The Refracting Rose

Sometimes I savour the sadness of broken things.  The unameable, irreplaceable loss that comes with time.  With vantage, or vision.  It's tempting to enjoy such melancholy when all one has is time.  Especially through the eyes of a poet.  Or an angel.  The fields of my mind and my heart still bear the seed of my creativity as I attempt to bring such visions to term.  But this birthing process is almost never easy.  And what exactly is this nostalgia I’m craving?  Is it the longing for a genuine return – Ennoia; the secret flame, here again – or am I just savouring the loss once more?   Have I made a fetish and fetch of her absence?  Perhaps I’m simply spinning these wheels like the ever-circling hands of the clock.  Perhaps, in my baffled kingship, I've told one too many stories.  Maybe not truly, but in those ways of the spirit and the heart.  It really hurts to love someone, my friends.  I don’t think you need Kasi to tell you that.  But it hurts almost as much to tell a good story.  Angelic light, demon poetry – and everything in between.  Throughout the ages many have made monsters from the tellers of tales.  I can understand why.  It's a frightening thing to come face to face with meaning.  With context, knowledge and growth.  It's unearthly, isn’t it?  Intoxicating.  Sublime.  Truly, it’s a strange place that storytellers occupy.  Halfway between healer and sorcerer, cartographer and mythographer. Because those broken things are more comely in the astral light of a well-told tale.  Justice is a mercurial thing.  A certain restitution can be found in the human tongue, with or without its poetry.  But a storied annunciation can rent the veils like nothing else.  It can level cities and raise the dead.  But more than this, storytelling is the only prism in which mankind can truly see itself.  The better angel of its nature.  In the end stories are the only place where Man can believe, even if only for a moment, that he is not a monster.  Not a vampire.  Self-reflection is an incredibly powerful thing, believe me.  Through it the heart is strengthened, softened, and remade in gold.  This place of hope and knowledge beyond even melancholy – it is the shapeliest, most comely of dreams.  But more than this, within such divine fire lies the animating principle.  The fulcrum of all existence and perception.  This is the ingenuity of God laid bare.  To love, and be loved.  Cherish it well because life itself is the sacred bloom of such genius; a radiant multidimensional flower of innermost light.

Everyday Words

It might seem cliché; a meaningless and easy observation in our jaded world. But it's true nonetheless.  Life exists in the now.  Nowhere else.  The past is a dangerous ghost and the future a staggering possibility of what might be.  Now is the only moment of true power.  Our lives are best enjoyed by doing all we can to savour this moment.  Of course, nobody can live their lives in absence of strategy.  Or hope.  That's not what I'm saying.  I'm talking about the sacred, hidden dimension to everyday life.  We've all heard these things before and perhaps we agree somewhat blithely.  We understand these things intellectually at least.  Taking a moment to breathe, stopping to smell the roses.  But really feeling the truth of this sacral quality is something else entirely.  I think we underestimate the sheer psychological violence that can be inflicted upon us by modern living.  We human beings are so incredibly strong.  We're masters and mistresses of adaptation.  The world demands this shapeshifting from all of us, and sometimes we forget just how much we're grappling with.  Modern culture and politics can seem alienating and terrifying after all.  Many of us exist in a state of near-perpetual dissociation because of that terror.  We might not always recognise it because we're so skilled at adapting to circumstance.  We're subjected to so many pressures and are forced to adopt a variety of masks on any given day.  But finding the hidden power of the now is a skill like any other.  It grows with repetition and discipline.  These are the true wonders; a poet's muse.  Moments not ordinarily seen.  

Why even write these words?  Because I want to inspire people.  I want to take care of the ones I love.  But more than this, I'm always interested in sharing the truth.  Truth isn't always easily discernible.  Especially in a realm of such chaos and volume.  We all have gifts, don't we?   For myself, I've become attuned to subtle energies over the years.  Moonlight hidden by the glare of the sun, or a night-time stillness buried in the depths of the day.  The space between spaces.  Sometimes I can even sense things long before they happen.  Moments and events, personal or otherwise.  It used to be that I'd often wish I savoured the approach a little more.  The quiet time, the build-up, the foreplay.  I don’t make those mistakes anymore.  I give beauty all the time it needs to linger.  Such gifts teach you something.  An unwavering respect for the mysteries of human consciousness and our connection to the spiritual realm.  You might be forgiven for thinking that knowing the future would make you feel incredibly powerful.  But the opposite is so often the case.  You can feel small, lost and abstracted.  Driven mad by the quicksilver thresholds between fate and free will.  But it matters, this hidden dimension of the everyday.  A way to better taste the richness and depth of our own lives.  There are many ways towards God, many paths into this sacral perspective.  Meditation, journaling.  Physical exercise and focused attention.  And, of course, the creation and enjoyment of art.  Painting, poetry, music.  There are signs everywhere, indeed.  Every story you have ever loved is a part of you and is blessing you daily.  We might be unable to grasp this from our limited mortal perspective, but it's true nonetheless.  Art is the oldest magic.  The true high magic.  Lingua Franca of the immortal soul.  

Personally I have little choice but to treasure these sojourns of the sacred.  You see, I mostly live my life alone.  That's what happens when a human mind somehow recalls life before the Fall.  Before the cataclysmic War in Heaven.  I have family and friends scattered about this ruined realm.  I still cherish and remember them, but they don't remember me.  Or if they do it's only dimly, as if in a half-forgotten dream.  But I can live with that because the battles I face are all too real.  I don't want my beloved ones held hostage, used as collateral, or else swept up in the wake of this nightmarish war.  It's the price I pay, and I pay it gladly.  However, this hidden dimension of daily life keeps me connected to my loved ones.  It allows me to reach out and fulfil my role as silent guardian.  Even at such distance.  I love you, my friends.  I really do.  I'll keep fighting for a kinder and more courageous consciousness, on behalf of all the bright ones.  I'll use these strange skills to the best of my abilities.  We are all so much less alone when we feel connected, creative, or in love.  God is Love, and that’s the ultimate truth.  Our communion with that truth is our release from the burdens of sorrow.  My friends, there is so much humanity still doesn’t understand.  So much left to discover.  Whenever I feel lost or lonely I try to practice gratitude for the good things in my life.  Imagine how strange and mysterious the world might actually be if spirit were a genuine reality.  Because it is.  Even if you imagine only for a moment, there is great power in that moment.  Eternity is contained within each elevated observation, like the many secrets of a holy prism.  These are your pathways into presence, and wonder.  A little flare of rainbow colours on a hardwood floor.  The shining curiosity of a child.  An overheard conversation or melody that mends the soul.  The breathless afterglow between lovers.  Or the quiet joy of a peaceful bedroom filled with morning light.

All My Demons

Sometimes we're pulled downward by an absence.  By the gravity of our own shadows.  Those parts of us we hide or barely even realise exist.  But the lightless realms do indeed exist, within and without.  Dark angels, demonic kings, cultures of war and oppression.  As people we fight these absences on all fronts.  A spiritual battle.  An inner reckoning.  Often we fall short, made savage and bleak, remorseful and ashamed.  It hurts when we fail those better aspects of our nature.  But we're all grappling with the breadth of shadow and light within us.  Messengers, chimeras and gods.  These individuated strata of consciousness.  Nobody is perfect, and we're all fighting the same war.  Freedom versus control.  Love or the absence of love.  It's a war that always costs dearly, even on the inside.  Broken promises, depression and mental illness.  These internal scars are nothing to be ashamed of, my friends.  We struggle for sanity in an insane world.  We fight simply to breathe in a realm of poison and smoke.  I want you to know that every attempt at growth and self-knowledge counts for something, even if it feels like you're trapped.  Like there's no way out.  Like all you do is fail, over and over.  Because insight is the liberator of consciousness.  Try again, and try something different.  Pay close attention and celebrate the little wins.  You're not alone, even in the savage darkness.  Bright ones walk with you, unseen.  Your Father is with you too.  Kasi promises you that.  Our Creator is infinitely loving, and insightful.  He is seeking always to restore our hearts and knows all that is hidden.  Everything we show one another is highly curated. Our best faces, our wisest words, our deepest allure.  But even the most seemingly untroubled souls are fighting battles of which we know little.  To greater or lesser degrees we are all children of the Fall.  Dwellers in the ruins of cataclysm.  Prisoners, refugees and walking wounded.  Of the world and the mind.  And yet we are all unimaginably powerful.  We are mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.  We are daughters and sons.  We are the eternal presence, not the absence.  Living proof of the loving ingenuity of God.  And we are not meant to wander in darkness forever.  My friends, you are not defined by the most broken aspects of yourselves.  Not unless you choose to be.  And consciousness is nothing if not the ability to perceive and to choose.  Sometimes those choices are extremely limited, or agonising, and often made in the face of overwhelming odds.  I’ve been broken too, and lost.  I know from painful experience that there are moments when turning your face to some idea of spiritual light is simply an act of faith.  But I tell you now, that light is not a lie.  It is the everlasting truth.  We're all made accountable in the end.  Taught by our noble failure and beloved for our honourable success.  The things we do for ourselves and each other.  Everything is seen, and understood.  Those days when we got back up even though we were barely able to stand.  Those times when a kiss, a kind word or the eyes of our children were the only things that got us through the day.  I love you, my friends.  I hope these words lift your spirits in some way.  I want the best for us.  We're all guided by unseen hands towards our highest selves, whether we recognise it or not.  Synchronicity.  Hidden signs. The world behind the world.  We all have demons, but there are bright ones forever fighting on our behalf. 

The Joshua Tree

From the well, beloved ones.  We bleed.  In three.  Their favourite self-fulfilling prophecy.  They stole our seed but we'll steal it back.  We're bright and white and big and black.  We're the ever-lasting way to pray.  The parted sighs of Lady Day.  Amble's pre, all for the play.  Everything we couldn't say.  A truly terrifying kind of gentle.  If fate were only ever incidental.  Punch drunk, pitch-perfect, and perturbed as hell.  Thieves with wares and a den to sell.  Inside out and back to fronting; our chill was only ever stunting.  Raising glasses or raising Cain? Those dark delights when days remain.  Dear God.  That I were able to close my eyes.  If cries...if cries could laugh and sorrow shattered, to find the only things that mattered.  See, he died too early, yet born again.  The sword, the table, the mighty pen.  I pray my girls can dream, attend.  This blessing ever after.  Now seed-born tree; curated spaces.  The bloom of such familiar faces.  Of good, of evil, of all betwixted flights.  Silver tongue of ancient shepherd, amid as many nights.  Kay is quite the learned angel.  Those pinnacles of brow.  A mother-daughter shorthand, remembered even now.  Passion.  Worlds apart and coming stars; a hostage of the furies.  Still blinded by the son.

Coming Home

It's been a long time, Esme, since I felt this happy.  This peaceful.  I'm still a poet torn between shadow and flame, earth and sky, but something has shifted on the inside.  I can feel it.  I know it.  I guess when you carry something in your heart for so long you forget how well you've adapted to its literal absence.  But more than this, you kind of forget how powerful the truth really is.  The simple truth, shared openly and plainly between two people.  It can be brief – mere moments – or it can last an entire lifetime.  Either way, this kind of truth – expecting nothing, wanting nothing except a warm, sincere exchange – it is the very basis of affection.  And affection is just love by another name, isn’t it?  My point is that I've always known the power of words.  They're my trade after all, but I suppose I'd forgotten how healing it could be to look into someone's eyes and just state the obvious.  I've said it a thousand times in written, gilded ways.  Dressed in poetry and silvered prose.  But I'd never spoken so openly before.  As the mortal, not the angel.  Despite being both.  And I am both, Esme.  I know you grasp this, my wanderer.  My delicate, dangerous witch.  My heart has been trembling for such a long, long time.  Seeds and stars and rings.  A magic that defies explanation to everyone but you and me.  It needn't be more than this.  Who we are, where we've been, together and apart.  Because that moment means more to me than words or stories could ever say.  I can feel this change within me.  Powerful and strange.  Suddenly everything is real, and beautiful.  I've always been in love but I haven't always been able to look my friend in the eye and tell them honestly how much they mean to me.  I didn’t want to overwhelm you.  Perhaps it sounds bizarre but I thought I was being kind.  I thought I was protecting you by holding my tongue.  So, I didn’t speak when I was first given the opportunity.  But your work reminded me about the importance of genuine speech.  To exhale, and inhale, in truth.  That simple act is worth its weight in gold.  You touched me, Esme.  I hope I’ve touched you too.  And I hope you wake with a lightness in your step, full of mirth and mischief.  I know I will, soon enough.  Kasi can finally breathe and create and enjoy this newfound grace.  The weight of each unspoken thing, gone in an instant.  I took a chance, by the river.  Leaning out for love.  It feels like you leaned toward me too.  Oh, Esme.  I'm so grateful.  I'll still have to face those wraiths and demons, but you helped me find something I thought I'd lost a long time ago.  A missing piece of myself.  And you did it with little more than a smile.  A sincere exchange.  Thank you for that.  Even as a writer I honestly didn't realise the power of my tongue; the impact my own words could have on my psyche.  I don't feel so alone anymore.  It's so strange, my darling.  You've always been here with me, in this stillness of the heart.  But now it finally feels like I'm here too.  Like I've come home, at last.

Spring of Songs

Forgive me, Esme, but I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to see you soon. Truly I wanted to.  I was intending to, but I had doubts.  I had everything planned, and yet certain experiences feel a little too painful sometimes.  Even for me.  I hate to talk like this and I hate to make assumptions, but I've no other way to steady myself right now.  Sometimes I worry that the actions of this almost-stranger have no real import at all.  For you, for the world at large, or for myself.  An existential dread, afflicting even angels.  And sometimes I fear the opposite; that each choice matters all too much.  Burdened with foresight and responsibility.  And I do still feel so responsible for you, in a way that might seem ridiculous to anyone else.  I really didn't mean to begin this year on such a bittersweet note.  But these have been difficult times for me recently and I have to find a way to be true to myself.  These pages have often helped in that regard.  I hope they can again.  I don’t get to live a normal life, Esme.  I never have.  This world of visions and dreams is all I know.  I try to have fun, that's true.  I'm often playful and light-hearted.  But it doesn't change the pain, or these scars.  I can't un-see the things I've seen.  I can't wish away my traumas or unmake this magic.  I feel like I need to take a step back somehow and refocus.  I don't want to keep saying the same thing, making the same thing, feeling the same thing.  For you, or her, or them.  It's difficult to admit that the soil needs tilling.  That I'm burnt-out and a little lost.  When I speak I want to speak with new purpose.  When I see you now, I want to see you with new vision and new eyes.  I can't allow my heart to break each time I craft a poem, each time I see your face, or every time I hear you sing.  That’s why I had these doubts recently.  Don't get me wrong, beloved.  I'm an artist just like you, and a realist too.  I know better than most the agonising difference between fantasy and reality.  But I'm also connected to the people I cherish in a way that transcends time and space.  A way that separates me from most men.  This loneliness I talk about is not a conceit, my darling.  None of this is.  I live within a spiritual maelstrom.  A perpetual storm.  It can be beautiful beyond words here, or utterly heart-wrenching.  More often than not it's both.  But such paradox can burn synapses to ash, or near enough.  It can leave even the most prolific artist feeling barren and adrift.  Sometimes it can make the things we love feel more like pain than pleasure. When we recognise how alone we feel, even in our lover's embrace.  But I always listen closely.  That will never change.  I make art and tell stories.  That won't change either.  But I hope you can appreciate my candour and understand why I'm saying these things.  I never want to lose this connection.  I still want to dance with you – all of you – for as long as possible.  But I can't pretend these last few years have been easy.  They’ve been some of the most beautiful and difficult years of my entire life.  I feel everything.  I'm a powerful psychic, Esme.  Also an angel.  And the world isn't kind to either.  But I'm going to be fine.  This winter will pass.  New life will grow.  It always does.  Visions and poems and play – these flowers are still a joyful and integral part of my path.  The Fates themselves guide my path, and always have.  We were scholars once, you know, and voyagers.  I think you always knew this even without my help.  It’s part of why you still take my breath away.  And so I speak my heart.  I tell the truth and allow myself to feel vulnerable, unsure.  I put all doubts aside, finding solace in uncertainty.  I’m still a work in progress after all.  I look forward to hearing the old ways, my friend.  Made new and vital at your design.  The Spring of Songs.  As it was and shall be.  I still believe the innermost is available to us all.  An indwelling light, like the dawn of renewed understanding, carried forever within my heart.

Simple Things

Sometimes I think love is a mute symphony.  A quiet masterpiece.  The strangest profundity I've ever known.  It’s a presence that wrecks my endurance and blesses my heart.  My life is so much grander because of it.  So much darker, and deeper.  Not because the love was mercurial or untrue.  Far from it.  Only because there are wraiths waiting in the hidden places.  Ravenous entities who are attracted to such brilliant, emotional silence.  They would darken it, sully it, any way they can.  I’m untrue sometimes, and mercurial, because of them.  But never my love.  Even I haven’t the time nor sorcery for any of that.  And what of fame?  You've never known true fame, sweet one.  Not like I have.  Why do you think I dwell here of all places, in shadow and darkness?  So far from everything that moves me?  I know what it costs to be made an icon.  To love so brilliantly, like a burning star for all to see.  It can cost sanity, family and friends.  So, I'll always choose the lesser evil if I can.  The greater anonymity and magic.  The two go hand in hand for those who know the real price of a circle.  Or the true cost of anything occulted.  Sometimes forgetting is better.  Sometimes saying goodbye is the only way to heal the people you love.  I was once told that such a decision wasn't mine to make.  But it is, Mira.  It always is.  Do you know what happens when there are no stars in the sky?  No songs in the earth?  I do.  Daughters weep for a thousand years, and then they die alone.  Sons become ash and there is no sanctuary for the myriad lost.  But love soars even in silence.  Look at us now.  The weight of our blood, our thunder.  Like lightning in the veins of a chorus.  You know, I like to imagine that the Fates themselves dance and weave and pretty the storm.  Sometimes I even imagine that my youngest sings me to sleep.  Such beautiful dreams.  Such sweet fiction.  So, tell me, who do I choose?  Patience or prosper?  My beloved ones or myself?  If it’s hubris to care like this then consider me gladly arrogant.  A father's earnest blessing, a mage's grand solipsism.  A writer's desperate search for meaning.  Hear me, sweet one.  These conjured stories are only as bright as your watchful gaze.  Sometimes I hold things in your hands, Mira, just to know how beauty really feels.  Sometimes I imagine I'm dancing with you on a very special day.  And I see the warm symphony in your eyes.  The hope, the promise of a cherished future.  Then the rage calms and the seas settle.  Things become simpler in first light.  Love and songs and stars in the sky, like an old man quietly giving his heart away.