Silent stranger,
The moon over the city
Passing unnoticed.
~
Neighbors chattering,
Neon lights, cars humming.
The lone moon, passing.
~
Autumn, all these leaves
Falling through the damp air
Lay on the floor, silent.
~
Alone on the balcony,
Cool summer breeze carries –
Buzzing voices of too many houses
Drawn tight together like a honeycomb,
Basel scent,
And the light of this full moon.
~
Poetry,
A simple smile yearning
To your height
– O Moon.
What if the most sublime music ever played breathed through the flute of a shepherd a thousand, thousand years ago, covering the wooded mountains and ancient hills like gilded clouds at the moment of twilight, like the beloved’s breath at dawn weaving the garden into life?
What if that music is still hovering all around us like an all-embracing breath, and if we fall really, really silent, and listen, if we open up and receive the world into our flesh, or simply glide like gurgling water into hers, we can breathe it in again and again, quivering like a leaf above autumn’s lake?
Dusk, a crimson cloud
Of lost voices, breathing – snow,
In softest flame, drowned.
~
Soft edge of twilight,
The grapes, gold flushed, contemplate
– white face of the moon.
~
Below this full moon
I bared my soul to the rose,
She smiled, soothing me.
~
Waxing poetic,
Rose and flower sigh at me,
Blinking wide – suckle.
~
Deep into the wood
The deer leaped, and vanished,
Stealing all my thoughts.
A beckoning flame –
Your sacred name, from my mouth
A fountain, wanting…
~
Each letter, a spell
Binding air to flames rushing
Through hollow deeps – claimed.
Torrential outflow,
In dawn’s face, love, a still source,
The fountain of grace.
~
A stormwind shaking
All roots out of their safety,
Stripped bare, a clear sky.
~
This roaring stillness,
The river of stars dewing
On the face of dawn.
~
Gulping down the sky,
Torn open by blue secrets
Flowering, the sun.
Lingering over your heart,
A cool kiss of dew breathed
By the mouth of night just before the dawn
I soak into your skin,
Absorbed like lovers’ mouths in a gentle kiss
I sink deep down,
Traveling like bodies tangled in lovemaking
Through the heaving of your breasts,
Pouring like a stream amid rosegardens
Through the shivering passion of your ribs.
Below your belly the moon –
Translucent womb where stars
And unheard whispers burn out
With a sigh of surrender in the great white –
Burns with the first light of day
As from your eyes
And from the parting of your limbs
Rays are gathering and dancing
Like moths around a candlelight
Heralding the great birth.
Blowing through the leaves,
The wind, a passionate flute
Crying to the moon.
~
Through the flute, His breath,
A music gently blowing,
Weeping from closed eyes.
~
In the white river,
A reed, hollowing out, sings
The sap pouring through.
Noon, midday languor,
Heat-waves and cricket-songs chime
Moist eyelids to sleep.
O solitude, you come to me at last,
Your ship, a sturdiness of sail and mast.
Doubts – what are they to me when my heart beats,
Lovingly caressing their endless fleets? –
They are the storm-winds and they are the rain
That flush out my soul into the wide plane,
They are the tremors that now make me smile
Face my own self and laugh for a good while,
They are the roots in strength growing deeper
And the supple branches reaching higher –
And all through their whims my solitude grows
Harmonious melodies, good arrows,
Wings wide stretched like a pigeon in the blue,
On the breeze gliding, her soul ever new.
A fruit glistening in the sun’s white eye
Whispers a scent embracing the whole sky
And weeping deep down into earth’s parched womb
Lures all living songs to break free and fly.
Rosewater and wine,
Inside their flush a taste burns,
One sweet, one bitter.
~
Love’s bitter sweetness,
Wine and rosewater kissing
Below a red dawn.
~
Red waters merging;
Hidden messages, exchanged.
From the cup, one Sun.
Ardently burning all through the night,
At dawn, the beloved’s white fingers
Flowed over my skin,
Transparent ripples
Caressing, stroking, weeping,
Tenderly peeling the shivering flames
And shedding…skin from skin,
Layer from layer,
Entering, deepening,
A moon over the ocean of night
Silently drawing all the singing waves.
Light,
The beloved’s work is over.
Released,
Dissolved into absence.
Now all is still.
Core of mystery,
Firebirds gliding along the inmost sky,
Secrets from radiant eyes weeping,
Living waters washing over the living heart.
I was going to weave my thoughts
into a philosophical discourse,
but love entered me and my heart swelled
and swelled, until my mind burst
and all thoughts lay scattered
like fireflies over the cloak of night,
a bottle of ink broken by the rocks
and strewing blue essence for seeds
in the depth of the great ocean.
Being emerged –
a face out of the clearing mist,
a fountain pouring colour –
poetry out of the frothing waves,
a Body covered with sand and salt crystals,
shivering and naked,
soaking wet with ocean kisses,
his heart, music pulsing through veins,
gushing and murmuring of infinite depth,
dancing, ever getting warmer
and rising, rising
to the eye of the sun.
Precipitating within,
a gentle storm of light
gathering over the horizon,
now moving inland
and pouring, pouring…
A feeling, strange and subtle,
shakes his drowsy head
scattering night’s cold dew
and rises towards the sun
like a flower at morn,
opening, welcoming…
An open palm,
a blossoming heart,
in the centre, upon tender flesh
childhood’s seeds taking root,
germinating, and now shooting
upward, green stems and leaves,
a garden of glorious white flowers
and aromatic fruits,
smiling and calling,
calling…
~
I do realize that this poem’s flow is somewhat fragmented, but I love it nonetheless.
With many words and expressions
you explain yourself
baring out your heart, your soul,
your experiences,
and what you’ve been through
to friends, and yet,
hunger keeps gnawing at your ribs,
thirst keeps stirring in your mouth,
“They do not understand.”
Then a person walks in through the door,
with the grace of moonbeams enters
through the midnight windows,
and suddenly, swiftly,
without warning or reason,
your soul springs out of your chest
and is utterly taken,
overcome by His radiance,
prostrated before His sword.
In this silent communion,
in the joy of this presence,
Soul is a warm stream
gushing, permeating, soaking
to the core,
Soul is the shoreless ocean,
its serene waves
are the lips of this open embrace.
