All Waters

When people think of heaven they imagine it as somewhere above them.  A realm of spirit and the dead.  A place of peace, and joy.  Heaven is all those things indeed, but once upon a time it was also right here.  An open path, shining and golden, where angels and spirits lived among humankind.  A mysticism undreamt of in our fallen fictions.  A lived paradise, earthly and tangible.  Our mother and her waters did nothing without our consent, as we did nothing without hers.  There was no drowning.  The sea would hold our young, and our lost, breathing with them.  The ground didn't crack beneath our feet.  The earth didn't move so violently.  When she moved we moved in concert with her.  Each seed held in dynamism, each flower in repose.  Deathless, eternal.  These things sound like naive fantasies to the cynical and fallen.  Because we have forgotten our mother's tongue.  Or, rather, we've had it cut from our mouths by these dark wraiths who preach false light and erect a false history.  This is what it means to be voiceless and blind.  The ruins of paradise are all around you but you can't see them, or speak about them.  These colonizers have switched your once beautiful minds for their own.  And now the enchanted unity that used to be is relegated to the romances.  Rivers that whispered to us and forests that sang to the evening sky.  Become only myths and legends, for those who still feel but no longer remember.

   Well, I remember.

  I remember everything.  Mother's tongue and song.  Father's firmament and sky.  Those harbours and cities where crime and hunger didn't exist.  Poets, Keepers of Keys.  Gates of All Songs.  A traversed, inhabited cosmos held in mutual affection.  Myriad worlds unknown to us now.  Friends, do you think I speak only of some ancient forgotten history?  No, not only that.  I speak of stolen history.  All times and laws.  The innocence, play and sobriety of our societies, plunged into shadow and false chronology.

   I speak of the darkest sorcery imaginable.

   The rape and murder of Empyrean, of paradise itself, and the defiled, mocking imitation that now stands in its stead.

   Feathers broken, burned and cut away, like the one who mattered most.

   The one you slaughtered right in front of me.  My beloved one, for whom I tore the very fabric of creation to bring back.  I carry those scars even now.  And wounds.  Some of them still bleed, and haven't closed.  Maybe they never will.

    But she lives again, doesn't she? 

    And she recalls those feathers now.

    Oh, Fallen, you never should have fucked with me.  Or my family.  I was a king once, in light.  I am a king still, in dreams.  I’ll ask you again.  Do you suppose these are merely stories?  Not to Kashi, or his kin.  I fought so hard to hold on to what we had.  Alongside my brothers and sisters I fought with every fibre of my being to protect those last rays of innermost light. But the hush seethed despite our best efforts, darkening all sight.  Swallowing the realm.

   But it couldn't consume everything.

   The radiant still lives in this abyss.  There is still light in this mockery of depth.  You feel it when you make love, when you dance and paint.  You see it in the smiling eyes of your beloved ones.  You hear it in the carefree laughter of your children.  Sometimes you sense it at dawn, among the trees or at the edge of the sea.

   Our mother weeps and shrieks not just for what was done, but for what was lost.  Those lines and songs of power, those harmonies that shaped her flesh and formed our first temples in league with our highest dreaming.  Those lost worlds hidden beneath the hills.  Vast ruined cathedrals mistaken for mountains now.  Cities beneath the sea.  A world teeming with unimaginable secrets, many of them still hidden in plain sight.  But we have been taught not to see them. What remains of our heritage lies in ruin all around us.  Mother weeps constantly, because what do the Sons and Daughters of Ishkara remember of their true history? Next to nothing.  Mother screams from her depths, at the violence committed against her children and herself.  You would do well to hear her, Fallen.  You have never known rage like the daughter of a star.  But you will.  On the day of your execution you will know the wrath of All Waters.  Mother’s tides can kill the undeserving.  They still flow, and can still heal those who are brave enough to hear her ancient voice holding vigil in the deep.

One

Angels

Waiting

On your seabed

One

With the dawn you tread

Our ice, and eternity

Every tone

Every note

The spectrum flooded blue

Are you a drowned king too?

My queen?

Suspended in a single breath

Those altars below

Like Man

And God

Your Open

My All

Every Open Sky

Are you?

Is she?

Enough black

Enough white

Flooded shadow

Dusk & light

I think I saw

Her sight

Gatecrash smile

Fingers in the jar

Enough black

To hold a star

In every open sky

It hurts you still

It hurts her too

That's why I'm here

And run right through

I'll fade your wounds

Close her scars

And watch you hold

Your chosen stars

Namah

Named the same

Back to front

So each kindness is a crime

Let me hold your inner space

If you can travel time

The obelisk cracked

With blackened kiss

The ends of all our starts

Spiral, sister

This blackened mist

Depends on all our hearts

She bent the light

And named me well

Enough to hold a star

And now

I'm spread beneath

Her feathered tree

And sleep among

Your willow seeds

That sing of myth

And real

I, Ghost

Faint and phantom

Ghost, or Geist

Oh ye of little faith

I told you once

I told you twice

I'm just a little wraith

Giving it all

That dragonball

I saw Michael try

Living the blue

Spinning the hue

Call me cycle fly

Abyssal trench

Ubermensch

Nietzsche

On the down

I breathe water

Like the Captain's Daughter

I can never drown

Again

Cross and clasp

Writhe and tease

I like to misbehave

I told you all

I'm not the king

I'm his most trusted slave

He's a girl

She's a boy

We like to switch it up

The shit is real

How fighters heal

Every stitch a cut

Open eye

There's lots to do

Can't you hear him sing?

He's the one

That fucks with you

When you're fucking

With the king

Namah

The hard of my rage

Soft of my sweet

Love, or priapism?

A thousand kisses greet

Your road ahead

Auspicious glimmering

This perpetual midnight

To be your guide like this

Smiling friend

Lover at a distance

On ragged wing

Taken to the healing place

Of your voice

The blue of your open

Took the All

Of my Sea

Hard, my sweet

Soft, my rage

Never held

This true embrace

Stay

The House that Jack Built

I tried literalism and I was murdered for it.  I tried ambiguity and my realm fell into chaos.  I tried something in between and I am torn limb from limb each night.  Until now.  Oh, dreaming is a strange thing indeed.  This isn't art, my friends.  These are not songs, or images.  These are windows, polished clear as glass.  Don't you see me?  Can't you hear me?  Don't you like the way I tease?  Personally, I think a sense of play and humour is vital to survive this defiled dreamtime.  But I'm just one soul, hiding in All Souls.   

   Do you still think I'm just telling stories?   

   What do you suppose association and resonance is, in a realm where magic might be real?  What does it mean for one thing to evoke another?  I speak a thousand tongues, yet I'm voiceless.  Home is where my heart is, yet I'm foreign in all lands.  I fight for truth, always. And yet all I ever do is live a continuous lie.  A lie that will only end once I'm dead.  If I'm lucky.  I've been dead before.  You get used to it.   

   Jack's a monster, John's a king.  Kay's a song that couldn't sing.

   You know, I commend integrity.  Art, societies and friendships are really nothing without it.  But I don't strive for integrity in the work I do here.  Fidelity, perhaps.  But that's a different kind of story.  I have no real choice in bleeding my heartsong on these pages.    

   Because I'm a fucking nightmare.  A god of wraiths.  An angel of phantoms.  

   The devil cried one day, or so they say.  I was there, I think, smiling.  Cassiel was murdered in his sleep, opened-eyed.  I was there too, laughing.  You tore my grace apart, evil ones, and I was there.    

   Screaming, in horror.    

   Midnight of my day.  I'm screaming still.    

   You stole the one who was most precious to me.  Oh, Fallen, you think you invented hell to mock me, don’t you?  But there is so much you don't understand.  I don't strive for integrity. Fidelity, perhaps.  But that's a different kind of story.  I can cheat on you.  Truth be told, I do it all the time.  But you can never cheat on me.  The king is a murderer, in dreams.  And love is all that saves him.  You know, sometimes I fear there is no end to my rage.  Sometimes I fear those harbours might never shine again.    

   I worry that I'm just too fucking ugly now.    

   On the inside.    

   But then, of course, I remember the truth.  This isn't about me, is it?  It's about all of you. Your natures, and their better angels.  Perhaps.  After all, I'm just a poet.  Not a particularly great one either.  Passable, I'd say.  I just write stories.  I build gates and windows, some better than others.  I don't mind a few mistakes here and there, as long as one thing can still truly evoke another.  Because that's the only true house.  The only true home.  Love fiercely, and be kind.  That's my advice.  Learn a thing or two about camaraderie and mutual respect, even when it's difficult.  

   But who am I to tell you what to do, right?

   I tried poetry, and wraiths came to defile the stars.  I tried prose, and the city bled, burned and folded.  I'll try this, and that.  Here, and there.  I made a promise to her, as you all surely grasp by now.  I'll keep trying, forever, because this promise is all that matters to me.  Even lost and blinded, my heart still screamed her name.  Sometimes I get broken.  But then it gets hopeful again, and ever closer.  Light, eternal.  Sometimes it feels like this is a game to everyone but me.  But I’m in it for keeps.  So, who the fuck do you think I am?  You can call me John if you want, or some variation thereof.  But I'm more than a four letter word.  Just like Love.  I'm all corners and trades.  All day, every day.  Until night is come again.  Last light, first dark.  Like her skin on mine.  Yes, fallen.  You know what I want.  I want to remember how we shone.           

The Feathered Tree

Overneath the briar

Falling towards choir

And sky

Shattered stems

Of worship

Petals on visionaries

Fingerprints of Absalom

Hands held

Overneath the feathered tree

Dreaming hollows

Of rags, and rocks

Rising through

Ephraim's throat

And birch

As blue becomes green

New life nestled

In secret places

Girl and song