You're what?

I am

I can't promise you enlightenment
or universal truth
or endless wealth or perfect health
or everlasting youth.

I can't promise to be perfect
and never make you cry
or always be a gentlemen who plucks
stars from silent skies.

I can't make the hurting stop
or make the sun stand still
but I can make a song ring out
who's tune soothes every ill.

And I can speak with gilded tongue
what is and what might be
Of realms of bright eternal light
Of Earth and fire and sky and sea.

And I can walk between the worlds
and see the hidden flow of fate
My lot it is to speak in riddles
to spin the tales and songs at hours late.

I have walked the path of dreams
I have glanced to eternity
I have seen the madness and beauty
Infused in every being and idea and deity.

I have been a seed in earth
and the salmon in the stream
I have been the song and the wind
and the light at morning.

I have tasted the sweet water
brewed for a year
I have spoken with rock and tree
and stars and sky and air.

My mind has been blinded and healed
by light pure and white
And I have born the weight of time
unending length and height.

Mine it is to speak the word
to ring out loud
To extort man and beast and bird
in house and field and cloud.

Through me flows art, beauty, peace,
softening hearts once hard
I am a door between worlds, an invitation
to you, I am a Bard.

The problem with

Society

Brain for rent
not really used
Simply a storage
for headline news.

Brain for rent
just like new
Sat in a church
filling a pew.

Brain for rent
no money down
Gets all it knows
from gossip in town.

Brain for rent
don't really need it
A life unexamined
effectively worth shit.

It's a strange place

In my head

In my head the Awen flows

With waves of glowing shapes and sounds

Painting pictures of what might be

And demanding a homage of poetry.

In my mind a Muse sings sweet

With gentle voice and subtle notes

A wind in the forest of my soul driving me

Bringing words to birth in song.

In my depth the Land cries forth

Solid and strong, never yielding or rushing

Building under pressure from all ages

To an explosion of living art.

In my soul a Light glows bright

A fire of inspiration to wake the dead and change the living

Consuming all that stands before it

Burning the veil between the worlds.

Again and again.

Modern Times

We are greedy
We are lustful
We are selfish
We are hateful
We are warlike
We are egoistic
Surely society is collapsing

We are ignorant
We are amoral
Our children rebel
We are depriaved
We are unjust
New art is trash
Surely society is collapsing

We are oppressed
We are abused
We are imprisoned
We are ignored
We are in debt
We are alone
Surely society is collapsing

These troubles come
These troubles go
In every age
In every land
Just like the tide.
Society is not collapsing
We're simply human.

We are giving
We are pure
we sacrifice
We are loving
we are peacefull
we are humble
Surely society can soar

We are wise
We are pious
Our children brave new paths
We are natural
We are just
We make great art
Surely society can thrive

We are free
We are whole
We are unchained
We are important
We are rich
We are together.
Surely humanity will survive.

Burn Baby Burn

Fire in My Head

I did not know just what it meant to have the fire in my head,
until one evening cool and calm, I lay alone up my bed.
And in the still sweet blessed dark, my heart let out a quite prayer,
and rising from that empty room, my spirit soared into the air.

And as my mind slipped loose it's bounds, in exhaultation did it blare,
it stretched to fill eternity, spread oh so thin, like glosmer hair.
Within that mystic vision sweet did sound a thundering note full blown,
and light did flare within my mind, and press upon it things unknown.

And in that moment I did know that burning which surpasses words
as truth and peace and blessed bliss came crashing down in golden folds.
The fire like a living thing did dance upon the heart and soul
An all consuming harmless flame of ancient means and timeless goal.

So trembling I lay alone, with smoldering ashes in my thoughts,
To ponder thoughts beyond the mind, which render written words as dross.
Sweet burning light, sweet wild might, come back anew and dwell in me
and dancing singing in the light, then all my days I'll blessed be.

Freeform

A Poem

I'm going to write a poem
  with no form
rambling, wandering
 without structure or rhyme or story or point.
But that's kind of the point, isn't it?
  the breaking of rules and melding of chaos and intuition
 often
  or maybe always,
like the seed of an oak growing to a great tree.
Roots stretching through the ages,
 binding the ages past with branches of the future reaching skyward with a beautiful form beyond the ken of human hands.
What birds must nest in the branches, singing songs of Awen to time out of memory.
 But anyways, I'm going to write a poem.
 Maybe you'll like it,
 Maybe you won't.
I can't say I particularly care, I'm not writting it for you.
Then again, I'm not writting it for me either.
Who am I writting it for? What God, Goddess, Spirit has placed the fire in my mind to call forth the stirings of my soul?
Splaying my heart on a screen of bits and bytes, plastered on the virtual bathroom stall wall of popular culture.
Is this magick?
 Or maybe just insanity?
But if it is, do you care? Do I?
 In a world were everything seems insane, is insanity such a bad thing?
And now I realize that I'm not going to write a poem.
Someone else is going to write a poem.
I'm going to tag along for the ride.
 I wonder what this poem will be?
Perhaps I'll turn a page to the future and find out.
 Then again, maybe the truth lays in the past, buried in a hollow hill under a full moon.
 At the very least, I can assure you that it was, it will be, it is and might be and always was a poem.
At its heart beats a thump, thump, thud, thump, deep and slow in time with the sighs of the world as it dreams.
 Thump, thump, thud, thumpa, thump, can you hear the dream? Taste the light as it flies flashing past realms of endless possiblity and soundless songs, and drink the three drops of knowledge.
 Overflowing, my mind spills to the page, a song of singers floating on a flaming wind.
 Maybe this isn't a poem after all. Words, words without words form shapes of shapeless truths.
 Is that what a poem is? Is this inspiration?

For my Wife

The Goddess in the brown fur boots

She calls my name
Standing on the corner in the rain
The water rolling down short cropped hair
The Goddess in the brown fur boots.

Balance of rage and beauty
Queen of house and hearth and love
fire of passion and flame of love
The Goddess in the brown fur boots.

Deep and quiet
The calm of the mountain of ancient days
Rock of peace and pillar of awesome form
The Goddess in the brown fur boots.

Light, Her touch
on the strands of my heart and soul
Seizing my love with the force of the fiercest storm
The Goddess in the brown fur boots.