no one could understand unless they have stood inside the black storm calling it on, calling it in, with lust and love and mad eyes of a horse, no one could understand how to invite it in, to demand the boot, knowing the face is life, the eyes are life, but the head behind is death, no one could understand, and how you quiver paper thin, a hornet's nest upon the limb, calling it on, calling it in, the black night of death a pulse, a wind, no one could understand, and the boot, how it makes you tremble, this small case of you so paper thin, a husk of a nest abandoned but your last known home and you are but a mouthful of water hiding in the nest, calling it on, calling it in, your will to abandon become your voice, your desire to rupture become your pulse, to be broken against the wall of his coming, to release your single mouthful of water, (all that you are) to be born, to be shattered, to be disbanded in the simple thrust of madness, viscous sac, amniotic flap, no one could understand the dark throat of night and this certain disaster unless they've been willing to wager all
to be gone.
afterwards
on this side of this madness
on this gentle breathing linear side of this madness
my body rejoins its lines, its form
and reveals itself as a naked key
you are the door, the lock
you are the darkness that encases the hole
(which is nothing - which is nothing, you understand! nothing!)
upon which the whole living dying world unlocks
I listen, I read, I am transfixed.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much here I do not understand, but it matters not for understanding is not the object, I suspect, but feeling, feeling and the in-breath, out-breath of my life against your words.
erin, again I stand in awe. How do you write these things? How do these words come to you, I assume unbidden from the recesses of your unconscious mind?
Once again, I stand in awe.
Erin, You are among my oldest blog friends and I think we both get it, where the stories come from. Trying to understand, to tell someone though, that's another thing. I can say about it, don't stop. You already know on your best days not to stop. Don't stop unless there is something else that works well enough to keep the flow open. You understand enough now. You are well on your way. Blessings.
ReplyDeleteWho Knew This Would Happen
The veil between worlds
is torn now. The small folk peer
around this corner.
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
ReplyDeleteWhich, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
~ Shakespeare
from "As You Like It"
I know more now, after this, after these words, more than I ever had permitted myself to invite in, to examine. You have broken through for me. Thank you.
ReplyDeletei am very unsure how to respond except to say that it feels as though we all stand in a room around a small fire. no one knows who started the fire. no one knows exactly what burns. but we all know there is a fire and it is powerful.
ReplyDeletethis is the mystery of life.
i'm grateful.
xo
erin
I am speechless. As I read through your last posts, then this (which I have read 3 times now), I have come to realize I have met a true poet. Powerful, pulsating, enigmatic yet oh so clear, like the moments before our eyes adjust in the darkness, before the lines soon take shape, that moment of mystery when we aren't really sure what we see at all, and then suddenly we see everything.
ReplyDeleteso nice to meet you Erin
xo
mj, thank you))
ReplyDeletenow, how do you feel? what do you think? what is this thing - ?
xo
erin
this takes me apart, atom by atom, and i lust for the destruction ... then it puts me back together, and i lust to be built ...
ReplyDeletethese are words deep in the body ... so deep that the body disappears and becomes itself, all in the same gesture ...
what madness is it, james, that has us lusting for dissolution and embodiment in the same breath? this contradiction, i don't think it is a misdirection. i think this leads to the undertone of living which is truth, somehow the key at the nexus of creation and destruction, dissolution and embodiment, life and death, the balance of all life, the life force of all opposites. this is how all of this is possible, each thing slipping through the doorway into creation and in the same breath slipping out of the same doorway toward destruction or dissolution.
ReplyDeletei am in love with this life, this mystery, and i am in love with you))
xo
erin