Anima — Sex vs. Spirit

In a fog of fallibility,
Time and space divide,
While sex and spirit somehow form the haze
That happens
To be nothing more
Than life.
But, flawed and finite,
Unenlightened,
Here I stand —
Joyfully divested of my reason,
Relinquished to my humanity —
And I worship at the altar of your bed.

I’ll keep seeking what’s eternal
In a temporary self,
Rejoicing at the forever life-force surge
In your movement through the temple,
Where I fall to my knees in surrender of my spirit
Before the votive
That you light with borrowed breath,
The prayers you beg with lover’s tongue,
And the desperate pilgrimage you endeavor —
Aching, spent, and fallen
With fleeting flesh,
A sacrificial lamb unto your own,
In this transcendental, timeless rite
Of ever-entangling, oft-repeated selves.

Aqlla

So you sing to me again
That hollow, interminable lament
Which tears me from my sleep
To shackle me with dreams.
You always find new tricks to bring me home —
This stubbornly devoted concubine
Who finds privilege in the humble shadow
Of your fiercely glacial air,
And lingers with surrendered reverence
Around your volatile, smoldering depths.
Yes, I recognize your invocation;
It’s a breath,
A regal salutation,
And a kiss.

But tell me, love —
Do you remember our game?
Do you remember
How I once melted in your embrace?
How completely I surrendered to the searing pain?
How obediently I waited
As the flames of passion threatened to destroy me?
How I believed that I would suffocate
Before you let me go?

Do you remember
How I branded myself,
Playing with fire
To cauterize your wounds?

I will return
With a torch
To clear the shadows of your long, tormented night.

Just, please —
Don’t burn me now.

 

*A mentor told me years ago that she thought I was an aqlla in another life.  Kind of a random thing to say, but I resurrect the idea here.  This title, from Quechua, is a play on numerous levels of meaning.  I’ll break some of them down, should you be curious:

Aqllana/Aqllay = to select/choose — This poem was inspired by an opportunity and the need to make a decison.

Aqlla = (lit.) chosen one

Aqlla = (historically) a bride of the sun.  The aqllacuna (pl.) were taken from their homes, having been singled out (hence “aqlla”) for a life of political and spiritual service to the Inca Empire.  This decision, externally imposed, was based on physical appearance, and one could not refuse to be an aqlla.  Furthermore, as the state appropriated an aqlla’s sexuality, she lived under perpetual surveillance.  Owned by the empire, she could be given as a concubine — or sacrificed — for the greater glory of the state and the higher interests of the people.  Stakes were high; an aqlla was not free, and “transgressions” of the flesh, as well as any sign of disrespect toward the men she was ordered to serve (service), were punishable by death.

In this poem, I refer to fire not only for its simultaneously destructive and purifying effects, but also because tending to a hallowed fire was one of an aqlla’s sacred responsibilities.

A little pre-Columbian trivia for you  😉

Woodworking

Hunched over your work,
And low to the ground,
Meticulously, you chip away
At the scepter
That will one day make you king.
You’re carving an unwitnessed masterpiece —
Starting outside at the roughness,
Moving dutifully in.

I stumble startled over you,
Confounded,
When I pull open a familiar door
And find it was a portal
Where a stranger sits in wait.

Patient, pensive, out-of-place,
You hang your head,
Impervious to the siren breeze of summer
That calls to me
And dances on the air
Just yards from where you sit.
Yet still you stop to lift your gaze
In recognition of the child
Pondering your presence.

We need no introduction,
Yet we don’t know any names.
Does either of us know why you are there?

And so we meet in knowing silence at the threshold,
Somewhere in between
Dark and light,
Work and play,
Indoors, outdoors,
Maturity and youth,
Confines and boundlessness,
Artifice and truth.

You smile a greeting through the stillness
Before returning to your curious craft,
And I drink this vision in.
And though I skip away to carry out my childhood,
Turning back to the silent stranger
I have always never known,
I realize some accident of fate
Has crossed the years,
The miles,
The laws,
The lives
That disconnect
Again when I wake up.

But I’ll grow up remembering
That I forgot you between lifetimes,
Always wondering
Which you it was I saw,
And understanding
That I’ll stumble into you again
When I
Come back from my adventures,
And you
Have finally finished freeing
The all-consuming masterwork
That brought you to that stoop.

 

This poem tells the story of a dream I had as a child.  Consequently, it’s somewhat strange and probably makes little sense.  But I’m sure some of you can relate to the experience of waking up from a dream and feeling, “….Something important just happened.”  Or having encountered a stranger or received some bit of information in a dream which you’ve never been able to forget.  Well, that was my experience way back when, and that’s what this is about.

The image of this stranger and his serious, dignified dedication to his carving work, juxtaposed with my carefree childhood spirit, was so powerful to me that I decided to attempt to honor it by writing these lines over a decade later.  So, for what it’s worth, this piece isn’t too refined, but I believe it’s time to put this out there.  Here’s to the woodworker I stumbled over years ago.

“And through a fractal on a breaking wall, I see you my friend, and touch your face again.  Miracles will happen as we dream.”  Seal — “Crazy”

Soul Memory

It’s like a memory
That you have in childhood
And never recall again,
That awareness
Of what once was
That fades into the present
Once the blank canvas of new existence
Starts to fill with visions of a life in progress.

Thus is the calling–
The song that carried me through ages,
Accompanied me over ancient seas,
Followed me to sacred summits,
And lulled me into sleep through a hundred eternal springs,
Until it led me
Obediently stumbling to your door
Where origin masquerades as destination,
Fate takes the guise of intention,
And guest entwines with host.

So I knocked
And waited breathless on the step,
Remembering why I came,
And who we were,
And what lay there within,
Only to begin forgetting
And find myself abandoned to the unknown,
The moment you opened the door.

Stargazer

I was born of the Moon
While the Sun waged war
In a violent sky
Against the defiant light
That had charged a dying night’s blackness,
And I, made of the water
That drenched that morning,
Come careening down the centuries
To spill over the fires of Mars
In that smoldering burn
That transforms both
When ancient battles have ceased
And the phoenix fields are ripe for germinating
Seeds of realization.

This universe, you see,
Is a playground,
And blinded by the swirling nebulae,
I build castles in the sands of time,
Attempt hopscotch in constellations already drawn
Only for folly,
And artfully wield Mercury like a ball
Which I toss serendipitously to you
For the fun of the sport.

Every night, we lose ourselves
In this mystical haven,
All carefree children
Illuminated by stars
Where chaos is order
And time is a farce.

This Earth
Like a slingshot
Is blazing your course,
And only when the sun eclipses
These celestial wonders
Does it seem like an illusion.

Well, it’s not.

Just trust.
Climb up on this comet.
And play.

This, to me, is spring.

I am.
That’s all.
And yet there’s more!
I see —
Because I haven’t
I know
Because I can’t
And was
What now I won’t
For I’m reborn,
And there’s a pulse, a breath
A brilliant rush!
Of nothing.
And I sprint
I crash
I laugh!
I leap
They seize me, I surrender
And I live!

And I drink the devastation,
And lament my desolation
And I know
I am unworthy of
Such agonizing
Joy!
And yet
At least a dozen times
I die
To find it all again
And wrench it out
Unraveling
In a reckless dance of utter collapse
To music of the sound of chains
And I emerge undone here on my knees
Baptized
In a font of sacred tears
That shine
Ethereal!
Over this once-sullen gem
Of perfect imperfections.

So I set forth
Triumphantly
To abdicate my….
Self
To the constellation of calamities
Stretched out ahead as “fate”;

For this
To me
Is passion.

Yes, this, to me
Is spring.

Musings at 23

What is time?
If not a tie that binds
And yet
A smokescreen
Tucking truths away behind “impossibilities”
Created only by our fallible awareness
And our unquestioning obedience
To rules that are anything but universal
And we
Counting the years
Overlook immortality
In seeing only moments already dead.

And what is life
If not a game
A choose-your-own adventure
Of amateur play-actors
Who screw up their lines
Bump into one another on the stage
Knock things over on the set
Yet always, each and every one, steal the show
Once they finally heed their cue?

No, no one gets a standing ovation
Because the seats are empty
The audience is on the stage
And each production is a rehearsal
And
Just maybe
Every curtain call a past-present-future simultaneous beginning.

So imagine
How magnificent the work
If all the actors were awake!
 
 
This random musing was partly inspired by the Quichua/Quechua concept of pacha — time, space, Earth/earth/ground/land.  It’s all the same.  When a Quechua refers to the future, he gestures behind himself, because we are completely blind to what lies behind us.  And when a Quechua speaks of the past, she motions forward because it stretches ahead of us, represented by everything that we are able to view.  In a sense, I suppose, “Western” notions of time seem to deal greatly with movement; what we are approaching, and what we are leaving behind.  But to the Quechua, the focus of time is on vision, clarity.  Just a thought to ponder…
(This post was also born when my sugar crashed one afternoon.  On that note, read below a bit and check out “Sugar” to see what that experience is like!)

Haunting

You said, “Who’s at the door?”
     I said, “Your slave.”
You said,  “What do you want?”
     “To see you and bow.”
“How long will you wait?”
     “Until you call….”
“Why did you come?”
     “The musk of your wine was in the air….”
(“Talking Through the Door” — Rumi)

I discovered the above poem two weeks after having written what follows and thought I’d include it because it seems to possess a similar theme.  On that note, my own musings follow….

           I hear your voice,
           Turn my face toward the whisper
           That for a second was my name
           And with eyes closed, I inhale a vision
           So unmistakably yours
           That I realize I don’t know who you are.

           Unaware of your restless soul’s digression,
           You visit me as would a teenage lover
           Whose gleeful anticipation eclipses conscious thought
           And we meet in an embrace on this spot we chose
           Lifetimes before.

           You enter through my breath–
           So predictably exotic!–
           And descending upon this flesh,
           You roll over my tongue
           In every language I have ever known
           Only to slip off my fingertips
           And leave me empty-handed,
           Never having seen the thief
           Who robs my reason
           Leaves not but a footprint
           Sows poetry in his wake
           And doesn’t even know that he was there.

The Traveler

The eyes may be the window to the soul
But the voice is the ticket for its journey,
Drawing, only if we’re lucky, the most intrepid of travelers
Like an irresistible siren song
To explore those depths within us,
Devouring the landscape with their eyes,
Illuminating the ancient corridors of spirit with golden fingerprints,
And tearing through the wildest jungles with flashes of insight,
But never trying to tame, no, relishing
The primal beast they find so submlimely seated
Somewhere in the being–
Enthroned on instinct,
Enrobed in the sumptuous trappings of human feeling,
Crowned with the dazzling jewels of articulation,
And wielding the precious sceptre of literacy.

So, traveler, perhaps our eyes have not yet met–
This time, at least,
But let me take you on this accidental journey
To the depths of my soul
Where we both might be surprised to find
That the lines of self begin to blur
In the blinding brilliance of my naked sincerity
And the earthy essence of your raw crusade for truth
Where you go seeking something palpable
On the timeless, winding river of words.

It’s hard to define what inspired this poem about the art of expression; I was watching “Laura non c’e” (Nek’s duet with Cerena).  Maybe it was the timelessness of the setting in the video, Nek and his absent muse, the tortured artists running frantically through some underground labyrinth, the beautiful illumination of the dark corridors they explore, I’m not sure….This poem is about even more than I am sure how to express in prose, so check out the video if you’re curious; maybe the imagery will convey what I cannot.

  

Hourglass

Minutes, hours, centuries, millennia–

Torrents of time that, taken alone, are unremarkable–

All come funneling through the hourglass at once,

And I, inside, buried in the swirl of measures,

Watch, bewildered, scared, as eternities slip through my fingers–

Upward.

The endless dunes, wastelands of yesteryear–

The weights that kept me grounded–

Gone, and I kneel exposed,

In awe and shaking with….

Fear?

I see familiar footprints in the now-transparent, endless, rolling landscape,

Leading from one era to the next,

Traversing lifetimes to connect the dots between every reality conceivable,

All stretched out over the entirety of existence.

Scenes of the exotic, the ancient, transposed

Over this “normal” and this “now.”

You see….

Today I hear in the bustle of the subway station

What yesterday you will play in the still hours of a mountain morning on your ocarina

And which tomorrow I performed before an ancient king in his court to welcome you home.

And on this underground note,

The soundtrack to my desert wanderings,

I toss a token of gratitude to the prophetic piper

While we rush to catch different trains on the same track

Which will collide for the thousandth time

In a fearsome, brilliant spray of sparkling sand

No sooner have we learned to let the minutes pass us by

And the moments carry us along.