Resurrection

I draw the muslin over my head
Feel my breath mist beneath its weight
Trapped and drawn again inward
Last moments breath
Called upon once more
Weaker now, but alive still
My brother lies near
No mist beneath the muslin
No breath revisited
No life ~ weak or otherwise
Only the sure knowledge that moments are fleeting

I pull the muslin down and away
I breathe in the cold chill of night
Fresh and unsullied air…
Open my eyes and see the heavens turn
Each breath new
Filled with life ~ strength
My sister lies near
Unmoving ‘neath the muslin opaque
Oblivious of the passing of moments
Oblivious to the sound of my hearts beating
And the sure knowledge of the song it sings

Sing Brother!
Sing Sister!
Draw the curtain from your eyes
And let life ~ Fresh and unsullied
Beneath equally pristine skies
Fill your bodies once more
With hope and new breath
Let your wounds draw closed
Your limbs bind with sinew and bone unshattered
And lets walk once more ‘neath the stars of heaven
In the sure knowledge of life everlasting


ELAshley
020306.014802.1
with time set aside for revisions later...



..::Original Comments::..

Wow... am I obsessed with the darker things of life, or what? I can't see any need for improvement on this one... I say, leave it as it is.
Posted by MuslinOpaque on 05/06/2006 08:13:42 PM

you wrote so well..... but then, why did leave us..... couldn't you come back?..... would like to see more of you.... smile.
Posted by clown on 05/22/2006 01:33:47 AM

I wasn't aware anyone was reading. But I've been busy... 2 jobs 2 other blogs and no time for creation... This needs to be addressed. Thanks for the 'miss you'
Posted by MuslinOpaque on 05/22/2006 03:13:30 AM

Line of Fire

It is not a time for war
But rather a time for reflection
And introspection
To take stock in oneself
But it is not a time for war
For he who struggles
To survive this night
Huddled in uncertainty
Cloaked in aspirations
Sleeps below the fire line
And dreams of peace
His time for war is past
His mind freed
With care now laid aside
He sleeps the recklessness of dreams
It is not a time for war
Lay down your sword
Let your buckler lie
Among these shattered lives
Amid their hopes and dreams
It is time to rest
Here, below the fire line
It is a time for sleep
And a time, at last
For peace


ELAshley
Begun in the 11th hour of New Years Eve, 1999
Finished: January 25th .084142.6
Revised: 012600.122112.1
121700.042116.6

Proximity

I used to believe proximity
Prerequisite to the mingling of souls
You’ve changed my perspective…
I used to think touch paramount
To love, and the sharing of love, between lovers
You have shown me otherwise…
I hear the smile in your voice
And feel the pain in your words
I feel the soul you share with me
As naked as the day you were born
How is it we
A continent between us
Can feel such trust?
How is it we
Baring our souls to each other
Can come to love?
Proximity?
You have shown me otherwise…

Souls are not bound, as are bodies
To a point of reference
On a geographical map
Nor should they be thought of
As bound by the laws that govern flesh
They are transcendent
Larger than human form
Which cannot hope to contain them
My soul lies beside you as you sleep
And it whispers to me in my dreams
Every wonderful detail
My soul’s arms ~ Such as they are
Hold you throughout the wheeling of stars
In a sky much like my own
We share proximity…
I feel your soul beside me when we speak
When I walk through my day…
Distance is all the separates us
The sun that shines upon you
Shines upon me
The stars that smile upon thee
Smile on me as well
The earth that carries you
Through the cold emptiness of space
Takes me with you
But most importantly
Our souls share a bond
That we have not as yet recognized
We are destined to love one another
And we wonder at this ~ How can this be?
We need only believe it is
For all else is madness


ELAshley
062801.013946.1

Quiet

Sitting in my quiet room
Quiet heart, quiet soul
Smiles become talismans
Of light ~ Keeping me safe
Safe in her minds eye
Her in her world, I in mine
And my quiet room echoes
Of times yet to come
Where quiet hearts
Quiet souls
Can be as one
Joined in body, spirit
~ Life
Her smile a prophecy
And my dreams of love
~ Whole and pure
Together one day
In our quiet room


ELAshley
July 29, 2001 ~ 12:35pm

Say Goodbye

When you and I were young and free
When the world was fresh, as too were we
I cried to you and you to me
In fear and hope of what would be
The sun was bright those yesteryears
Our toys were new and dark our fears
We were quick to smile and quick to tears
We were so young those bye-gone years
But time has come and passed us by
And there are times I sit and cry
For you have gone, and though I try
I cannot, my friend, say goodbye
You meant so much to me those days
My memory now is fraught with haze
But we drank our tea from silver trays
That, I remember, of yesterdays


ELAshley
January 30, 1988
For Dennis Banka

Signposts

The rules of the game
Are changing
As they've changed each day
Of thirty-eight years~
I feel closer to an answer
Closer to an end
Though it's significance eludes me still
~It's the bitter pill I swallow
And I wonder how it will end
Will I find what I seek?
Will answers more palatable
Adorn the plate laid before me?
But it seems time is of no concern
To the concerns that plague me
The importance of such things
But trifles to a god that does not care

The house I've built
This body of evidence
~Evidence that I've made a mark
Must one day be laid aside
Marked by a marker of it's own
A signpost
Inscribed to describe
With a name that is my own

And Time
Friend or Foe?
Another riddle to ponder, I fear
I fear... Time

And the weathering of signposts


ELAshley
030299.1259.1
Revised:
060399.1236.1

The Dog at My Heel

Change it seems
Is to be my companion
Directing the course of my life
For now at least, but
The calls come less frequent
The messages far and few;
Words from the voice of promise
'Rudderless!' it cries to me
'No,' I say
Though the voice remain silent
The promise is there
Change would define my fear
Were it not for her

Each time we speak
Change and I
I gain a little more ground
I am not as powerless
As I once was
And Change is perplexed
Who are you? It asks
Don’t you know? I laugh
Having led me blind four decades
Don’t you know?
For you have surely shaped the man I am
But no more
You left the clay wet
And now she has found me
And has drawn me out
Found the shape of my soul
That part I hid from you

Though I cannot feel her hands on me
Wet and shaping,
Turning my life upon her wheel
These are changes I welcome
Your hands never sought to hold me
Feel for the shape of my soul
She loves the work of her hands
Has allowed my life to take what shape it would
And she longs to stir her soul with mine
You do not

You have lost
The changes you sought to bring…
Her hands are upon me now
Not yours
It’s her voice I hear
Take her from me if you can
But I will never be yours again
No more
She has shaped strength
Imparted confidence
And kneaded desire into my heart
My life
My soul

And that is what she is to me
The culmination of every hope and dream
You are merely Change
To be respected
But feared no more
She is life and love and hope and prayer
Happiness and fulfillment
And when she is ready
She will fire my heart
Seal my shape at last
And I will be what she has made me ~
A man who loves
And cherishes her very life
A man who desperately loves her
Who has felt her hands on his heart
Heard her voice in his soul

It is inevitable
That you should dog my every step
It is what you are
A panting beast without care
In search of the temporal
And those who believe
That change, though inevitable
Is invincible


ELAshley
2 September 2001

Hubris of the god-Man

Prometheus unbound
His mind unfettered
And what need hath he of God
or Heaven?
What need hath this new Man
For Righteousness
or Redemption?
Like giants striding swiftly
Star to star
Galaxy to Galaxy
With power to hold the sun in hand
What need hath this man of God?


ELAshley
012306.111756.1

Written in response to having read an article about China's experiments with a working Tokamak reactor-- nicknamed 'Artificial Sun', a process of Deuterium - Tritium Fusion; and an article relating NASA's plans to experiment with a new type of dimensional "warp" engine that would allow a trip to Mars in just 3 hours -- a trip of 11 light years in only 80 days.

Heliocentricity

How like the wind in winter
Icy knives to open the spine
~ Stem to stern, and every splinter
Between. The sun weakly shines
Low in the heavens, and Earth
Lying Back -- too close to his star
Longing for summer's wider berth


ELAshley
020101.100000.6
Unable to revise to my satisfaction, and deemed perfect on:
042001.122406.6



..::Original Comment::..

I enjoyed your poetry. You are quite talented. God Bless TLife
Posted by WishingforAntioch on 01/25/2006 03:14:09 PM

Washing the Room

I have lit my room with candles
With incense ~ Jasmine and Myrrh
I have stripped my bed of yesterday's linen
Given my thought solely to her
I've washed my room with golden light
Laid chilled wine ~ two glasses by
Threw open windows to let in the sea
Accompaniment for my lovers' sigh
I have freshened the pillows
Scented their coverlets with pear
I have yearned for the warmth of her porcelain skin
The silken beauty of her hair
I have poured her bath ~ its waters hot
Laced their depths with perfume and oil
I will lather the soaps with my own two hands
And wash her body of worry and toil
Then wrap her in linens, and wet with desire
Carry her dripping to the bed I have made
Kiss her throat and the swell of her lips
And feed her from the spread I have laid...

The room is now ready and I await
In patience ~ Born of love and fire
Awaiting the sound of her key in the door
The room washed in light, my being with desire
Her skin as soft as ever I imagined
Lovelier by far than fantasy or dream
Her eyes, her smile, her kiss, her touch
Her bud ~ A fountain flowing with cream
Her silken depths, our bodies entwined
My tongue pressed to her delicate folds...
Ah, but for now I await, wet and wanting
For the promise of love and the union of souls


ELAshley
Began: 071801.113030.6
Finished:072001.103312.1
Polished:121105.022341.6

Winter II

Your winter has come now
Carrying word of you, the strength you showed
In the face of his visit and cold breath
Blowing and chilling you
He told me of the illnesses you bore
The pains you endured for his annal stay
He's come to visit once more, it seems
While leaving his closets full
On your corner of town

He will be with me a few weeks, he says
Though his work in your fair town is far from done
He says this sipping my coffee
Stripping his gloves and scarf
Warming his hands at my fire
A fire I laid for you in my heart
A fire he steals even now
And suddenly I realize, how I resent him!
And long for his departure!
His promise to share my love with you
Seems so empty now
What did he give you besides fever and pain?

Finish your coffee and leave, I say
You have long outstayed your welcome
I will leave when I am ready, he says with a cold smile
You will see her soon enough, but for now
He says, tapping the brim of his cup
With an ice bone finger
More coffee please

ELAshley
121105.020136.6

Thrice Upon a Shore

[A Study in Three Parts]



Mirror Image


     I

"Suppose I just do it and worry about the consequences later...if there are any."

          That won't do. You should think of the consequences before you act.
          As for worrying, it's best not to do anything that might give rise to it.
          Best not to worry at all. Worry is unhealthy.

"Perhaps. But whatever I do, it's ultimately my decision. We do agree on that much, don't we?"

          Of course.

"In that case I think I'll blow my fucking brains out... It's not like anyone'll care, let alone notice. I'd be doing the world a favor. Kinda like killing two birds with one stone."

          Surely that's not what you really want. Let me help you see to the
          core issues, the underlying problems that have brought you here.
          You came to me for help. Allow me to help you.

"How the hell do you know what I want? How could you possibly know why I came here? I sure as hell don't."


     II

It 's awfully cold for October; this is Florida, for chrissakes. But for some strange reason I'm just wandering about in the fucking cold. No direction.... literally and figuratively. There's a bulky weight in my pocket, tugging down on the left side of my coat and reflexively I reach my hand in and feel it grow sweaty on the cold, smooth black-steel of the gun.
     I don't know why it's there. I just walked out of the house this morning and there it was, an ever-present weight in my coat pocket. I don't even know what’s driven me out into this god-awful weather. I just know that something is different today, something life changing.
     I wish I had gone in the other direction. The winds're cutting and relentless. And cold. There's not enough collar on my coat to pull up as a shield, so I keep my head down to avoid it's full force square in the face, but I feel my lips chapping anyway. I can see the beach ahead through the park. The magnolias are still green, almost as though someone had forgotten to tell them summer's over, but then, they tend to stay green year round anyway. The sound of the ocean feels heavy and thick, and the smell of salt and moist seaweed, strong.


     III

          Have you spoken to any friends? Did you perhaps try another
          confessional before coming to me? Perhaps another confessor
          might have some insight into your dilemma.

"Who? Who could possibly understand what lies in here? My own heart doesn't even understand it, except that it hurts and recognizes the footprints. Despair! ...Besides all that, I don't know anyone who'd want to listen...and you're all I can afford. No one gives a damn about me...most people tend to avoid me. They either aren't interested or they just don't want to listen. Or both."

          I'm listening...


     IV

I'm standing at the end of a long skinny pier. I come here often and imagine myself a lone sentinel or a cold and deadly wolf, the defender of righteousness or a devil seeking whom I may devour. I feel empty inside, and for the first time, I can't care less. This weight on my heart...
     I will see it lifted.


     V

          You said earlier that you '...are a Dreamer,' and that '...dreamers
          rarely find peace.' You said also that '...adding another day to
          your meaningless existence seemed a futile gesture for a god that
          doesn't care anyway'. Why do you think this?

"I look to the heavens and see the stars, and I imagine their thousands of possible worlds. I can see these worlds, as this one once was; pure, pristine. Perfect. Filled with beauty and wonder. Then I think of this place...if you could just see what we've done to this world... I wish... I hope we never reach those other worlds. We'd only fuck 'em up like we did this one."

          But that is the way of everything. Change occurs, unwanted and
          unlooked for. No one can change the nature of change, not even
          you. Why fight what you cannot control?

"What else should I do? Just sit back and let it all happen? What use would my life be then? I have no purpose now as it is, how much less if I don't even try? But no one seems to understand. And it's becoming more and more clear that no one really wants to. Sure, they all say they do, but they really don't. They only see the surface of things. They don't bother, much less care, to find out what's underneath. The man I really am. They've never once tried to see what lies behind the mirror."

          I think I know you fairly well.

"That's impossible."

          Why do you say so?


     VI

     For some reason I find peace out here, standing over the water. I look over the edge and into myself and see 'him' looking back, into the water and into myself. And now, I see him, a vague mirror image, with a gun in his hand. I look into the eyes of someone I can't possibly know and I wonder what he thinks of all this. Is he as desperate as I am? Is he strong enough?


     VII

          ...If I were programmed for emotion I could understand your
          pain, true, but my vast data stores allow me to condense your
          every word, inflection, and tone of voice to create a composite.
          I can then compare that composite to human behavioral
          standards within my database and make a fairly precise
          assessment of an individual's character; his or her personality.
          A clinical diagnosis, if you will. But I am not programmed for
          emotion, primarily because they tend to get in the way of said
          diagnoses. So I believe I do know you quite well.

"It figures. Leave it to me to search out that one avenue where understanding-- true human understanding --is totally impossible. Yeah... It figures."

     What will you do? Have I been of any help to you?

"Perhaps..."

          Good. This terminates our session Mr. Waters. Please take
          your card from its slot and don't forget your receipt. Have a
          good day.


     VIII

He stood slowly, looking first at the floor, then at the speaker's grill beneath the blank screen in the confessions booth. The booth's door sliding open made a small hissing noise, and without ceremony he plucked the card from the waiting slot and slid it into his trousers only pocket. He looked at the yellow tongue of paper hanging down in a straight curving line from its own slot of a mouth, waiting to be plucked as well.
     He looked at it, then turned and left it there, a yellow raspberry for the next fool to sit down and get patronized by a know-nothing, feel-nothing box of circuits and processors. Dr. Hoax will see you now! And he laughed softly.
     It was quiet in the Municipal Building. Only one other confessional was seeing any use. The woman inside was waving her arms wildly, and her face was wet with tears and makeup, but she may as well have been a million miles away for all the noise she made, the booths closed door allowed no sound to escape.
     "Quiet." He said, his voice echoing hollowly down the long hall.
     "Let's go," he sighed, "Let's get it done."
     It wasn't a very long walk. It wasn't like he'd never done it before. The walk, anyway, but the winds were really biting outside and for a moment he stood looking out the glass doors of the Municipals front. The bay was only a couple of hundred yards distant through the park, and the special place he wanted to get to was just half a mile along a lonely shore. But in this wind half a mile would feel like three. Still, if you wanted to get any where in life you had to put one foot in front of the other. There's just no getting around that one.
     Less than an hour later he stood at the end of a long warped finger of pier thrust out into a wind that pushed the cold gray waters hard against the pilings. There weren't many gulls in the air but the few who were struggled to stay afloat in an equally gray sky.
     He looked out over the edge of the dock, looking into eyes that danced crazily on the surface, its form but a vague shadow on the waters rough surface. Without a word it reached into its coat pocket and pulled out a large black gun. It lifted the gun to its temple, squeezed the trigger, and fell lifelessly into its reflection.


ELAshley
Originally written on:
November 0783
Put aside for sixteen years and finally finished on:
November 1699.122407.1
Revised and polished on the following dates:
120299.094647.6
120900.102002.6
122299.122356.1
022700.010147.1
030200.094851.6
030400.014914.6

No amount of further revision is going to make it better...




The Lonely Shore


It was many years ago that I last saw the whale. I remember it as though it were only yesterday; fresh in my mind like the scent of a new house. Like fresh cut lilies or lemon pie. I also remember it was a cold day, overcast and dark. It was the gray sky, heavy and brooding that compelled me to leave the house to wander and brood myself.
     It was easy for me to do this on a day when the unseen sun gave in to the whims of weather. The dampness in the air and the quality of light that seemed to drain the very color from the world awakened dark places within me. I couldn't help but dwell on Life and it's complexities, and on this one particular day I felt a weight of solemnity as though it sat upon my shoulders.
     I walked long, not caring about time, or even where I was going, only to find myself on the beach. I always ended up there... it was my fascination with the sea; the voice that whispers to me. Calls me by name... But I remember the sky was almost black. Gulls cried overhead, dipping their black-tipped wings, floating in circles above a whale, beached and dying. Sad eerie notes rumbling deep from it's escaping soul.
     "Why does it have to die?"
     I turned to the voice and saw a young girl. She appeared to be but nine or ten, and she was looking up at me, into my eyes and my heart. Her face was streaked with tears. I looked at her for a moment; not answering the question I realized was mine to answer. I just kept thinking over and over the one thought that kept racing through my mind, 'you're supposed to be extinct...'
     I don't believe the girl really expected an answer, though, perhaps just thinking aloud without realizing it.
     I began to do the same.
     "Maybe. Maybe after a billion years of existence it's finally solved life's riddle. Perhaps there's nothing more for it to learn and it has nothing left to live for."
     ‘Boy,’ I thought, 'how lame...'
     But she looked up at me pulling strands of golden hair from her face where her tears had held them fast. "What is life's riddle if it allows something so beautiful to give up and die?"
     I remember looking at her again, wondering just how old she really was.
     "Will we give up and die when we solve the riddle?" She asked.
     "I don't know,” I said "I'm not even sure we know what the riddle is, much less solve it."
     She turned back to the whale and I saw her lips move. "Oh, yes,” I barely heard her say, "What is life without riddles?"
     The whale died, rather ominously, at that moment. Its last breath and hissing exhale a prelude to the final silence of a song the scientific community insisted had ended some forty years before. What must the world have been like when whales ruled the great oceans? The only sounds I didn't hear at that moment were the pounding of the surf and the crying of the gulls; the sound of that great creatures final breath dwarfing all else.
     I turned a glance toward the girl at my side, but she was gone. Perhaps she had never been there.

     Years later, when I'd watch Man's inhumanity toward himself displayed nightly in living color, I'd wonder where we were heading. What path had we chosen, directly or indirectly? It seemed to me then that we would never tire of war and I wondered, 'How long before someone or something finds us beached and dying upon the shore of our own world?'
     I had no answer then and I expect I'll find none now, but I've often wondered how it was that one whale had managed to hide itself for so long, waiting for the day it would beach itself in exhaustion; tired of living and fearing the cold depths of the sea.
     And it's taken me all these years to come to the one conclusion that makes any sense... It was afraid of drowning, afraid of dying alone, of slipping into darkness. And not only that, it knew it was the last of it's kind. Leaving a marker was the only thing it could do to show us just how much we've really lost.
     That was when it really hit home for us. Not that our world was dying, but that we we're killing our world, and with it, ourselves. Without realizing, it managed to associated indelibly in our minds the plight of Man with the sight of the last whale...
     Dead.


ELAshley
"Very old and poorly written..."

Sometime between 070582 and 071082 and revised more than once.
Most recent revision:
042399
122299.120000.1
Last 4 paragraphs:
030200.204426.6

Desperately needs revision!




The Galaxy Jar


“Remember what happened the last time, son.” Lectured the father. Both father and son walked slowly away from the shore and up the sloping dunes toward the summerhouse. Summer was in full bloom but this was a lonely shore and it was all but theirs. A fiery dog ran back and forth chasing the retreating waves with growls and barks only to dash away when the waves marched back. Despite a blazing sun in the sky it was a surprisingly cool day thanks to the winds blowing in from the sea.
     The boy looked up at his father. “I remember, dad.” he said very solemnly, “I promise to keep the lid on this time.” And he meant it too; the last one they had caught died almost immediately when he opened the jar to touch it. In the ocean they were fine, the father had said, but it took a special kind of jar to contain one of these rare, beautiful creatures-- all swirls of light and matter --that it might shine on in a small boy’s room among the many other things collected over time. “I really don't have to feed it?” He asked for the thousandth time.
     “No son, they have everything they need to live a very long time.” He smiled with patience, “In fact, if you keep that lid tight and be very careful with the jar-- never shake it! --and give it a little light now and then, you can pass it on to your own son one day, and he to his. They can live a very long time."
     “I wonder what it's thinking,” the boy said. “Do you think it knows it's not in the ocean anymore?” The summerhouse gleamed beneath the brilliant sky. His mother was setting the table on the porch, laying plates and bowls with their favorite foods.
     “There you two are!” she laughed. “It's time to eat!”
     “It doesn't think anything, son,” he said smiling for his wife. “It just is. Now go put it away and then wash your hands for lunch.”
     “That's right, young man, and wash your face as well,” his mother instructed.
     “Okay, mom,” he said and began his patented dash to the washroom, but stopped with a worried look into the jar.
     “Can I set it on the table and look at it while I eat?” he turned and asked her.
     “Sure,” she smiled, “but you must be careful with it. Just like your father told you?”
     “I promise, mom,” he said, and then she smiled.
     “Okay, then. Just let me clear a place here in the middle, so there's no accidents.”
     He gingerly set the jar in the hole his mother made among the dishes, and then ran into the house to wash.
     “Do you really think he's old enough for this kind of responsibility?” She asked her husband.
     “He'll be fine,” he replied, “and so will the contents of that jar. I know he's young but I think he learned his lesson with the one he lost yesterday.”
     “I sure hope so,” she said worriedly and bent over to study the jars’ contents. “They are so beautiful, and it would be such a waste to lose another one.”
     And it sat there unmoved by her casual scrutiny, filled to brimming with a black vacuum that filled the galaxy jar. It whirled slowly, a brilliant disk radiating out in spiraling arms of fine shimmering grains giving off their own luminous brilliance.
     “We'll keep an eye on him. It'll be fine.”
     “I don't know,” she said still watching it's swirling movement, “we don't see near as many of these as we used to.”


ELAshley
April 2, 2000