion has disseminated throughout the minds

Transcending to utter madness, a revelation

Consciousness looked into a mirror

And saw beyond the image and recognized:

We live somewhere between fantasy and reality

Ignorance and enlightenment

We are an ocean vacillating between waves of rising spirits

And land locked phantoms in shallow waters

Intuition spoke into this new awareness:

Stranger let me in

I am the deviant product of a generated culture

So come with me, we have much to see

I am but a poet

Who writes his soul in the riverbanks

The sand

That flows into the heart's current

In hopes to feel Life's wind

Who spends his time in grassy fields

Armed with a net

Trying to catch the wind

While embracing both his joys and his sorrows

So that he may decipher its secrets and learn to fly as well

I come as my wandering soul

Like a John the Baptist

Crying in the wilderness

Of the coming of a stranger

Who lives between here and there

Now and then and everywhere

I'm unworthy to look him in the eye

It's that which is closest

I find hardest to find

I've reached the temple

Yet its doors remain closed

I know not the bounds

Of my own ignorance

To offer upon that altar

If I could comprehend such a truth

I would be that faceless stranger

But I've fallen under my own weight

While circling these stones

I carved from dreams of another's face

The sand became loose

Water has eroded from underneath

Rotting these roots

Now in ruins

These stones can no longer stand

And Confusion's effigy, oh it holds me down

My roots have been up-rooted

No longer securing my being

To the warmth of the earth

So my underground desires would blossom

And my essence be known to you and unearthed to me

This Love that can rip off my face

And expose the needs of my soul

I rode the wave of hope

Until I crashed back onto myself

Into that whirlpool of sorrow and despair

It sucked me through to the center of my being

Where that little light of mine

Where it shines

My heart has soared and my mind has flown

Through the forest that entangles my soul

I've walked on the heights of mountains

Down the valleys to the meadows

Singing songs of a stranger who ignited my soul

That light of the night beyond the sun

And now the stranger's home

You must look to the trees to remember where you come from

Because this society has forgotten that they were once children

Forgetting about the hidden door in the prison walls

And the secret sun that lights the night

So come friends, come family

Come lovers, come all

To the gathering

Where we share stories

Road maps through the soul

Back to the top

# ON THE MOUNTAIN

### 4

I climbed a mountain more treacherous than once thought

My ambition revealed my naiveté

I learned that a mountain is bigger than a man

And its harsh elements can tear down the vitality of the mind

But determination of the human spirit

Is what transported me to its summit

Determination conquered the mountain

Making me larger than the mountain

On that mountain is freedom

And freedom cannot be controlled, nor hindered

Freedom is the vacillating movements of the seas

Freedom is the whirling of leaves floating on the wind

Freedom is an animal living its nature

Freedom is chaos

Blowing the wind from all directions at the same time

Freedom is choice

On that mountain, I felt the purity of the earth

The tundra untouched by the principles of man

On that mountain, I saw where rivers began

What was small that will become so vast

That boats must be constructed to cross to the other shore

On that mountain snow hid the trail

Leaving me in bewilderment and confusion

Forcing me to forge my own path

Up jagged rock and across slippery ice

On that mountain was a revelation:

The spirit that determines the will of man

Frees man from the weaknesses of his own mind

On that mountain is the midpoint

Between earth and the heavens

And life rests at that midpoint

Life rests on that mountain

On the summit of that great and treacherous mountain

I had a dream within a bold, fluid landscape

A washed painting in the forest of the ancient Far East, but I am not alone

My every action guided by my protector, my teacher

Within this seemingly lucid world I am but a child

Ignorant to the other worlds that are so out of reach

From the senses that view this one as real

The senses use reason to blind intuition

And closes the lids of my other eyes

Which remain asleep

Gazing upon the sunrise of another world

I was told this by the old man, a wanderer, my teacher

I asked him, "Then how do I awake from this dreaming?

How does the dance of life move the fibers of my heart again

And reveal the joy that is my being?

What plague is this that pushed me so far away

From the spirit of that innate knowing?"

Walk among the trees

And the serenity of the streams and springs

For they harbor the wisdom of the earth

Transcending the vacuum of ego's mind

The trees have a secret language

That only the seasons can understand

And the changing of her leaves

Is her answer to the wind:

Push me, but I will only fall

When my time has come and past

For it may seem as if Life has you

In its swings of emptiness and fullness

Consumed by the over abundant need

For the guiding force of Love

Whose all inspiring truth hides behind

A façade of insecurities and self-delusions

Whispering secrets in the shape of bullets

Shattering the mirror of the conception of perception

Reality hides in the open

The mind's eye sees vanity

But vanity cannot glimpse the mind's eye

Why do we hide beneath the shape of our figure

Wearing clothes that lie, deny

Believing that I am the body

Why do you worship, but a shirt

See a face

See a man

But understand

I am not the man

What inside has no face

Is no man

But understand

Split me from me and there you are

Split you from you and here I am again

All that separates you from me

Is the intellect, the mind, the personality, the false ego

I have read many books

'til their words are meaningless

For there are more volumes that live in the heart

Than any number of books could ever fill

If God were to write a book

Eyes could not read it

Fingers could not touch it

Lips could not speak it

Mind could not grasp it

But heart could unfold it

Soul would fly to it

And spirit encompasses it

Your unanswered questions

Are the muses of deeper truths and unseen revelations

Invoking the intense seeking of the ever-evasive truth

Which requires a discipline and a faith of courage

To face what we fear

With the pursuit of knowledge and understanding

So a life of compassion may be born

Compassion is the true wisdom

Listen to the words of the wise

For they are the ones, who are above in the light of mind

Shining the way for others

As a traveler climbs a mountain in the dead of night

And the moonlight being the only source of light 'til morning sun

Listen, so one day you may divine the truth from their spirit

And your soul may find the spirit within itself

For one man's answer muses another's question

And that is the nature of learning

True conversation is a love affair

The entering of worlds

Seeing the joys, the sufferings, the expression,

The conception of life

And although we stand on either side of the canyon

Our hearts meet floating in the freeing air

Within a whisper is the echo of my soul

And the voice of yours

I pleaded, "Please, teach me the ways of this wisdom

I feel without you I will be forever lost and bound to this torment

Of ignorant unknowing for lifetimes beyond lifetimes"

Is it the microscope or the telescope

That penetrates the nature of our being?

One sees the closeness of an atom

While the other the distance of a star

One is the narrowness of focus

And the other the vastness of beyond

What is a truth?

A truth is that which resounds within you

But as you grow, mature, age your truths shall change

As you gain experience and knowledge

The understandings of your truths

Begin to evolve and deepen

Tuning to a different key

Resonating to another truth

A truth to someone

Is nothing, but empty words

They understand the words

But the meaning is a mist

Unable to actualize it

True belief is to become it

Where belief no longer exists

A stranger is noticed in a town

The townspeople know their own

The stranger sees the trouble of the town

Distance has a larger view

Truth is found in the outskirts of town

Prophets are the black sheep of the flock

Wrong is easier than right

Because truth sets us apart

A truth told is an insult

A truth inspired is a revelation

Experience connects us

Words get lost in translation

From one mind to another or from heart to paper

And meaning is imprinted in experience

One must experience that of another

For the other to understand the meaning of his words

But even then...

You may follow me, but know you can never walk my path

You may listen to my words

But you will never possess my mind

Nor take hold of my heart

I journey alone in the forest of my mind

And battle desires through my heart

I seek not to convert you

To my vision or my thought

For you may never possess them

They are the images of my heart

Songs of my soul, hymns of the night

Remember, your journey comes not through me

But through the forests that invade the meadows of your mind

Triumph the mountain that overlooks the insanity of the city sun

Peer into the darkness of your heart to the light of your soul

And there lives an eternal flower forever born

So let the body be a slave, never the soul

For the body will never live to see eternity

You may stand on distant shores and blow

But you will never fill the sails of eternity's boat

Just the wind my friend, just the wind

One of the many things you can never control

But when your dreams tell you:

Your thoughts are pots too large for your kitchen

It is time to expand, to change, to allow courage to stand

And return the world to its proper size:

A ball in your hand no bigger than your head

For courage is to do what you fear

Confidence is to perform with your entire being

Those who serve as the embodiment of encouragement

Are the saviors of confidence and the midwives of expression

Be careful to let the mind wander

It may find caverns it is unable to escape from

Just remember that fear is like seeing

Through a side view mirror

Things may appear larger than they really are

It is in perception and awareness

That clouds understanding

Creating depression and anxiety

Depression, like joy, is a part of a natural cycle, a natural process

Just as the seasons of nature are the earth's cycle of renewal

It is in the pain of depression and the confusion of question

That is the road to the unfoldment of being

The truth of our being does not lie in the chemicals of our brain

For they are not the expression, only the manifestation

Of that poetry of the heart

They are not guilt, they are not shame

They are not insecurities, they are not loss or grief

They are not emptiness, they are not loneliness

They are not anger, they are not confusion

They are not a past un-forgiven, they are not disillusionment

They are not the suffering of what we lack

They are not the abandonment of a father and the worry for the mother

They are not a self-styled repression of expression

They are not seeing the present through the heartaches of the past

Filling the mind with hopeless futures

Our ignorance of ourselves inflicts the deepest wounds

And lashes out in anger for fear of being exposed

For anger and wrath are weapons of fear

Hiding signs of weakness we dare not to reveal

Like an angered man full of rage

Beat his son blood and pain

When the broken boy regained his strength

He whispered kindly

"Father, my broken bones, bruised and bloody face

Are the reflections of your own forgotten soul, guilt and inner pain"

Just feel and the wind will blow through you

The music will become you

No language can interpret you

All languages will understand you

Mind cannot disturb you

No thought will invade you

The cloud of self doubt

Cannot live in this garden of beauty

Dreams, my friend, live on this wind

The body may be a rock or stone

But the soul is a bird that flies to the garden

But the garden only grows when the land is released

And the garden is allowed to grow

So worship the spirit through creativity

And pray through expression

Worship is the thought of the mind

And the direction of the heart

Everyone has a gift

A reflection and a truth of what is eternal

And the earth is an alter

To sacrifice the will of the world

In offering of these gifts

The Spirit, let it remain conscious

So the world may not eat you

Feel your guilt and feel your fears

But let that not overweigh the balance of your judgment

Negative thoughts of self are based on the cultural and societal beliefs

Of who or what we are to be

It is society's judgments on our condition, beliefs and actions

Which we compare ourselves to

What we are told we must do or become

And when we don't conform we feel guilty, giving us fear

We are enslaved by the thought of our world, of our culture

And in turn punish ourselves for what we lack

How traumatic

Through the experiences of life

It is you who must define its meaning

Your perception is yours and is defined by you

Those who do not create their own interpretation of reality

Are forced to carry someone else's

Trauma is the experience of an event

That was un-believed to be possible

The creation of a shattered world

An attempt to assimilate to a new reality

It's a funny thing, dying

Or if you rather the term perceptual death

It tends to create abundant growth

The awakening of joy in the sorrow

Seeing more clearly what is and what is not

Born into this world

Death, born into another

Birth and death are the same

For they exist within each other

When I had a home

I cut all the branches off a tree

Leaving only the trunk

Because it was stealing sunlight from the orange tree

And when spring arrived

New growth sprung up twenty fold

As if it grew out of nothing

It was amazing

That once barren trunk looked like a very tall bush

This act of letting go, of willful amputation

Is perceptual death and birth

I once saw a man stop to pick a flower and put it to his nose

He looked to me and said with his finger over his mouth

Ssh! Don't tell anyone

And I said, "That's what they're there for"

A rose blooms from the inside out

And I am the rose

Pick me

So my beauty may adorn your home

Life is the blooming of a flower and the harvest of the bees

The growth of the trees and the medicine that surrounds

Nurturing each other's growth

Life is an ocean embracing all that flows through it

Suddenly towards the horizon women in threes

Came out from behind the trees and attacked my teacher

Unsheathed swords clashed, he put up a fight, but he was defeated

I ran to his side and watched as the light of life faded from his eyes

And with his last moments he recited a prayer:

Plant me into the earth

So I may come to know

The treasures lost to the ages

The foundation that nurtures the root

Let the rain fall and wash away my body

Becoming one with the river

Guided to the oceans

And communing with life

Dissolve me into the wind

So I may blow through the trees

And learn the secrets of the ancients, in the dark forests

The place where man fears the most to travel alone

Infuse me with the sun

So I may feel true love

Becoming a ray of life

Giving growth to the grasses

As I sat on a low tree branch fearing not for my life

Only for the loss of my guide

I was approached by the three women and one said to the others

"Leave the poet, let him tell the story"

I cried out to the women:

Why did you kill my teacher, my guide, my protector

Without him I am left to wander through this unknown wilderness

Now who will help me bind my soul back to the body?

Who will help me reach to the sky, yet remain anchored in truth?

Who will help me curb my lust and find love's inner song?

One of the women responded:

My dear friend what has happened to you?

You're speaking all sorts of nonsense

Love has no anchor in your heart

It's flying wild chasing objects and bodies

All those empty vessels

All those longings that are nothingness

Looking through too many eyes

We together can never speak of Love

You're looking through too many I's

And could never comprehend my tongue when I say:

"Let us not speak of Love

That only creates all sorts of images

Rather let it remain in silence

A broken heart may cling to one that is full

Like a parasite it drains the essence of its host

Leaving the one full empty and depleted

And the other still broken wanting more

Two broken hearts can mend into one

But leaves one heart cold and both broken again

A heart that has not filled itself cannot be filled by another

Your dependence is your prison

Your reliance is your plague

See with your heart and understand

That all your misfortune is just an illusion

Of the mind's little game"

The lies I have told

Just to deny myself the truth

Because the truth would make the truth real

Only to realize

I have been traveling through escapades of self-delusion

To cleanse the eyes so I can see the true nature of Love

Show me the truth that these eyes have not seen

The beauty that lies between

The mind's eye opens to a sea of sapphire blue

What is the truth that hides in the darkness of our slumber?

We are only learning from the dead

The experiences of the past are all stories of dead men

These mistakes are lessons to kill what is not yours

The façade that hides in your bed

The truth blinded by the lies in your head

You're a murderer killing yourself

In the darkness of your slumber

With a pillow over your head

Who is now standing over you yelling:

"Wake up, wake up truth has found himself

And he is lying in your bed

What will you do this time, kill him again

But you know he will never die

It is only you that must, but death is not the end

So sleep and dream in this life of slumber

Play out your war drum epic

Battle through the monsters in your mind

The ones you created to keep it all alive

Truth has found himself and he is lying in your bed

And I am just whispering the secrets of the heart"

So for now just sing with me child

The hymns that break the barriers

Between this world and the next

Between the veil of hatred and its true source of fear

For the answers lie in the heart that can sustain itself

And has reached the understanding of the cycle of the seasons

And the life of the sun

Let the oceans rise and fall

Washing away the idols that divide

Brother against brother

Father against son

Mother against daughter

Listen, their words can bring light

Light that can grow new worlds

Manifest secrets, secrets your heart always knew

But your mind would never let through

Listen, intuition dances to the beat of the heart

Can you hear it, the song of the soul?

Do what the soul lives for and live as that

Deny the bliss and live the nightmare

Drowning in Anger's poison

Surviving Depression's prison

Do what the soul lives for and follow that

They then leave me alone in this foreign landscape

In a sense they liberated me

To find where the heart and the mind part ways

And then comes back together

I walked outside and stared into the midnight sky

The moon quiets the erratic sounds of the daytime sun

To a cricket hum

Back to the top

# SOMETHING CLOSE TO PEACE

### 5

A shining, bright, white light filled my eyes, a light brighter than the sun giving fresh sight for dreaming eyes. The light beyond the sun filled my heart with a longing to remember what had been forgotten. My heart, my mind, my soul fall dark, like that of the night, when separated from the shining sun of a greater light.

All I could do was look into the night's sky and observe its glory, its vastness, its wonder, its brilliance. I looked up, peering into the mirror of its infinite depths, only to look down into the inner reaches of my searching soul, who cannot find rest for her tattered heart and secures no home to mend the peace that evades my restless mind.

My soul wanders aimlessly through the morning mist in the desert's heat, dry and lonely, like awakening from night's dreaming slumber with confusion by her side, as an unfaithful lover, not knowing where she is or where she had been; finding neither relief, nor comfort in feeling the touch of her familiar bed, it's all just a reminder of something I cannot remember. Only restlessness that longs for rest at the door of her husband's eternal home moves me to endure the morning mist in the desert's heat, while hoping that every shadow that blocks the heat is her husband walking past the sun giving me relief. In that shadow is something close to peace.

Back to the top

# INNER JOURNEY BORN

### 6

We were born of our mother and formed by our father

In the field where we grow amongst the trees

That carries the fruits of all our earthly desires and selfish dreams

We are allowed to eat freely of what remedies all want and need

While playing fantasies through characters decorated in elegant disguise

We are told by the jealous one, who we deem from up high

Indulge of all you wish, but do not even lay eye

On the center of this garden, for you shall surely die

The life which you live will be no more

Thrown into the wilderness having no home

The jealous are fearful and fear is an illusion

So be passerby

The fruits of the garden are the lies of our father

Seduced to drink of the drunken water

Ripping woman from the side of man

Incomplete, we do not understand

The side that was stolen and hidden from man

Fear not father's jealous wrath

Flaunting prideful arrogance, inspired ignorance

Restore your mind to the center

And cast away the illusion made by desire

This once elegant disguise transfigured, realized naked

Bare breasted and now seen once hidden spaces

Knowing that which you lack has cast you out

Exiled into a wilderness, confusion stumble and fall

Alone and made to crawl, forced to till and toil

Breaking ground for your own survival

In the death of life maintained by smoke and mirrors

The thought of who you were before crumples

An inner journey born

Back to the top

# WHEN THE WIND BEGINS TO TURN

### 7

A woman emerged

From the shadows of the world

She embraced it

Then ate it

And made it part of herself

She conceived it

Then birthed it

A reflection of herself

A divine mosaic

Reflecting the absence

She failed to know herself

Her mind takes shape as the oceans

The land forms her heart

The earth is her body

Her spirit flows through all the living

And even death cannot cease the flow

The life of her body

The earth radiant from the sun

Life emerges when the wind begins to turn

The current of the oceans

Wash upon her shores

Thoughts only the heart may harbor

Back to the top

# A FOREST AGAIN

### 8

I found the liar

All these stories in the head

Believing the smoke in the mirror

Where all illusions begin

Mind has found only ending

No feathers for gliding

These lies can't hide

The images falling from the sky

So fall away, fall away

The sun is rising

And I am the light

A tree eclipses the sun

And I am the shadow

I saw the father

He came from the sky

He planted that old tree

And the temples cut it down

There was the answer

Written in the sand

It blew away

Never to be found again

Listen to the ground

So close your underground

Spring from the root

All the knowledge that you found

And fall away, fall away

The sun is rising

And I am the light

A tree eclipses the sun

And I am the shadow

I saw the father

He came from the sky

He planted that old tree

And the temples cut it down

The place behind your personality

Where contentment and joy

Is your only identity

So fall away, fall away

I found the liar

He stands on this ground

Yelling at the sapling

Keep quiet now

Others may hear you

And push through this ground

And there would be a forest again

No more barren land

Back to the top

# WITHIN THE HEART HIDES A PEARL

### 9

A vision the eyes can never perceive

Within a room a door appears

Opens and reveals a world of light

A doorway through the mind

An extension of me, beyond me

What crosses the threshold

A shadow from light

The guardian, my ego

Hinders my path to self

This shadow of jealous love

Forcibly shuts the door

For fear of ego's death

The ego is the gatekeeper

Like the dragon guards the gold

Slay the dragon and find the treasure

Within the heart hides a pearl

Friends of Love evade the dragon heart

Like a root straight to the water's source

A longing to be is The Great Mystery

Back to the top

# THE DAM

### 10

We have been shipwrecked

Yet we don't know it

Cuz we're having a party

And someone spiked the punch

I bow down into my hands

Like a drunk man

I see all these ghosts through my eyes

They're just living out their own lives

What desires are you chasing?

What illusions are you believing?

What face are you hiding?

Oh hidden soul of a sorrowful heart

The guardians protecting from tears

Are a dam trying to tame the rivers of truth

What truth do you harbor

Anchored in your heart?

What voiceless voice

Speaks through your being?

What holy pain reveals itself

Even through the cloak of your iron mask?

Show me where it hurts

So I may poke making it bleed

So you will finally have to tend to your need

Sooner or later water will overflow

Or find a crack in the wall holding your heart

And your soul set free

Like a fish to the sea

Like the blind who now see

We have been shipwrecked

Yet we don't know it

Cuz we're having a party

And someone spiked the punch

And we're all drunk

Dancing to the Puppet Master

And he lives inside

Back to the top

# ANIMAL SOUL

### 11

A child asked of me

I said I don't know

We're all just children too

Afraid of our own shadow

Playing this game

Thinking we gotta win

That's the animal soul

Won't let you go

Won't let you grow

Just cuz you're angry with me

Don't mean I'm going to match your energy

That's the animal soul

Won't let you go

Won't let you grow

Two friends put up a fight

With a shield in one hand

And a sword in the other

They go lick for lick

Until they're both bruised and broken

That's the animal soul

Won't let you go

Won't let you grow

You gotta lie to me

Well that's ok, I see you in pity

It's got nothing to do with me

That's the animal soul

Won't let you go

Won't let you grow

Some people see in black and white

All the other colors give'em such a fright

They say, "How can you be so bright"

We say, "All the other colors, they come from the same light"

A child asked of me

I said I don't know

We're all just children too

Putting ourselves in too many different rooms

Making us all confused

Back to the top

# THESE IDOLS WERE NEVER MADE OF STONE

### 12

How many times

Will I return to this old house

I knock on the door, but there's no one around

I pick up a stone and carve me an idol

Throw it to the ground

When it don't serve me no more

But I always come full circle

Cuz these idols were never made of stone

Who am I looking for

There's a map in my heart

I don't yet know how to read

Thought I found myself

But I kept on changing

How many times

Will I return to this old house

I knock down the door

Burn it to the ground

Build it from the floor

Who am I looking for

In the flames of my destruction

In the hope of my vision

Who am I looking for

In the tears of my confusion

In the darkness of my anger

Who am I looking for

There's a map in my heart

I don't yet know how to read

Thought I found myself

But I kept on changing

Will I ever return to this old house

With the doors wide open

And the walls they fall down

And I'm there sitting and waiting

Who am I, who am I looking for

These idols were never made of stone

Back to the top

# ALL BUT DREAMS OF FEAR

### 13

In dreams I search through caves, hidden archways

With fire for a flame, the light of a guided way

But still I cannot find the animals I wish to slay

In darkness they appear

But when the flame is aflame they all disappear

As if the animals I search for

Are all but dreams of fear

Like a dreamer who fails to dream

Falls into oblivion

And lives in someone else's dream

Back to the top

# TRAPPED INSIDE OUR PAINTING

### 14

Life is like a woman, we paint her portrait

But it doesn't look like her

We put our love in a bottle

To control what goes in and what comes out

So our love is never free

Trapped inside of our painting

So we go into the desert drunk with our hunger

Thirsty for the meaning of it all

And we chase and we chase encircling the image

Of our painting that has guided us so long

And it's all a mirage, it was only a mirage

What is this dream my eyes fail to see

That only lives in my heart

Now people tell me, "What are you going to do with your life?"

I think I will just be and trust in the being

That sets us free to see behind our painting

Life is like a woman whose dress appeared yellow

In the shadows, but pink in the light

A change in the light turned the eye

To what was too dark to see, another reality

We put our love in a bottle

To control what goes in and what comes out

So our love is never free

Trapped inside of our painting

Back to the top

# WANDERING WAYS

### 15

As we travel on wandering ways, my heart suffers

From the distance we place between each other

I no longer know where to direct my energy

Like driftwood floating in the forgotten sea

I stand lonely, marooned in idealistic dreams

Tell me, what is worthy of ambition or accomplishment

When my desire of this fleeting world

Has been poured out and left standing

Like a sober addict orphaned from numbing bliss?

How could success ever be measured

When the scales of judgment do not value or see

The cultivation of a human being

Nor appreciates the growing fruits

Nurtured by the abundant spring?

What is the purpose of striving for recognition or prestige

When a personality, like the world

Is such an evanescent thing?

I find it so very strange how easy it is

To get lost in so much empty space

But in the caverns of this desperation

There lives the memory of the space between places

The understanding of our close friendship

It is there where we were separated

Where we defined ourselves

As anything other than each other

I ask, "Why is it so hard to live apart?

And why is it so hard to come so close together again?"

Apart we believe we are independent of each other

And together the truth of our dependence is overwhelming

In truth independence does not exist:

A sculpture cannot chisel itself into form

A lover cannot be a lover without the beloved

A teacher cannot be a teacher without the student

A friend cannot be a friend without the friend

A bird cannot fly without the wind

A fish cannot swim without the water

A tree cannot stand without the earth

The earth cannot live without the sun

I cannot live without you

And we cannot live without each other

We live on mountaintops yearning towards the sky

Forgetting we too are the clouds

It is this forgetfulness that believes

Anything was ever separate

Back to the top

# WHICH WAY I NEED TO GO

### 16

I'm a flower, I rooted in the sand

Every time I get up I fall back down

A hurricane coming and push me around

The wind and rain, they coming back round

I don't know, I don't know

Which way I need to go

I don't know, I don't know

Which way I need to go

Lord show me the light and the way

Every time I try to find my own way

A fork in the road, I'm lost in the sand

Too many times I'm banging my head

I don't know, I don't know

Which way I need to go

I don't know, I don't know

I don't know nothing no more

Back to the top

# SO MANY HOUNDS

### 17

So many hounds

They all pull their own way

One hound sees and another prays

One hound wants freedom, but can't wait patiently

One wants to wander in the wilderness and stray

One wants to retreat to the monastery

One wants to fight the unending tyranny

All these hounds

They all pull their own way

One doesn't see what the other perceives

One wants to live in the past that once knew

One wants to go home to that unending abode

One wants to live in the wilderness

And believe again the nature of things

One wants to fight the culture we live

One wants to live the unending abode

One already sees inside your soul

I don't know which way I need to go

Cuz I don't even feel I'm even here, not even here

So many hounds

They all pull their own way

I just don't know which time they become one

Where's the leader, who leads these huskies around

In this dog sled of mine

Cuz the winter storm it's coming and I'm drowning

In my indirection, all these energies don't protect me

I see your face in everything

You call my name, but I don't see your face

You push me back and I don't feel the same

I see your light and my mind is changed

Then you leave me all alone in this garden of shame

Abandoned, don't know where to stand

So many hounds

They all pull their own way

So many energies lead me astray

What's this disharmony?

What is this disharmony?

Back to the top

# WORRY IS THE WALL

### 18

I try to move the mountain

But the mountain doesn't move

I bang my hand against the mountain

And it breaks my bones

I'm such a fool

When my heart and mind

Dance to different rhythms

The day I saw your face

I saw the mountain

The day I saw your face, grace

And the mountain fades away

The day I saw your face

Everything became clear

This hand I can't see

Leads me everywhere

We travel together

Having conversations

No one will hear

There's no answer to be found

In this world out here

You feel it deep inside

It's no longer your choice

You do it because you must

There's no option anymore

Worry is the wall

How long will you wait

Inside this suffering

Back to the top

# THE OCEAN

### 19

I was once a navigator of a boat

That sailed coast to coast

I read the compass backwards

And I wrecked this boat

If I'm a boat, you're an ocean

A foundation

Even when the four winds blow me around

And I'm lost, you're still there

If that hurricane shall come

And wash everything away

If this boat shall sink

I return to you

A harbor that rests in still waters

An embracing refuge from troubled waters

Back to the top

# DIZZY

### 20

Ocean wave

I am the crest

Falling into everything

Can you see the fire fly between our eyes

Can your heart beat apart from mine

I feel the fire burn my soul to dust

Heaven, Earth

The water falls on everything

And the fire flies between us

Let me know

Where you go

I'll follow you

Around and around

Around and around

I'm still dizzy

Once a bird and now a man

I clipped my wings and now I stand

Amongst the children and we pretend

The world of men is a mirror for

Everything I don't believe in anymore

Once I heard the call

I put my clothes beneath the stairs

Kissed my girl goodbye

And left everything behind

Ocean wave

I am the crest

Falling into everything

Let me know

Where you go

I'll follow you

Around and around

Around and around

I'm still dizzy

Heaven, Earth

The water falls on everything

And the fire flies between us

Back to the top

# SILENCE

### 21

Driving towards the river

Only silence resides

I am never alone

A heart pure as water

Finds its way guided on a stream

Upstream or down, neither matters

You will find the river

Worry not for the fading water

Know the breeze will blow

Before the drought of summer

You will have what you need

Silence enclose me, unfold me

Silence enclose me, unfold me

I see a woman, she's weeping

But who am I to speak

During such a conversation

Between mind, heart and soul

She has what she needs

Silence enclose me, unfold me

Silence enclose me, unfold me

I'm sitting on a hill and I'm reading

I feel there's someone watching me

Turn around to see, it's only a tree

Have you ever felt the presence of a tree?

Silence enclose me, unfold me

Silence enclose me, unfold me

Worry not for the fading water

Know the breeze will blow

Before the drought of summer

You will have what you need

Time is of the essence

But there is no essence in time

You will have what you need

Back to the top

# PREACH OF HIS OWN GREATNESS

### 22

Two men surrounded by hearers and onlookers

Stood proclaiming, "I am the light and the truth"

Both had the same message

But each a different intent

A child no more than twelve years old

Placed a mirror in front of the two men

One of the men gazed into the mirror

Seeing only the greatness of himself

And arrogantly shouted:

"I alone am the light and the truth

There is none other greater than me"

The other man looked into the mirror

And saw all that encompasses the earth, the universe

But what lies beyond that, he could not put into words

The majesty of what lives within every image

He saw and felt the truth, then walked away

Leaving the other man to preach of his own greatness

Back to the top

# THOSE WHO KNOW

### 23

Isn't this interesting: the **Author** becomes the **Author** ity

There was once the Brahmins (the Hindu priestly class)

And now there is the political class (the elites of the modern era)

Both read and wrote in a language the common people were unable to read and interpret

Thus in the state of ignorance, the commoners are forced to submit to "Those Who Know"

Which creates an environment of inequality and the temptation for corruption and manipulation

Bestowing upon this ruling class the position of nobility, as in the feudalist system

We live in a time where kings and thieves both reign!

The conquered have learned to survive

By pretending to be defeated

But watch the possum turn to a boa

When the occupiers lay their guard down

To the arrogance of their laurels

Back to the top

# BEDEVILING THE CHILDREN OF THE EARTH

### 24

In a time when chaos is only held back by the dams of deceit

Powerful men dressed in suits of confidence and prestige

Tour the country offering great promises for the future

With answers and guidance to the country's many problems

To the people's sorrowful prayers

And all they ask is to be placed in the seats of power

To be trusted and leaned upon

And the glory and peace that once reigned upon this land

Within the hearts and minds of its people shall be restored

This is their promise

Among the crowds chanting in reverence

To the beautiful dream weaved by the mouths of trickery

A voice imprisoned by obscurity speaks out in warning:

"Remember the Aztec's knew

For they predicted the time of their Armageddon

Embracing their demons (the Conquistadors)

Assumed as their saviors

As will be our fate in the time of reckoning

Oppressors seen as liberators

Bedeviling the children of the Earth"

Back to the top

# CRY ME A RIVER

### 25

I felt the spirit of the mountain

As I walk through the river

Drying my tears

Cry me a river

So I can wipe the blood

From the Cherokee's eyes

We have suffered too many years

Cry me a river

America has died

Freedom lost the battle

When the Cherokee cried

The tyrannical war drum beats its skin

The drummer is destroyed

By the drummer's own hand

All those talking birds

Just repeating what they heard

Battles won

Remembered by the ghosts of war

Reenacting all those times before

Hailing for the wrath of more

Cry me a river

America has died

Freedom lost the battle

When the Cherokee cried

Back to the top

# HOLLOWED HEARTS

### 26

The blood of the innocent streams down our streets

And we scoff at their existence and dance in their essence

Drink of their life, as if we drink of the purest wine

In the lap of our luxury feeling nothing of guilt

All this is but half a world away, but even there children play

This accepted evil hollows our hearts and twists our tongues

Bedeviling the children of the earth

To accept that their lives are a sacrifice to be offered upon the gods

That their deaths are for the greater good of all

A justified evil for our survival

Back to the top

# WAR

### 27

I see the stars, they shine so bright

We have our heavens and we have our hell

They come from the thoughts of men, the dreams of men

All these wars, they come from within

These nightmares, they become so big

We frighten ourselves, won't let anyone in

There's no way to stop it, can't fight it

Wake up, wake up, wake up

Help me, my friend, I forget myself

While living in this world

And I forget that I mirror it

My spirit sleeps and anger slips in

I become like a frustrated infant

Who cannot yet walk or talk

I cannot sink or swim

I'm stuck in this ocean

Drifting through the worlds of men

Where Freedom rides the point of a bayonet

Flies behind a bullet

Where Greed masquerades as Freedom

And is the effigy of War

War is a violent ocean

Shaping both the heavens and the hells

Of what men create, but cannot control

Its ebb and its flow

Every act of violence

Even in the name of Freedom

Binds the soul to the horrors of that conquest

So careful who you idolize

Every hero is two-faced

Every hero conquers the villain

But every villain was a hero

War is a branch on the tree of knowledge

Of good and evil

And all who indulge fall into a fog

Where the two cannot be distinguished

Believing war to be an acceptable evil

In the cause for good

Back to the top

# SECRETS IN ANCIENT STONE

### 28

Mystery Babylon will fall

Of defying the law

The lady called Liberty

Has corrupted them all

The power behind the power

Creates an earthquake

And soon the Earth shall shake

O' America

Your flag should be up-side-down at half mast

With missing stars and faded stripes

Stamped with the label:

Made in China

Displaying the acts of the past

To the guided foreseen future

Dead presidents losing their esteem

The incumbent accompanied by serpents

These wise men of the councils

Bringing the republic to its end

Symbols of the societies

Give them away

To their ancient roots

That control the modern day

Their secrets hiding behind lies

Living a delusion of everyone's mind

Working to live as kings

In a kingdom that is not your own

What makes you kings

Is what makes you slaves

To the king of this kingdom

The past of our lives seeming as

Fragmented memories of a dream

Searching for the inner longing of what is real

Amid a scattered mind of confusion:

Perfection is of one mind

\---Chaos---

Equals the split of One

Becoming Two

How can you see through the fog

When it is always raining

Regurgitated theology

Corporate pseudo psychology

Governmental bureaucracy

Consumer mentality

Social conformity

Prescription induced anti-sobriety

Pouring on the mind

Bars wielded by tradition

Encaging our lives

I understand

The simplicity of the derivative

Is complicated to understand

Light is the frequency of Love

The breath of Life

See into the darkness

Through closed eyes

Illuminated by the sun

Its glare

Brighter than the one

Shining from above

Back to the top

# JUST MY LONGING TO BE FREE

### 29

I'm a slave

All my howling

Is just my longing to be free

We live in a schizophrenic world

That has confused and corrupted life

We don't know what is real and what is not

I think I'm losing my mind

I see those people on T.V.

Are they lying or are they not

I hear those politicians

You know, the ones that are going to save me

They speak in rhythm

I think they're trying to hypnotize me

We only know what they tell us

So tell me who creates reality

I'm a slave

I hear their popular music

What all the youth are chanting to

It's a mass manipulation

A narcissistic adaptation

I'm a slave

Do you feel those dark powers, the government

Those little boys in a king's robe

Dancing with the devil burning down their throne

They build their systems, their ways of control

They coin our money, then bankrupt us all

But you know they made a profit

Cuz now they own every home

Must be a depression, a repression of expression

Is that why there's so many on some type of prescription

But all your depression

Is just your soul crying for some attention

I'm a slave

All my howling

Is just my longing to be free

Back to the top

# LOSE YOUR MIND

### 30

Those bastard children

Try to force their will upon my head

But they ain't my king

They ain't my king

The light don't belong in the shadows

I see it in the stones

I see it in the stones

We live in a state of fear

Since the dawn of time

The evil ones

They control men by their minds

You gotta lose your mind

Lose your mind

It's our light that lights the sun

Me and the sun are one

Unbalanced, unstable

Dancing to the rhythmic beat of the drum

Harmonizing to the incongruent cosmic tempo

A radiant expression of an atomic explosion

A mistake in correction

Unbalanced, unstable

Yearning for equilibrium

And exist no more

You gotta lose your mind

Lose your mind

It's our light that lights the sun

The light don't belong in the shadows

Those bastard children, they ain't my king

Back to the top

# WHEN MY FACE ECHOES THE MOON

### 31

Go to the river tonight

I'll meet you there someday soon

But I don't see my face in your eyes

They're clouded by the moon

You're a star, I'm a tree in the ground

I've been planted here so long, it's deep now

But maybe one day, I'll find my way to you

But not tonight, oh not tonight

We travel all day and all night

Trying to make our way home

But this world don't stop for you

It just spins and it spins like a top on a plane

Ain't it sad our life is a train

Work and work it away

Every day is the same

I leave my individual house

Get into my individual car

Drive to my individual job

So I may finance my individual life

We run and run as the days circle round

When life comes to an end nothing is found

We toil the ground 'til we're buried there

And it's all a big mistake

This culture ain't quite awake

We're all lost and all alone, just wanna go home

Back to that river we came from

Back to that river I came from

Heaven pour your light and fill me again

I'm a cup, I poured myself out

Empty again

I'm a vessel for you now

Fill me with wine

We'll drink all night in this gold mine

'til I see my face in your eyes, as the moon

You're a star, I'm a tree in the ground

I've been buried here so long, burn it down

Burn it down and my ashes will fly to you

When I become the river

When my face echoes the moon

Back to the top

# CARRY YOU AWAY

### 32

Heaven sent, I'm the grape that suffers

In this desert that ain't mine

But that's what makes the finest wine

This culture of nothingness

Got me spinning out my mind

Got you drunk all the time

When the rain finally comes

The water gonna wash you away

Gonna wash this cancer away

Gonna cleanse your eyes

It's all just a mirage anyway

I walk the shore to watch the boat carry you away

My love got lost in the ocean

Spun around by the thoughts of men

By the thoughts of men

If you don't use your heart as a life boat

The sharks, they come around

Biting at your self-esteem, your self-identity

'til you don't know your mind

Don't know your heart

Don't know your soul

The world of men

Oh, they stole them all

This life is short and man's world is trivial

Our life is beyond what society

Says our life is to be, is to be

The mind of men raped the goddess

Of beautiful things, of beautiful things

The world of men raped the earth

For trivial things, for trivial things

I walk the shore to watch the boat carry you away

My love got lost in the ocean

Spun around by the thoughts of men

Back to the top

# THE KINGDOM FELL TO RUIN

### 33

O' passionate heart, you fall victim

To the yearnings of your unsatisfied soul

Falling on the sword that crowned you king

Now the king has lost his throne

For only looking through one eye

The limited sight of craving, that eye of desire

The most fearful in a man, the most dangerous to us all

How can you sit upon the seat of your soul

When you burn down your throne

And the kingdom falls to ruin

There's no love in this land

There's no love in this land of desire

Cuz all I see

Is one for the money

Two for the show

Everyone went home

They're drunker than before

The family is lost and money is king

Treasures are the most valuable thing

But I want freedom

I need freedom

How can you sit upon the seat of your soul

When you burn down your throne

And the kingdom falls to ruin

All pain comes from the root

Which desire has claimed

That sleeping guard unaware

Of who enters the guarded gate

If wisdom were to awake

And sober the drunken mind

The guard would question

The desires of his heart

All suffer through trials of the heart

O' passionate heart, if you only knew

That your ignorance is a pebble

Dropping in an ocean creating ripples

Then wonders why there are so many waves

You fall victim

To the yearnings of your unsatisfied soul

Falling on the sword that crowned you king

Now the king has lost his throne

How can you sit upon the seat of your soul

When you burn down your throne

And the kingdom falls to ruin

Back to the top

# CUPIDITY

### 34

If the worth of a life is only measured in gold

The secrets of the heart remain closed

And a single man is but a stone

Rolling trails in the sand

The wind will not carry him

The soul is a bird that flies to the garden

The garden only grows when the land is released

And the garden is allowed to grow

When the garden is allowed to grow

Men's eyes see only what the mind wants

The search for light holds no flame

In his mind or heart

Money and power has won more worth

Than love and rice

This cupidity plagues the minds of men

Is worshipped as a god, as a religion

That is perceived and accepted

By a conditioned understanding

Perpetuated by hypnotic submission

A suggestible influence from unnamed sources

Hindering our soul cognition

All these mental trappings

They force these images in our head

That T.V. and that radio

Those false transmissions

They just make us not know

Where the heart lives

How the soul, how she grows

The soul is a bird that flies to the garden

The garden only grows when the land is released

And the garden is allowed to grow

When the garden is allowed to grow

If the worth of a life is only measured in gold

The secrets of the heart remain closed

And a single man is but a stone

Rolling trails in the sand

The wind will not carry him

And the earth will hunger for him

Back to the top

# FALSE CURRENCY

### 35

The tallest building in a nation

Stands as a temple

A tribute to their god

A symbol of his dominance

It stands erect, penetrating the hearts and the minds

Of the multitudes

A metal bird pierced the phallus of his opulence

Crumpling the economy of his influence

Exposing the fallacy of his authority

The illusion of his stability

His priests sell stock, trading his currency

While demagogues tout his magnificence

Ushering the faith of his followers

Insuring the security of his dividends

Deposit your trust they say

The reserves are protected

Heretics heard only by whispers

And speak from cold, dark alleys

Subverting the warm and sunny propaganda

Behold, a god has fallen

Blind faith has invested our souls in false currency

Back to the top

# LET MY PEOPLE GO

### 36

Let my people go

Let my people grow

They'll never let us cross the river

And lose their control

They put us in our little boxes

Afraid to lose it all

But the world is not that small

I'll never fit inside of your boxes

They're all too small

Let my people go

Let my people grow

The illusion, it's breaking

All your systems are failing

We see behind your mirror

The face that makes you look clean

Was only make-believe

There's another way to live

We're just doing what we're told

Afraid to grow

We're all like the plants we grow

Like a magic bean stalk

We continually grow

We all for a time

Get stuck in the mind

And stay in our little old node

If we can't forgive what we sowed

The heart can't take the load

And we stay in our little old node

But the growth has already happened

It's the mind that's afraid of action

So we stay in our little old node

Let my people go

Let my people grow

They'll never let us cross the river

And lose their control

Just jump in

Back to the top

# THERE'S A STORM COMING

### 37

There's a storm coming

Better run away

The flag that is carried

Has fallen to hands unclean

Futures too young to see

That the prey has been preyed upon

By those who see

With blinded minds and sunken eyes

The waters have risen too high

For these boats to steer

Through the storms that plague

Every heart and forgotten soul

Let it be known

That every frog in this pond

Drowns with the coming ocean

Drowns in the coming wave

There's a storm coming

Better run away

Why should we believe him

He has already lost his mind

He went into the forest

And never came back

He dug a hole to the center of the soul

He looked through the other window

And saw the dance of life

Our roots plunge deep

Into that forsaken night

The trees spread their branches

Towards the light

I saw the light

I saw the light

Come from somewhere

Deep beyond the mind

Back to the top

# THE SELFISH MAN

### 38

Since the dawn of time

Men have ruled over men

They conquer and plunder

Dominating their brothers

For the sake of The Selfish Man

It's the ignorance and arrogance

That creates all corruption

In the hearts of men

All we ever wanted was a Moral Man

To lead us to the promise land

But too many times we have fallen

For the lies of The Selfish Man

The Selfish Man, oh he's a weak man

He rules by deception and fear

He tries to redefine reality

After his own mentality

The Selfish Man don't live in harmony

Creates all unnecessary suffering

If you want to see what's real

It's in the development of your character

If you want to see what's real

It's in your honesty and integrity

If you want to see what's real

Become The Moral Man

All we ever wanted was a Moral Man

To lead us to the promise land

But too many times we have fallen

For the lies of The Selfish Man

Since the dawn of time

Men have wanted freedom

Travelling the globe in search of this fool's gold

Now there's nowhere left to go, but inside

What was spoken by the great poets of all times

It's The Moral Man that's a free man

Connected to the larger reality

Is the architect of our dreams

The conqueror of The Selfish Man

In this battle for humanity

All we ever wanted was a Moral Man

To lead us to the promise land

But too many times we have fallen

For the lies of The Selfish Man

It's the ignorance and arrogance

That creates all corruption

In the hearts of men

Back to the top

# HIGH HORSES

### 39

I walk from town to town

Like the north wind blowing us around

I heard it from every mouth

Bound and shackled and face the ground

They come with their tanks and guns

They come with their tanks and guns

They come with their tanks and guns

They say God told them to kill everyone

They burn this town to the ground

They fly so high on their horses

They fly so high on their horses

They fly so high on their horses

Where there's no Love

There is no religion

As above, oh so below

As above, oh so below

As above, oh so below

Back to the top

# THE MARKETPLACE

### 40

They put your soul on the marketplace

And sell you down the river

And you don't know how

They say there's the rich and there's the poor

Got to sell your soul to be the rich

Break your body when you're the poor

Have your daily bread

But don't overfill your soul

My momma always said:

When you're buying shoes

Leave some room to grow

I hear them speak of peace, but what is peace

What one man calls peace another chaos

One man finds comfort in his riches

Another disgust in their corruption and cupidity

One man finds freedom when his hands are empty

Another when his hands are safely secured in a gripping fist

One man finds joy in only pleasure

Another inspiration in any sort of weather

They put your soul on the marketplace

And sell you down the river

They teach you lies

They teach you lies

So you don't learn how to swim

Have your daily bread

But don't overfill your soul

My momma always said:

When you're buying shoes

Leave some room to grow

They put your soul on the marketplace

And sell you down the river

Back to the top

# NEGOTIATE HER RANSOM

### 41

A farmer yells to a boy trespassing on his land

"Get off my land!"

The boy yells back, "Whose land?"

"Mine," he replies

The boy answers:

"Who did you pay to own a piece of the earth?

Let me meet him, so I may negotiate her ransom"

Back to the top

# HOLY ALCHEMY

### 42

I'm the child who is told

Don't touch the stove

I burned my hands

Voyaged to distant lands

To play with fire

Embraced it and burned

'til I burn no longer

Refining to learn the artistry

The music of the Holy Alchemy

Back to the top

# DESIRE'S MEMORY

### 43

You see friend

I have found the reason for my insomnia

What is gone has not died

She still lives and breathes

Now reduced to courtly love

Longing for the unattainable

But what folly is desire's memory

Thinking of the guilt and pleasures of the past

Back to the top

# I MUST STILL BE WILD

### 44

Despite that I am in the presence of many friends

I am depressed, my beloved is not with me

One friend says to me:

"You should forget the one who brings you misery

Stay single, like a stallion, lone and free"

I could never again be a stallion

I have known the love of horse and rider

My teacher has broken me

My misery is in not hearing:

My beloved is always with me

Freedom is in the whistle of the one calling

And the call is grazing in empty pastures

Teacher, forgive me, I must still be wild

Back to the top

# VIXEN

### 45

I see this vixen

She tries to seduce me

We dance that dance

Until there's no more romance

And then she leaves me

We see all your faces

Between your hidden spaces

All she wants is that money

We dance that dance

Until there's no more romance

And then she leaves me

I ain't got the money

Cuz when you're blind as a bat

You got to hold on to something secure

When you got so many faces

You never know which one is yours

Here she comes, like a dark cloud before the rain

The thunder, her footsteps of your crying shame

You take her in like a dog from the rain

She steals all your money and leaves you in the gutter

Without even your name

Oh, sweet delusion

I fell for you again

My Love took too many forms

And she flew away again

You're a clown and I'm a fool

To have ever followed you

But you took me by the hand

Through this fallen, broken land

Now I have this feeling

This strange suspicion

That there's always something hiding

Around your every corner

Cuz you're always running

And I'm tired of chasing

Your labyrinth don't satisfy me no more

Your riddle don't open no doors

I think it's time I returned home

Where that garden must grow

I see this vixen

She tries to seduce me

We dance that dance

Until there's no more romance

And then she leaves me

I ain't got the money

I ain't got nothing she needs

Cuz when you're blind as a bat

You got to hold on to something secure

When you got so many faces

You never know which one is yours

Oh, sweet delusion

I fell for you again

My Love took too many forms

And she flew away again

Back to the top

# HEARTS AND SPADES

### 46

It's dark outside and I'm in here

Searching for an answer that's never clear

The light shines upon me

But all I see is darkness around me

It all falls apart

So I sing and I sing

I pray and I pray

The Lord says to me: Why do you hide behind rock or tree

What shadow are you afraid the sun may see?

What darkened sky stole the mirror from your middle eye

And placed you in the kingdom of thieves and lies?

What fallen bridge denies the craze

To dance the song your heart could never sing?

It's dark outside and I'm in here

Searching for an answer that's never clear

The light shines upon me

But all I see is darkness around me

It all falls apart

The flower blooms

But the sun's so hot it withers away

The moth burns into the flame

The Master plays hearts and spades

I played my heart and became the game

So I sing and I sing

I pray and I pray

You call my name, but I don't see your face

You push me back and I don't feel the same

I see your light and my mind is changed

Then you leave me all alone in this garden of shame

So I sing and I sing

I pray and I pray

Back to the top

# THIS IS REALLY OPTIMISTIC

### 47

Now I question every decision that I make

Every wrong choice haunts my self-esteem

I am sure of it, at any moment

Everything will soon fall apart

But at least I can maintain my self- pity

Who provides so much comfort in my break from reality

At least wallowing in this self-oppression releases me

Into that fetal refuge from responsibility

As long as I hold on to my feelings

Of anger, disappointment, powerlessness and frustration

I will always have an excuse for why I won't wake up today

Back to the top

# SAY WHAT YOU CAME TO SAY

### 48

Say what you came to say

Feel it another way

It's inside your bones

You hide behind your clothes

All the masks you wear

You don't even know

Which one is your own

I see the light shining in my head

The light, it glows from within

We're all lost in the wheel of distraction

Like the streets of Amsterdam

Lost in the labyrinth

That always finds its center

It's inside your bones

You hide behind your clothes

All the masks you wear

You don't even know

Which one is your own

Say what you came to say

Feel it another way

Back to the top

# HOWL AT THE MOON

### 49

It's been a long September

I feel it's all tumbling down

I've traveled ten thousand miles

And this hot sun exposes all my fears

It burns me alive

Well something in me gotta die

I want to run and hide, back in my hole

Where it's safe and comfortable

And pray to a god to shine his light

To blind me from my own shadows

From my own shadows

Feel the water fall down your spine

Heal you from the inside

There's nowhere left to hide

You're more than blood and bone

If you open your eyes

And can't see the light

I'll hold a candle by your side

And walk you through the night

Howl at the moon

And all the other nightwalkers

They howl with you

We all come together

Into the center

And dance in the light

Of the hidden sun

What can never be undone

The memory lives in the heart, in the soul

Of every eye that endures the night

So you can see that your spirit is:

Strong, Beautiful and Wise

Feel the water fall down your spine

Heal you from the inside

There's nowhere left to hide

You're more than blood and bone

Back to the top

# HOW THE SAND MARRIES THE SEA

### 50

In fire we rage on the cusp of the cup

Filled with hopes and sorrows, the finest wine

I tip my cup to you and pour upon the ground

The wine that intoxicates me in past and future time

I work all day building this castle of sand

If by night I laugh in joy as the tide dissolves it away

By morning I will see, how the sand marries the sea

How I fall away, like the moon wanes to the day

I'm collapsing into that inland sea

When I dreamed of our time together

Then you came to life

I had to go to where you are

So you could come to me

I climbed a cliff to view the ocean

And you ran back into the sea

I looked into your eyes, you're the light of my life

That's too heavy for me to bear all by myself

So hold it for me 'til I'm strong enough

To carry my own strength

Cuz I'm underwater, I'm underwater

Which way is up and which way is down

Wear my clothes that don't yet fit

And show me this new dance

How you use the sun to count the hour

And the moon to turn the month

Then balance a stick in the palm of your hand

As you dance like an orbit of the sun

I dance with you 'til these new clothes fit

Then I take back my light

You become a castle of sand

Fading back into the ocean

This dance is how the sand marries the sea

How I fall away, like the moon wanes to the day

How we collapse into that inland sea

So now I will wait for the seasons to change

When the sun realigns and beauty is seen in another light

When the heat of summer bows to its transfigured life

When the wind carries messages from the north bound for the south

I will sit by a fire and stare beyond myself

Back to the top

# THE GREATEST JOY

### 51

Within the greatest joy lies a sorrow

Even the bird got to come back down

They beat their drum 'til the morning

Trying to find a vision of the other side

I'll follow you to the river

But only the boatman knows what's on the other side

All the children, they are laughing

Playing with their brand new toy

All the ships, they are sailing

Through the storm that opened my eyes

I saw the king lost his crown

For hoarding all the gold

The priest fell to his knees

When he forgot how to know

A man found his soul

When he let go of his ego

The flower bloomed

When it saw the sun

Within the greatest joy lies a sorrow

Even the bird got to come back down

Within the greatest sorrow

There is a joy

Oh, that sun is rising

We got a brand new view

All the pain it open us so wide

That earthquake inside

They beat their drum 'til the morning

Trying to find a vision of the other side

I'll follow you to the river

But only the boatman knows what's on the other side

The flower bloomed

When it saw the sun

Back to the top

# WHEN I FORGET MYSELF

### 52

I had drinks with a friend

Who soon forgot his name

When he sobered, he picked a new one

But forgot it the very next day

And ran around town yelling:

"Who am I, who am I, I lost my name"

Someone called out to him and they said:

"Worry not, my friend

You never had one

The nameless can never be named"

I only know who I am

When I forget myself

As if in a shaman's dream

My soul held me tight

She looked into my eyes

And saw her face in mine

I've been erased, replaced

By the image that has lost its face

I only know who I am

When I forget myself

I sit here waiting for you

Weaving threads of nothing

Through an empty loom

Strangers pass wanting to buy fine cloth

But all I have are these woven dreams

Not dense enough to see

I tell them every seam is poorly made

Too loose to hold together

I'm not the tailor

Or the one that measures

So the fit I cannot guarantee

What I weave is for the one I wait for

How else could this cloth-body

Fit what is forever changing?

I only know who I am

When I forget myself

Back to the top

# INSIDE ME, INSIDE YOU

### 53

How small I am

How helpless to understand

That the earth, the universe

And every speck of sand

Is inside me, inside you

The sands of time can never know you

Every time the sands move

You are another dune

I remember, when I was in Egypt

Building a pyramid

I was a samurai too

I was a monk in a castle

I played the flute long ago

Before this was ever America

What the heart understands

The mind can't remember

The heart has no memory

For this mind to capture

Both sickness and health are two ponds

One dries in summer days unfed 'til winter

The other erodes into the river

Living in the forest of unending time

Where nature and her young never die

It's all inside me, inside you

The heart sees no past, nor future

Only this mind does that

So come now Rumi, Oh Jesus

Come now Buddha, Oh Krishna

Come now Moses, Now Pharaoh

This land has fallen on dark times

There's no ocean to separate the hatred

No woman to open their eyes

All this religion

Can't stand the test of time

Just falls into corruption

Don't follow the preacher

Who asks money for his lies

Find the love of the woman

That spirit of sunshine

There are worlds inside me, inside you

So come now Father

Now Mother, now Sister

Come now Friend

Now Lover, now Stranger

Our lives are blended together

Heal these wounds

We've done to each other

They're all inside me, inside you

Back to the top

# MY POOR FRIEND

### 54

My Poor Friend had a wife and two kids

But he travelled down a road that turned into a cloud

In his mind he flies high

His feet don't touch the ground

But he falls back down, he flew too close to the sun

Burnt with the vision of his new lover

You're a child, who throws his toy away for a new one

One that hasn't yet seen your shame

My Poor Friend has travelled so far away

To this road that only goes left or right

And there were so many, they plea and they plea

There's still time to make it right

But he abandoned his broken car

With so many lives left in it

His wife and his two kids

He left it all for his highway of clouds

Cuz his hands don't know how to grip a wrench

To fix all the sins he commits

My Poor Friend, oh he's blind

Guided only by the wants of his mind

His heart sees not the suffering he has caused

He runs from the guilt and builds protective walls

Now he and his lover live on together

And it's so sad, he's a stranger to his own children

He can't look his son in the eye

His daughter only knows him by his lying smile

My Poor Friend, oh he's blind

Guided only by the wants of his mind

His heart sees not the suffering he has caused

But My Poor Friend, it's never too late to try

Back to the top

# LIGHT THE CANDLE

### 55

The light shines upon me

Like the new sun of mourning

And I see

I died so many times

To see behind her light

And I don't know her anymore

A bird in a cage, who forgot how to sing

The angel, who clipped her wings

The candle lost its flame

Blown out by grieving rain

I don't know her anymore

But all your tiny bubbles

Show me where you are

In the water hiding from your stars

She hasn't died enough times

To see the light in her own eyes

I don't know her anymore

The light shines upon me

Like the new sun of mourning

And I see

She hasn't died enough times

To see the light in her own eyes

She cannot see

Light the candle

Sing it out loud

You'll grow your wings

Back to the top

# BUT TO BE

### 56

Fly high my little bird

We all got to find our way

In that cage they put you in

That steals your colors and your life

I sit and pray something carry me away

With all this hunger that takes your days

And haunts your nights will fuel the fire to see

That the cage they put me

Has no door, has no door

And when that candle burst to flame

And lights your way through the ocean

I'll be standing on the shore, as a tree

Peace my friend is a tree

Undisturbed by wind or storm

The seasons give and they take

But still it remains unmoved

Wanting nothing, but to be

Back to the top

# SHARED HARBORS

### 57

I was just thinking of you

Like a fleeting thought instantly forgotten

The phone rings, it's you calling

What are these thoughts that form like clouds

Instantly rising from a silent ocean?

How is it, that when you called

We were falling through the same cloud

When I am here and you somewhere over there?

Perhaps, like birds, we fly through an ocean without water

Passing through clouds that are like ships, ferried to shared harbors

Back to the top

# THE ALCHEMY OF FORM

### 58

The alchemy of form has its way of undoing everything

Your house of bricks is just an hour glass

Molded dust filling the sky

Pray for rain

Washing the mud back to the river

Falling to where the delta mixes with the ocean

Building your house again

What is hidden finds itself naked

In the desert of the unknown

Back to the top

# THE RIVER

### 59

A man went to the riverbanks

And cried out to the unknown

From the fibers of his form a voice calls out

My dear stranger, you have always known where to find me

But 'til now never took the time

I've been fishing on these banks for an aeon

And you've gone off in search of something you believed

Was somewhere else

You've traveled so many years and been to so many places

Yet at this moment, we are found in the same place

But are separated by a river that cannot be grasped

You can try to grasp the river, but you will only find yourself

With a handful of water that washes from your hands

Leaving your palms empty and wet

You may try to grasp the river and place it in a jar

So you may observe it, study it

But you only separate the river from itself

Have you returned to the river, because you believe

You have found what you seek

Or is it that something that took you somewhere else

Escaped your grasp

My Love, I longed for you to be by my side

To travel with me through the unknown

I've returned with disillusionment and heartache

For the world beyond this riverbank

That world of shadows

The temporary, the illusionary

I can't believe this is where we belong

My dear child, I've been with you till the earth's ends

But travel is for the heart in the wind, a tornado of soul

Who finds its center somewhere other than here and now

The center of the world, of the universe is always found

In the presence of the sound

The rhythms of silent mind and beating heart

Invoking the union of mind and heart

Every place you go in this world of shadows

Every place is the same place, just in a different theme

Every place you find yourself utterly lacking

More of a prison as it seems

A shadow can never truly be seen

So you return to these riverbanks hoping to find me

Some element of yourself

That may bring you solace in your time of need

You've found me, but cannot embrace me

As a lover embraces his beloved and blessed

There's a river that separates you from me

Back to the top

# THIS BEAUTY, THAT PRESENCE

### 60

My heart is filled with love for the one

Whose presence is in the howls of wolves

Under the midnight sun

Whose passion, determination is the same as a flower

That must bloom in honor of the sun's ability to open beauty

It's this beauty, that presence

I run toward and fear the most

Because much like the earth

Where land and sea are two beings

Two worlds reside, floating within me

I'm part realist, earth and stone

Part dreamer, artist, water

I'm two friends running to the cliff

One jumps and the other says

I'm not ready to give myself

To those winds of faith

I fear my heart too feeble

Too heavy to scatter

Into those composed winds

I'm a stone stuck in stillness

Solid ground stubbornly unmoved

By changing winds

I will stand in place

Even as the soft unforgiving sea

Shapes the landscape

Right beneath my feet

But I too am the water, fluid and flowing

Through and around eternal mountains

Carving away my faulty framework

That stands as a citadel

Protecting from the waves of the dreamer

Pounding her strength against the rock walls

Slowly chiseling away those fibers of my protective being

'til I erode into her dreaming sea

She tells me, "Build a house no force can destroy

And I will be waiting, as a lover

Who longed for her beloved to return home

It's best to be like water

This stone too rigid, too arrogant, too fearful

An earthquake can only destroy

What is rigid enough

To set anchor to the ground

In forceful wind

Only the strongest tree breaks in two

So good thing your heart is not made

Of sticks and stones, flesh and bones

There's no wind that can blow

That would leave you homeless and alone"

My heart is filled with love for the one

It's this beauty, that presence

I run toward and fear the most

Back to the top

# HIDDEN IN A SHADOW

### 61

Dusk limits the golden sun

Leaving powerless to conjure infringing shadows

Freedom protected solely by unknown darkness

This solitude of silent night

Provides comfort and serenity

Guiding to the morning light

In this desolate forest, the spirit sent an angel

Disguised in pictures, images conjured by the mind's eye

Rivers descend from mountaintops

As falling rhythms echo the night's sky

Hymns of constellations circle the reflection of the moon

As I climb to plead with the sun

I climb this mountain to escape

The tormenting underworld

Of self-defeat, illusion and desire

I climb in hopes of a new perception

One that may glimpse your sunrise or meet your sunset

But just when I believed to have climbed to the heights of clarity

Seeing your midday presence above the depths of confusion

Do I realize:

Solid ground is but a cloud, pregnant and soon to rain

I become the rain, falling back into the ocean

Swimming towards safety, any island of land

But each soon to be destination is but a mirage

An image of my desire

The rising sun silences the song of the stars

The moon, the prophet of the sun

Dies away to the voice of noon:

"I can only love that which is far from me

You cannot take the intensity of my love

If I were to be closer you would cease to be

If I were to be closer

There would be no distance between you and me

And my love would overtake all that surrounds

Because you cannot take the intensity of my love

You guard yourself, hidden in a shadow"

Back to the top

# LOVE AND WAR

### 62

I have loved a Great Love and fought a Great War

A love of one soul lost and the other broken

For she was my kin of a life beyond this life

And a scar etched on my side, upon my soul

To remember a love unresolved

I heard her name from another's tongue

This name brought forth a great silence and remembrance

Transporting me through time

Upon that moment, I did not exist in the present moment

A spectator I had become, for every moment

From the moment of the mention of her name

Had already happened

During the days, I sat in silence

By the river of passing memories

And by night, sitting around a fire

Staring into the hypnotic flames

Of my unyielding desire

Contemplating the madness of my bewilderment

And the name of my silence

For she was but flames floating on the water

When our eyes did finally meet

A sudden energy overtook our being

An attraction of opposite poles

Held each other in familiar embrace

Staring into the gateways of mystical portals

Lost in a trance of remembrance

Within her eyes I saw the great silence

And realized, I first met her within a dream

Within the soul's unfading memory

The Great War was fought in the shadows of Love's truth

As a facade of insecurities and self-delusions

Her pain was held by abandonment and desire

Trapping the things she loved in the grips of fear

She loved the ocean, but was afraid to drown

And when the land abandoned her

The ocean swallowed her, now flooded with fear

Her vision sank and violent waves pushed her astray

So the hand of my sailing soul lifted her to shore

And ingrained my hand in her soul's long, long memory

Upon a new land, we settled by the coast

Where sand and water dance in harmony on the shore

When the truth was denied, harmony fell away

The earth stood still in chaos and the tide failed to come

Her shore imprisoned me in the dark caverns

Of our past unresolved

Where envy and arrogance

Fear and jealousy

Silence and deceit

Threw truth to the fire

Giving rise to a force that only manipulates to ego's will

An illusion, diluting itself by its own will

She was my captor and also my key

The dark angel that set us both free

The reality of the flood tide that must return to sea

Within the ebb the lost are found

And the broken mended

For our love was the guidance to truth

Love brought us together

And the tide took us apart

Restoring earth to order

This love is the only war that ends in peace

This war of our soul

Against the charlatans of love

And the enemies of truth

Back to the top

# UNRESOLVED DEMONS

### 63

I loved her for the qualities of her character

I was attracted to what she possessed

And what she possessed

I longed to acquire for myself

I did not really love her, I envied her

I thought if I were to put her inside of me

I would be able to become whole

That she would complete me

I envied her freedom

Wanting to free myself

And express myself as she did

Her sense of confidence

She knew what she wanted

And was determined to achieve

All that she wished to desire

I loved her for that

But it was not love

I envied her

And once the source of my envy

Penetrated the core of her being

Knowing who she really is did I discover

The broken-ness

The jealousy rooted in insecurities

Drowning in an ocean and unable to swim

My envy then transformed into an arrogance

That I may be her savior

The one who will complete her and console her heart

Being the tree that may support her weight

Curing all wrongs

I was becoming a false messiah

Dying for the sins of all those who transgressed her

Leaving my own world behind

And becoming consumed by hers

Because I believed I could save her

Help her understand

So, I say to her:

"O' my Beloved, my Blessed

I see between your scars

And feel the wrath of your afflictions

In this deathly winter the soul grows cold

Sleeping underneath the eye of the storm

Howling to the bright blue moon eclipsing the sun

Questioning how the sun may bloom

Whisper to the stars this symphony of despair

Cry not for the tears of the sky

Watch as the earth soaks up the rain

Nourishes the trees and created spring"

O' how I longed for her

To understand it's meaning

I wanted to be her John the Baptist

Bringing forth the person I believed

She truly was and is

But unfortunately our unresolved demons

Fought each other, gaining control

And ruled our being

Mine:

The demon of silence

Plagues me of my will

Feelings of hurt not voiced

Subdued to silence

Imprisoned by the closing of my mouth

Fearing what needs to be spoken

Hers:

The demon of abandonment controls her life

Wanting all that is desired

Trapping the things she loves

In the grips of her fear

This fear is a phoenix

Birthing our unresolved demons

From the ashes which created them

Casting its shadow and exposing the truth

That we have far too long refused to acknowledge

I have begun to hear these demons

Their voice is my voice

So I say to myself:

I am your shadow, your forgotten self

Moving through your every open door

I use the sun to show you of my existence

But you run to the night

Refusing to dwell in the darkness of yourself

I am the silhouette of your being

The part of you that is ashamed of others

I am the beam in your eye

That appears as a speck

In your brother's eye

I am the truth that angers you

Because what you see in others

You refuse to see within yourself

I am what you hate

But must learn to love

For only then will you

Forgive yourself

Understand yourself

Integrate yourself

Become whole

Back to the top

# THE PALACE OF JADE

### 64

I reached your tower and I fall

Your guarded, impenetrable wall

Come out of your palace of jade

Come out of your palace of jade

Woke up in this dream

Can't leave 'til I see what I came to see

I go to you and you come to me

Then you turn away, like a stranger on a train

But why do you look so sad

There's no need to guard yourself anymore

The dragon has already been had

The treasure has been won

But still you look so sad

What mindless illusion

Dilutes the rhythm of Love

The pattern that is God

Once upon a time, she loved him

But ego's earthquake shattered the bridge

Linking heart to heart

They cast a stone into the ocean

All the troubles that stir in the mind

Ripples create ripples

And the ripples turn to waves

As the waves flood the shore

Washing everything away

As the cycle of these circles

Starts over back to before

When hearts break and ties are torn

Cynics of Love guard their heart

In the Palace of Jade

It's safer there they say

But only Love can carve a smile

Into such a stone face

Come out of your palace of jade

Come out of your palace of jade

What mindless illusion

Dilutes the rhythm of Love

The pattern that is God

Cuz I see all the little children

Laughing and playing

There's rainbows in their veins

I reached your tower and I fall

Your guarded, impenetrable wall

Come out, come out of your palace of jade

Come out, come out of your palace of jade

Back to the top

# THE SOUND OF LOVE

### 65

Some days I go down to the river

But the tide don't come in

I leave the boat on the shore

And I fall back in

The bridge they built so long ago

Fell before my eyes

So they built armies to defend

Their own state of mind

A truth spoken is an insult

They only wanted to see it for themselves

All we ever wanted was a revelation

So we could experience it for ourselves

Laughter is the sound of love

Be a witness and see for yourself

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# AMORA

### 66

Within a poet, joy lies in the longing for Love

And within their sadness, the longing is even more

But it is Love that is longing for the poets

To live within her true beauty

Beauty is seen through the vision of an artist

Carefully sculpted into the figure of a woman

Heard through the voice of a nurturing mother

And felt through the heart of human kindness

From the moonlit tower lives Amora

A beauty so exquisite that her father locked her away

For fear of losing her to the charms of men's serpent tongues

Every night she looks upon the city and sings her nightingale song

Just soft enough to fly through a dream

"I see you standing on the other side of a busy road

In your heart I am calling

But the noise of ceaseless traffic

Keeps you from my silent longings

What noise is this that steals you from me?

What traffic occupies your mind's desires?"

Living among the hills and within the city are four poets

Each one heard Amora's song:

The first poet followed the rising sun

To glimpse what had risen in his heart, and Amora said

"Tell me of my beauty"

Amora, every flicker of your eye births suns to galaxies

Too far to fathom and too close to see

With an unknowable brilliance

That such a contemplation

Would leave one considered mad

The second poet followed the voice of the wind

Hearing only the incantations of his longing heart

"Tell me of my beauty"

Amora, when you speak, your words are but a voice

Harmonious music, like a flute played by the wind

The third poet, wild from the forest

Followed the rivers of his flowing heart and she said

"Tell me of my beauty"

Amora, your body is like a cascading waterfall

Dancing in the hidden forest of your radiance

The fourth poet awoke from a dream

And followed the nightingale

Singing from every guiding tree

"Tell me of my beauty"

You, Amora, are a stranger

A muse fallen from my dream

It is only there that I look into your eyes

Without apprehension or reserve

Embracing you, as if the only thing

That had separated you from me

Was the belief in time

My eyes can no longer see you with desire

I am far too aware of beauty un-embodied

And your garment of eye's desire cannot compare

It is in this beauty that I hold you

Like a feather to my wing

I hear your song, but you don't speak to me

We sit in this wordless silence

But still I know this is love

It is not words that bind us, just presence

Our relationship is like traffic

I don't understand why I am not moving

Or why after all this time the road finally opens

Like a horse patiently waiting for the sound of a bell

To lower the gates releasing the road that runs to you

Within your presence unfolds an ocean hiding in a raindrop

And the night bird sings only in the silent night

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# YOU CAN SEE IT IN THE EYES

### 67

Is your skin untouchable

Your eyes they're on fire

They burn through my soul

I dissolve into your waters and I'm reborn

I love you

You're a pool in the desert

When I'm thirsty and feel I'm all alone

You're the star that guides my way

When I'm in the ocean and I forgot how to pray

You're the lantern that lights the darkness in my mind

When I fall astray

I love you

They say that lovers are like children

Always laughing and playing

You can see it in the eyes

Like diamonds, they always shine

I love you

Is your skin untouchable

Your eyes they're on fire

They burn through my soul

I dissolve into your waters and I'm reborn

I love you

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# I'M AN ELEPHANT

### 68

I see this girl

She sings to me

But she's going to marry

What she don't believe

I'm an elephant searching the jungle

For one like him

But there's all these monkeys

Dancing in the trees

And I'm an elephant

I can't dance in your tree

If I swing by my knees

I take down your tree

I don't need love

I am love

Love's a state of being

No meaning

There's nothing to believe

I don't need love

I am love

If I swing by my knees

I take down your tree

Love's a state of being

No meaning

There's nothing to believe

I see this girl

She sings to me

But she's going to marry

What she don't believe

Love's a state of being

No meaning

There's nothing to believe

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# LIKE AN OPEN SKY

### 69

Love is truth

Like some kind of noose

You gotta sacrifice yourself

Like an open sky

Everything is clear

You gotta be open

To breathe, to heal

There's a garden in your heart

A secret gate

You'll never let us through

You're a spider

Spin your web of Maya

You suck us in

You'll never be naked

And lie with the lions

The sign of the sun

You walk a path

And put on your mask

So I put on mine

So I don't scare you

Cuz this naked face

Only reveals the truth

Your covered wounds will never heal

They gotta be open

To breathe, to heal

Love is truth

Like some kind of noose

You gotta sacrifice yourself

Like an open sky

I'm a bird flying to the sun

She takes me in and I'm home

No form to house a name

I'm particles of the sun

And everything is clear

You gotta be open

To breathe, to heal

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# THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

### 70

As the sun illuminates the moon

It is so that John the Baptist is the moon

And the Christ is the sun

The soul is the moon, as is John the Baptist

And the Spirit that dwells within man

Is the sun, is the Christ

So marry the pure mind with the soul

For it is she, who harbors and bores

The light of the world

From the Virgin Mary a child is born

The king that sits upon the throne of the heart

The light of the world

Truth be told, I found my soul

Cradled in a manger, born of a virgin

Pure, perfect and true

The three wise men:

Reason, Intuition, Inspiration

All presented their gifts

Honoring the presence

Of all of them in one

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# AS NATURAL AS A SONG

### 71

My beloved, I am like a stone stuck in stillness

And you an artist moving like the wind

In search of expression

So chisel and reveal the essence of my form

And I will be the expression of your heart

The entrance to the temple

The one fashioned by incessant light

Where there is no distinction

Between priest and congregation

Just the prophet of daily revelation

And those who ask, "Where is the entrance to the temple

That Great Tower of Babel, once built of mortar and stone

That fell to ruin in attempt to reach beyond

The circular dance of time and season?"

And I will tell them:

It's not lost in the heights of wandering stars

Nor found hidden within closed earthen walls

What fool would stack stone upon stone

To ascend the depths of inner galaxies?

Only strangers, only strangers build walls

Entombing themselves in pyramids

Where not even a flame, a star may dawn

It's only the lovers, only the lovers

Who lose their clothes and conceive a ceaseless sun

Like an unguarded secret revealed through the eyes of devotion

A mystery beyond the need for understanding

Something as natural as a song

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# WE TRAVEL TOGETHER

### 72

Falling stars change form

I say your name three times a day, so I won't forget

Stars travel together and we meet

What travels together illuminates each other

Sit awhile and listen

Believe a lie and the lie becomes true

Steal a horse and the horse is yours

Pretend to care and you fool everyone

Listen to the advice of a friend and you become him

Find a treasure and work no more

Follow the road and you will be somewhere else

Climb a tree and see further

A jaded heart cannot cultivate compassion in thirsty gardens

A house is locked for unwelcomed guests

A stranger is ignored in a town that only welcomes their own

Secrets are told, so no one else will know

Treasures are buried in undisclosed locations

We built this wall to separate

What is yours from what is mine

What an eternal mistake

The only way I can every succeed

Is if I allow myself to forget myself

To bury life's treasures in a secret place

Then tell everyone where to find it

With a little note attached saying:

"I give to you, so that I may live

So my growth may bring growth upon you

And your growth may bring growth upon me"

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# ALL IN SEARCH OF WATER

### 73

Jesus said to his disciples, don't forget me my friends

Or you may pass me along this long and dusty road

And not recognize me, as yourself in different clothes

When you speak of religion, you speak of division

And too many find comfort divided into sections

I walk upon the wall that separates all these houses

So I may not be defined, nor confined to small spaces

Where all lines have been erased

And you can see for miles and miles

All boundaries displaced

All faiths lead the way to light

But only if Love is man's devotion

As the buffalo follow the elephants

And the zebras follow the oxen

All in search of water

Poets and prophets, seers and singers, mystics and artists

Those eternal guides, the mosaics of the heart

Mystic messages, poetic utterances

The dervish spin to the way of the Tao

Sitting Zen in silent illumination

Buddha laughs with a tear

Jesus cries in joyous cheer

Divine musings sing and sing

To the sound of the Bhagavad-Gita

AUM

The alpha and omega is here

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# I SING TO YOU

### 74

Religion has become like this:

The master ate a cracker

And all the men that follow

Have become like mice

Each one tries to get the crumb

They think is the one

That touched the master's mouth

They squabble and they banter

But all the crumbs

They come from the same cracker

There's no sense in arguing with the one

Who has a scripted tongue

They're too full to eat the cracker

Those who wait for what feels like the endless wait

Suffer in mind and heart, left isolated and alone

And like children, cry in agony for a hand

Speak to me and I will listen in the darkest night

As a shepherd without a flock

Still alert to the howling threat

Every morning, I walk to the lake of our dreams and sing

Every song somehow is your song, I sing to you

We fall in love and bring everything we have to the House of Love

Wouldn't it be better if we brought nothing at all?

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# MUSIC IS THE BELOVED

### 75

Some build altars with a shrine of some holy figure

I built an altar placing my flutes upon it

But like any other shrine, as they sit

No music will be heard through them

No life is given to them

They are just pieces of wood

All instruments (idols) are form

It's the music, the life, the breath

Which flows through form and is formless

And it is that which moves us

This primal drum, the heart of existence

Beats its skin and all that is, is because of its rhythm

Music is the beloved and dance is the celebration of that

Are we not all dancing to the elemental tones

That fill the movements of every form

Of every instrumental body

Animating and falling into rhythm

With that primal drum and becoming music?

What a joy that my joy brings you such joy

This release that only brings us closer

What else is needed?

What else should be longed for?

Other than this celebration

Light the candle

Feast, drink, dance

We are celebrating this

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# THE MAGIC FLUTE

### 76

I only know who I am

When I forget myself

I only experience the truth

When my mind ceases to circle and wander

I only feel the freedom of the eternal being

In the absent moments of self-consciousness

All of these elements spring forth and have flowered

From the flute playing the body or perhaps the flute playing itself

My fingers move creating melody

As if some magic possesses my being

While my breath sets the rhythm

From some inner drummer

And the music of these two musicians

I can only describe as the soul dancing

And as my body moves gesturing this other language

I speak with her and dance within her dance

And you who hear this wordless language

Feel as well the magic of the sacred

The ecstatic madness of the spirit overwhelming

And silencing the conscious mind

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# THE MOON BECAME FULL OF ITSELF

### 77

Tonight is a glorious night

Alone on the beach at midnight

The moon became full of itself

Turning the sand to ivory

The ocean, a dark abyss

I stand in the presence of this organic alchemy

As a witness to the polarized oneness

I close my eyes to see this beauty

Hearing the percussion of waves

The sea is breathing

I sing through the flute

And I am the flute breathing

We breathe together and there's music

A rhythm flowing back and forth

As we minister to each other

Who knew that the ocean was such a talented drummer

An instrument hiding in itself

Maybe I shouldn't tell anyone

If word got out

The wind might be asked to join in

And who would be frightened of a thunderstorm

If it made everyone dance?

There is a symphony breathing through creation's voice

Instruments hiding in myriad forms

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# NOTHING FEELS THE SAME

### 78

The earth and the heavens had a conversation

And the birds overheard

Because they live in both worlds

So now they enact a ceremony of love

Moving in unison in dance and in song

Presenting their love for all to see

But we can no longer decipher

The language of the birds

They speak in song

So I took Hafiz's advice and got a flute

So my breath may fall in rhythm with my heart

And truth may be the language of my soul

So I may dream a thousand dreams

And awake feeling as though

I had been drunk the night before

The love of the birds inspires me, my soul

I, like the birds, mimic your every movement

Sing your every song and dance your every dance

So everyone will know

That I am yours and you are mine

When I play the flute for you

It sends us on our way

To a place our bodies may never travel

Where melodies are medicine

And our union is as the wind carries the bird

A moment deeper than touch

I play your beautiful sounds and nothing feels the same

I become drunk in your melody

And to be sober again is the same misery

As my love being swept far away

Lost in a sand storm

We could be right next to each other and wouldn't know it

As the sand leads us in different directions

In search of each other

Until every memory is but a mirage

A consequence for my dying thirst

To drown in your oceanic song

I know how the sun and moon must feel

How difficult it is to live in two worlds

To be a dual flame that must share the same wick

To be taken to the closeness of bliss

Then awoken to the dream of the mundane:

Stuck as a stagnant lake in the hull of a shipwreck

When I was a fish

You caught me mighty fisherman

Seeing life from another world

Then you let me go

And now I follow your boat

Begging to be caught again

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# THE SLEEPING IMAGE

### 79

There are moments in life that are so awe-striking, a seemingly sense of unreality that makes you believe in the unreality of this so called reality; yet it is these moments that happen in a blink of the eye, a transitional experience that cannot be understood in this overwhelming flow of ecstasy. A knowing of an emptiness from the loss of time in the moment. The knowing that what is normally experienced is not normal perception, but a cloudiness of mind that has been unable to penetrate the realities beyond this material perception.

The Spirit manifests, awakening the sleeping image of what makes life, Life. An illuminated perception of what cannot be touched, for it belongs not here (in the world of the seen), but beyond the mind, which cannot purely be described nor transcribed, a transmission stemming from the root, where every soul contains within itself a whole, yet the whole of itself is but a hole (a separation from the infinite essence of our being, the eternal time that bypasses the nature of both time and space).

It is this unrecognizable form that dilutes the nature of infinity, while both man and woman are essentially the same, regardless of disposition, unknowingly lost in an illusion of form; living in dilapidated houses bejeweled with lavish decorations. Born looking into a fragmented mirror seeing millions of our own image confused to which one is true, trying relentlessly to transform these shattered pieces into the perfect image we once were and then finding ourselves staring into the face of God.

Searching for this knowledge of self, peering through a kaleidoscope of unconscious realities, soaring to the heights of ecstasy and diving into the depths of confusion, lost within the inner dimensions of self. Franticly searching for the existence of a love that is deeply known within the heart, but unable to latch on to its truest. For it belongs not in the external world, but the inner, where all fruits are produced by the growth of the roots. The roots plow deep within searching and striving for the nourishment of foundation, so Life may reap harvest.

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# THE ONE LIFE

### 80

Woke up this morning

And I was on a plane

Flying somewhere far, far away

Pass the line we can't cross

Somewhere between here and lost

The insanity of the city sun

Can't hold my attention for very long

I fell in love with the mystery

The feeling my body can't hold me

Am I passing through the world

Or is the world passing through me

It's all such a familiar scene

Like I woke up in this dream

Looking through a kaleidoscope of the one life

We're changing eyes of the same mind

Compartmentalized of different mortal lives

There's no use in planning

The pattern has already been woven

And I'm just wearing the shirt of the one life

The insanity of the city sun

Can't hold my attention for very long

I fell in love with the mystery

The feeling my body can't hold me

Looking through a kaleidoscope of the one life

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# YOU CAN GO

### 81

The nurse, as a priestess, prepares the temple, the altar. She cleans the room and prepares the body for the congregation to say goodbye to their beloved. She knows the signs of his arrival, the white wings of death, as Mr. Brown pleads with the reaper, "Just a little while longer, I haven't said goodbye." In the last moments, Mr. Brown is unresponsive as the nurse holds his hand and whispers to him, "Mr. Brown its ok, you can go." Mr. Brown strokes her fingers with his thumb and he is gone.

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# NOTHING TO SOMETHING

### 82

Death will no longer be the dark place of the mind

The feared thought of something-ness to instant nothingness

I have heard the question from both the living and the dying

"What if when we die there is nothing, that I am nothing?"

But you presume that while you are alive you are something

And that this something exists apart from where it came

But what is so frightful about being nothing?

If death is but a nothing and from nothing came something

Why would you shy away from the one that created you?

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# I AM HERE

### 83

With the death of a loved one, something opens

Some type of magic possesses every moment

Every memory that floods the mind and drenches the heart

Fills the eyes with the vision of the beloved

We realize, God lives in many forms

It is in the loss that reveals this priceless treasure

And we will grieve

Keeping our longing eyes and heart

Open to your signs and signals

Like ships

Looking for the light of the lighthouse

To tell us, "I am here"

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# THE CHANGING WINDS

### 84

As you lie there

I have watched your face change

Through the seasons of life

As you have aged

That once proud face has changed

To one who is humbled by the frailties of life

Whose strength has lifted families and formed children

And now that strength is faltering

No longer standing upright towards the wind

Having become as brittle as a leaf that has changed its colors

And falls off the trees in season

To be carried away by the dictates of the changing winds

But let us remember the tree from which you fell

And the roots that are nourished by the soil

From all the leaves that have already fallen

In our memory you are the tree

The Great Redwood, our Grandfather

And we honour you

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# THE WAYS OF THE SPIRIT

### 85

The morning after Grandfather's funeral, I awoke from a dream where a beautiful garden came into being. In the garden stood a strange symbolic figure sitting on a pedestal, whose head was that of an owl with the body of a white cat. The animal jumped from its pedestal and changed to a white cat, to a white rabbit, then to a red fox. The red fox allowed me to pet him on the head, then suddenly changed to a white wolf disappearing over a hill.

In mourning of my grandfather's memory, I walked alone along a meandering path searching for where the animals hide; it is there in the wilderness, where a message of grandfather's safe passage to the spirit world could be found. I walked with a native flute on my back and a stick in hand noticing turtles pop up from the canal waters. Their heads camouflaged appearing to be plant stocks and with every subtle movement they retreated back below. Up ahead was a white-tailed rabbit surprised to have been seen and scurried into the brush. On its path a feather laid in its place, so I picked it up and put it in my long hair, like a Cherokee brave. As I continued through the wilderness, I saw a creature in tall grass foraging for food. Slowly, I approached the creature, quietly kneeled and watched the raccoon unaware that I was there. The masked creature finally noticed me, I looked into its eyes and within its masked face had a look, "I have been spotted" then raced for cover. Twenty feet ahead an alligator sun bathing heard my footsteps and quickly dove into the water. The commotion caused beautiful birds to rise from their perch, blue herrings and white cranes, fly and land on my trail and each time I got closer they flew further away.

When night began to befall the earth, I sat down to rest. Suddenly a stillness arose and comforted my heart, alone in solitude, I began to play the native flute. The flute played a sound like that of a lullaby, a whisper echoing the voice of my soul singing to the Great Redwood Tree, whose presence is two worlds converging. I played a deep humming sound, which cradled my mind, now quiet and still; my heart filled with the image of the Redwood tree, Grandfather's memory.

A red fox approached me coming from behind the forest wall and sat appearing to be listening to the deep humming sound. I noticed Red Fox, but did not allow the sight to cease the flow of the flute. Our eyes locked in silent communion. In that moment time could not be measured, for nature and I had formed a union; Red Fox recognized me and heard a sound that did not frighten him. I imagined myself to be a Cherokee alone in the forest that once covered this land and my brother Red Fox came to hear me play. Red Fox and I are the same and the earth is our mother, who nurtures the spirit she harbors in her womb. The trees her lungs that supply the breath that enables the sun to shine through our eyes. This moment is eternity in the moment of life.

On my return from my ecstatic adventure, I came upon a Cherokee shaman, who spoke the tongue of the old ways. The shaman asked me to play my flute and responded in delight of its sacred sound. I told him of my visit with Red Fox and he said, "Grandfather walks with you. And Red Fox, who lives between the world of light and the world of darkness, has come as a messenger of his safe arrival to the spirit world. Red Fox is also a message for you, listen and he will teach his medicine." I asked the shaman about the dream of the shape-shifting creatures and he said, "Yes, that is a sign of your awakening and they are teaching you the ways of the Spirit."

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# JUST A STORY

### 86

I, Dante, relieved and astounded by what my eye has seen

Began to walk back into the forest and through the trees

Not in full belief of my dream

As I walk, I approach what looks like an old man

Sitting on a rotten tree, looking as if he has been sitting

And waiting for me

He tells me he is Utnapishtim

Who joined the assembly of the gods

And was granted eternal life

He says, "Dante, you are a man of the pen and a seer of visions

If you can answer the questions that I ask I will grant you eternal life

And you too may join the assembly of the gods and have no fear of the realms of hell"

I accepted his challenge and he asked the question:

What is the nature of Literature?

I pondered the question and reflected upon my vision and said:

"Literature is the reflection of the mind and the inner dwellings of the heart

Attempting to touch the essence of the human soul and all of life

It allows a man to scourge through the volumes of his soul

Revealing the universal of us all

The most personal is the most universal

So nothing is personal, everything is universal"

Yes, but what is it, he asked me:

"How can you separate the story from the man or the man from the story

A man is real and a story is just a story?"

No you see, stories are stories that are hidden within a man

And a man hides himself in his stories

Literature is the story of the human life

What is known and what is hiding in itself

A vision immortalized by the vision itself

Homer is a man, who searched for the truth of his soul

As the Ramayana is also a journey to make that truth known

What does this matter, mortals live and then they die

So why invest your time in works of parchment and pen?

It matters not to those who feel their soul is whole

Who find no pleasure in the worlds of the unknown

But to those who seek the questions

Find answers in the letter of the word

A story is but a metaphor and a metaphor

Is the closest we can get to see the heart and mind of another

Or perhaps even our own

Yes but still, what does it matter

You will die and your words will disappear?

You are correct, my body will die and my words will disappear

But my soul is beyond the world and the word

You offer me eternal life and to join the assembly of the gods

But I will tell you, I am already immortal and fear not the realms of hell

All the stories of the world are stories that will be forever told

And you, Utnapishtim, are also just a story

A vision of the eye and one that will be told 'til forever has died

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# ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Smashwords Interview: <https://www.smashwords.com/interview/jewarren>

Short Bio: <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jewarren>

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# CONTACT

Favorite me at Smashwords: <https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jewarren>

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