We'll Go to Distant Worlds

I loved you
since the time I looked
into the deep oceans of your eyes.
From the waves of passion thrashing
beneath my earthly body,
to stormless shoals smothered
with warmth of morning sun.


Disabused of name or tongue
or past ships lost
to uncharted Atlantis,
I found you in a place
where infinite sky meets
the bottomless sea.
Because I loved you more
than space could hold,
more than I could fit
in a smaller world.


Now I know why stars explode
across the Universe,
what marks the road to take
to distant worlds.


And there with you I'll go,
our destinies complete-
though not in terms of endings
set with time or date,
but our journey together
that never ends.


How I've loved you!
But I can only love you more
as I sail across your oceans
and we love upon the shores.


Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels

thetapoet: Reflections From Time Bandits (A Musical CD by Pier Paderni and Andrea Ortu)

thetapoet: Reflections From Time Bandits (A Musical CD by Pier Paderni and Andrea Ortu)
http://it.dada.net/freeweb/pierpaderni/
http://users.libero.it/andreaortu/timebandits.html

Christmas Sonata

Of glancing snowflakes fondling the waiting earth,
Or hunted geese safely huddled on the pond,
Of smoke-swept chimneys with smell of burning wood
And lighted houses glistening like the sun.
Of cards and gifts from those both known and loved,
Rememberance of whom departed but yet beloved,
Of song and dance that make the heart feel gay,
Each and all a gift of Christmas Day.

I see your eyes within the twinkling lights
And feel your presence with each flake of snow,
Your warmth and spirit the billowy stream of smoke,
The goose-lined pond the tender space of home.

Though Christmas Day may leave us far apart,
Thoughts of you shall linger in my heart.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

Christmas in Vermont

Green Mountains covered in winter ice
unmoved by the tumbling river below
that twists itself over boulders left
long before the snow.

A narrow country road, it snakes
a route beside the stream,
winding and weaving, high and low
mimicking each fickle slope-
a tableau fit for dreams.

Gabled rooftops protrude the icey veil
revealing saltboxes having tallowed the road-
motley structures huddled in clusters
as if to stay warm
from the stinging cold.

Neither buildings tall or showy or many
(yet poignant in their stories centuries told)
nor bustling streets chockablock with neon disturb
the peaceful lanes which shape
this village frozen in time.

Who should live in this place
time has forgotten?-
a scene reminiscent
of a Grandma Moses painting
of a quaint New England town fast asleep,
whose dreams are contagious to every dreamer,
that tug at your heartstrings to stay,
that make you want to linger.

Without regret, I'll leave
a part of me here-
dreams of a simpler life perhaps
or the hope for a World more serene
with kindness and love for all to show-
to stay here long after
my footprints
in the snow.

Copyright 2008 Francis D. Daniels

Reflections From Time Bandits (A Musical CD by Pier Paderni and Andrea Ortu)

Like mirrors looking back
to forgotten paths,
laughing, loving, dreaming-
dream's food, images de'ja vu.
On echoing notes thoughts ride
a magic carpet through endless sky,
timeless moments,
worlds unknown,
but known.

Spirit of Light,
Goddess of Night
whose starburst flush my eyes,
could it be my old home,
a friend, a love, a life?
What piper this be
who guides me here?
What god he serves,
what rite?

Lost in the sound,
stripped and bear,
free willing spirit I am
floating in air.
'Cross twinkling lakes
and bamboo streams, drenched
in winds of unchained melody
and love unbound
through space and time.

Copyright 2008 Francis D. Daniels

The Matrix

See how the sun eases from its sleep.
There's no need to fear the day.
Should you listen, you may hear
the songbirds sing, and smell
sweet blossoms suffused in air.


There's no worry in the seagull's cry-
he's announcing his eagerness to play,
nor the grimace in the pelican's face,
rather, an aloof disposition smuggly displayed.


And the wind as it wafts across the sea,
stirring, fast and free,
is marking its fate with some sailing ship
for a new port to reach.


And as the day falls asleep,
dark, sullen voices appear,
no need to fear the night
for it is guarded by the moon
who rains out her kisses about the earth
and magic flitter from her starry sisters,
who fill our thoughts with wistful contemplation-


To awake to find a new morning
morphed from the matrix
of our dreams.


Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

A Temple Long Ago

Lives shroud in dark silence,
lost to oblivion the names,
but forever live the memory
long ago.

The mirror of time, glass unbroken,
so many faces we've come to own,
while the feelings remain the token
of long ago.

Stoic temple, stones stern and cold,
perched high on misty mountaintop,
from where we cloaked ourselves
from the vagaries of life too grim
to behold- long, so long ago.

A lesson from the robins, nightingales
and owls who never shun the trees,
wildflowers who grace the meadows and moors,
the mantes, beetles and bees
unspoken, but purpose not forgotten:

Like a lotus in a stream,
like the magic of a dream,
in the hourglass we are the sand,
as the heart portrays the play
and the mind recalls the day
when life was long ago.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

Autumn

In autumn when leaves are gold and rust
no longer green, stifled as by null, corrosive air,
aflame in burning hue of vitriol sky, I ponder
the scheme of life, the cycle of birth decay
and quietly recall old dreams once made.
Like fallen blades upon the earth were swept
away, wind-blown till out of reach and faded
with acid time.
But dreams unlike leaves need no season
to bear, no rain or sunbeams or ethereal air.
The soil from which they spring is neither clay
nor humus black-
but from a spiritual garden they seed,
even if earthly existence of mind decieve.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

Once When Visiting a Tall Grass Prairie

Tall and free the prairie grasses sway-
Indiangrass, Grama and Big Bluestem-
stately watching over wildflower throngs
blanketing each gentle slope
of hill.
Brothers' keepers who signal
the sauntering clouds dreaming their way
in summer's arcing
sun.
It's the reign of yellows as far as the eye
can see: saw-toothed sunflowers,
showy goldenrod, tiny, rivieting tufts
of partridge pea.
Athrall in this sea of color
I maunder through the grasses,
occasional blue asters my
compass.
I hum to the buz of workman bees,
travel unmarked paths, together mine
for prairie sweetness, when suddenly
a patch of gentian appears at my
feet.
And congress with monarchs and swallowtails
who bask atop the golden buds,
dazed and drunk from Nature's
love.
Like a magnet I stick in this place
without force or rule,
without preconceived agreement.
In a place where I have no place
as the grasses who sentry,
the buds that feed my senses
or bees and butterflies who dispatch
command for future seed.
A feeling which is at once
void and abundant,
lost yet found, the ending
and a new
beginning.


Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

The Hourglass

Woman of infinite beauty,
eyes of crystal and celestial body,
horizon where sleeps the eternal sun.
With flowing lines and undulating waves
the mountains, fields and streams mirrored you.
Out on the blue deep, I
was but a lone seafarer when you came.
So shrill the siren call
I could not tell the sky from the sea.
Countless hours of hope and despair
all driven by your call,
but must it end without your love.

Hourglass: the sand that flows is me.

The spell remains floating
like a link in a timeless chain.
Lost on a desert caravan I
roam the dunes of ancient time,
withered and parched and mind awry,
forlorn of your magic waters.

Woman in my mind, the hourglass
shall never stop flowing for you.
If only I can keep this heavy heart adrift,
lest it drown in its sinking sadness.

Woman of infinite beauty.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

The Mirror

Look in the mirror and see your soul.
See how your heart blooms
with a thousand flowers.
Kiss the cheeks of a friend.
In his face is nurtured the petals of a rose.
The garden blooms long past spring and summer,
hummingbirds yet hover by their magic,
butterflies still float on the breeze-
why not drink of yourself, eternal sweetness,
so that winter not be so cold.
Life is a game to play as our own
and there resides the Truth
which sweeps away the lie:
fluid as a sailing ship,
free as an ocean gull,
even as the ebb and flow of tide.
Look in the mirror-
the glass cannot hide
that I am your reflection
as you are surely mine.

Imagine us kissing rose petals.


Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

The Sea Gull

(1)



I mocked-up a rainbow
on the bright of my azure eyes,
on silver wings of a sea gull,
I flew through its brimming skies;
while all about the ether,
I perceived odd, stirring wiles,
like spirits in interchange rejoined
across the isles.
Thus taken was my thought
and my heart filled with song,
that I crowded near the hues
upon a cloud and hummed along;
and with my lute and plectrum strummed
an old forgotten tune,
and we danced ourselves to twilight
as the colors shroud the moon.


(2)


I dreamed upon the tranquil air
with the scarlet moon my pillow;
the fainting hues as with a magnet
translated silver bursts-
spiraled streams of stars hung
down toward the earth,
which embraced the weeping evening
like a willow.
I awoke from my dream
enamored with lustrous light,
to a gentle star which shot not fire,
yet glowed the cosmos where every point was night.
Sleep-eyed the spirits murmured
as they viewed the light above,
"It is the work of beauty,
it's Venus with her love."


(3)


The sleepless hours passed
too soon before the dawn,
for scarcely had I seen
the silver orbs be born;
but chagrin which I felt
dispelled on golden ray
when from the East rose
our spirits on the postulate of day.
On his brassy cry, the sea gull and I
cleft on through heaving sky;
with each tempest whirled, his body swirled,
but like a spirit, he'd never die-
content in his home where he's free to roam
over wave, cloud and peak,
and make his dreams with the ocean foam
for a shore as calm as sleek.


(4)


And with great boldness
I mocked-up a place,
that all our fond adventures
should live within one space;
where the nights are long
and the constellations keen,
and the mountains kiss the heavens
and are swathed with evergreen;
with ethereal mornings
each a budding-palette sight,
for blessed by Apollo
with his golden rays of light.
And the gull and I descended
onto the still Maggiore shore,
where the hues of my azure eyes
shone rainbows evermore.



Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

A Better Life

Funny how we skirt the obvious,
dismiss life's simple ways,
mistaking happiness
for something not worthwhile.
Ever know a farmer disgruntled
to rise before the dawn,
grandma complaining
the quilt's too much to knit,
a woodworker gnashing
his teeth at one more cabinet to turn?
But things less fertile
to the sheepskin promoting
our corporate worth,
like Moses' staff leading
us from bondage of provincial ways
to an eden of material birth:
borrowed freedom for food and roof,
insatiable wants and whims,
to escape on Disney
the starkness of our fate,
empty longings
for a better life.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

Sunday Morning

I always knew it was Sunday.
Not by a talk-show, text-message,
movie, or other place to go -
things foreign to my novice notions.
It was more to do with smells and tastes,
sounds and scenes and lots of feelings.
Like the wafting sweetness jarring
me from my dreams to a sleepy grope
toward the kitchen , swiftly morphed
to bulging eyes for Grandma's kettle cakes.
"It's the buttermilk", she proclaimed,
"and the secret way you knead the dough."
Many Sunday mornings followed
with the same bugle call of clanging pots and pans,
me up and scurrying to learn the hidden secret:
flour sifted to a grain, buttermilk soured
not too long, water with just enough,
a smidgen of salt, fingers gently burrowing
through the gooey mush.
Ans like sorcery from the black-ironed kettle
out flipped the golden cakes.
For years I preteneded the secret,
(my props fancy gadgets and store-bought mix),
when came a day I recalled devouring
the scrumptious cakes, and Grandma,
eyes sharp to my affection, her face awash
with rosy smile which seemed to glow
ever brighter,
with every cake
I ate.


Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

Wild Again

I feel wild again
like those wild and wooly days
we chased the buffalo with nights
spent beneath the stars.
Even my heart runs wild-
wild with emotion of tomorrow's
deadly hunt and challenge to live.
This still moment is mine, yet it, too, runs
free and wild with imaginings-
hearing the great spirits who make talk
above the mounds they lie,
when I, too, one day shall
hunt the great buffalo of the sky.
Feerless I will be upon
the wings of the bright and shiny bird
who nest on the dark clouds of night,
streaked from the deep like a fallen star.
For now I must cherish the warming campfire
which keeps my heart alight, to dream
on morning's fresh odors-
wildflowers drenched in gouts of dew-
conserving all other wild energies
for that moment
when side by side
the thundering rush
of buffalo.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

The Only Place On Earth

Strolling down the walk
I shake my head in disbelief:
storefronts with unfamiliar names,
the buildings now grown taller-
shutting the sun from the neglected
park below-
the frenzied horde of people, SUVs,
shooting headlong toward some other place
than this place I know.
How I loved whiling away
on the old park bench, dreaming
in cadence to the sun prickling
my skin, the symphonic play of foraging pigeons,
the occasional smile of a passing face.
I try and steel myself against
the emptiness of loss,
the pain of wounded memories held
sacredly in my mind, the thought
I may never reclaim
that time that seemed so perfect,
as though it were
the only place
on Earth.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

The Parade

There was a time we smiled
without knowing a face, a name,
or waved a hand as if to say
"You're important, too."
In that time, time was
more than enough than now
with never enough of it-
as when crossing a road
and the car driver would
pause, horn silent, and let me pass.
Or that time catching the parade,
the horses stately trotting ahead
heralding the maundering floats,
while I, but a dreamy-eyed kid
arms held high,
waiting and waiting,
my turn
for the next
magic throw.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

Once Was a Knight

Touch the air-
now close your eyes
and it's gone.
Feel the light upon your lips,
but don't close them shut
that dark should come.
See the Moon in your eyes?
Or is that you
looking
from the Moon?

I once imagined I was a Knight
and fought for love
and beauty.
I recall it so well
'cause I had
such a tingling
down my spine.

Somewhere
along the way
I must've misplaced
the dream.

Could it be
that I closed
my eyes too soon,
or was it swallowed
in the darkness
of my silence

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels

The Road

The Road
that journeys through magic colors,
starlight, the sun's refracted waves,
pale shavings of dissolving time
swept along the infinite paths
of you, me, all who've come to be,
of lands unknown and forms unmeld,
but a wish it stirs a quickening
deep within the heart.

The Road
that journeys long and far
past all creations thought imposed
seeks a meadow lush and green-
Elysium where time does not belong-
nor hint of travels or travails,
nor memories save laughter and love,
yet in the joy of its final teasure
discover, a new road to travel on.

Copyright 2008 Francis Don Daniels