I stand alone
in a state of nature
in an open field
on a mountaintop
beyond tghe fork
I paint the frailty of spring
dream in subtle glints of snow
when all the while
to tunes of the wind
I sing.
I stand alone
in a garden of roses
in a flooded marsh
on a pebbled shore
beyond the fork
I'm a giddy bumblebee
a stoic-stanced egret
a weathered dream treasure trove
and to riffs of the wind
I sing.
I am the joy
of sentience
of all things
a fleeting space
a touch away
fron infinity.
In the other direction
matrices of signs and symbols
equation predicted nature
all-encompassing
Nobel Laureate stuff
Einstein and Pavlov
invalidating
all who dream.
Engineered nature pegged
to sets and subsets
urges and fixations
instincts and reactions
suppressing the spirit.
Identity
a single lifetime
pinned to a body
of certain death
and no future.
Rock, planet, atmosphere,
plant, ocean, animal,
man, child and gene
disemboweled
the same and soulless.
The woof and warp
of a world
fleshed machine.
Like Frost
how glad I am
I chose the fork
less traveled.
~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
I Cieli di Novara
( Author's Note: These lines are inspired by the magical band of the Summer Of Love of 1967, It's A Beautiful Day, and by the magic skies of North of Italy, the great space where dreams play between the snow-capped mountaintops and the warm, blue Mediterranean Sea. )
I miei occhi
e il mio cuore
sognando
con i colori delle nuvole
matuare
nella fontana di cristallo
dei cieli di magica
di Novara.
E sono nato
e sono libero
impaurito nessuno piu'
per creare le mie fantasie.
Il mondo gira in tondo,
la neve copre il suolo,
gli alberi dormono dolcemente
nel letto di inverno.
Ma solo,
l'uccello bianco canta
il suo sogno,
volare,
alto con le nuvole
volare come me.
Quando, tutto subito,
il sole fuso la neve
a ha scaldati gli alberi,
ed il vento
scorrere
come un fiume,
scorrere le ali di magica.
E l'uccello bianco vola
la montagne,
i mari
ed i cieli di magia
dove
per sempre,
errare i sogni.
~~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.
~~
The Skies Of Novara
My eyes
and my heart
dreaming
with colors of the clouds
growing
in the crystal womb
of the magic skies
of Novara.
And I am born
and I am free
no longer afraid
to make my dreams.
The world spins round,
the snow covers the ground,
the trees sleep softly
in the winter bed.
But, alone,
the white bird sings
her dream,
flying,
up high with the clouds,
flying just like me.
When, suddenly,
the sun melted the snow
and warmed the trees,
and the wind,
flowing
like a river,
flowing with magic wings.
Now the white bird flies
the mountains,
the seas
and the magic skies
where
forever,
wander our dreams.
~~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels
All rights Reserved.
I miei occhi
e il mio cuore
sognando
con i colori delle nuvole
matuare
nella fontana di cristallo
dei cieli di magica
di Novara.
E sono nato
e sono libero
impaurito nessuno piu'
per creare le mie fantasie.
Il mondo gira in tondo,
la neve copre il suolo,
gli alberi dormono dolcemente
nel letto di inverno.
Ma solo,
l'uccello bianco canta
il suo sogno,
volare,
alto con le nuvole
volare come me.
Quando, tutto subito,
il sole fuso la neve
a ha scaldati gli alberi,
ed il vento
scorrere
come un fiume,
scorrere le ali di magica.
E l'uccello bianco vola
la montagne,
i mari
ed i cieli di magia
dove
per sempre,
errare i sogni.
~~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels
All Rights Reserved.
~~
The Skies Of Novara
My eyes
and my heart
dreaming
with colors of the clouds
growing
in the crystal womb
of the magic skies
of Novara.
And I am born
and I am free
no longer afraid
to make my dreams.
The world spins round,
the snow covers the ground,
the trees sleep softly
in the winter bed.
But, alone,
the white bird sings
her dream,
flying,
up high with the clouds,
flying just like me.
When, suddenly,
the sun melted the snow
and warmed the trees,
and the wind,
flowing
like a river,
flowing with magic wings.
Now the white bird flies
the mountains,
the seas
and the magic skies
where
forever,
wander our dreams.
~~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels
All rights Reserved.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Gypsies Like The Wind
The bracing air eddied
past the sliding glass door
left ajar at the corner of the room,
as I scrambled to retrieve
the swirling pages and clips and nicknacks
upset by the sudden flurry, thinking
a visitor may be calling, or more likely,
the gypsy wind looking for respite.
I eased my way through the opened door
out onto the porch, and as I imagined,
no night callers there, nor
any reason for concern, when I heard
a peculiar stirring in the wind.
Not cries or voices familiar or unknown, but
faint rumblings, quaint and curious, with power
not unlike a magnet, drawing
me closer and deeper into the night.
Giving in to the charm, I
dawdled along, the sounds as my guide,
stronger and louder, until
a few blocks hence came the park,
the one I often haunted
on winter evenings like these,
where on the teardrop-shaped pond,
fringed with hunched cypresses
bent over from years of devoted shading
the waterlilies and grasses and reeds,
and residence to a chorus of riant frogs-
each one in its own way was my repose.
And grandest with full moon and starry sky,
as glancing moonbeams shown
the waterlilies sleepy faced-
hallf-opened, half-shut, tuckered out
from a full day's pose, giving their all
waiting up for the gala- and,
the cypresses, their shadows whiffling
across a silvery-glazed pond, conducting
a jocund choir of amphibians.
Though hearing them go on for hours, I
never once laid eyes on them, too shy
or scared to show themselves, hiding
somewhere deep in the reeds, blending
with the floating pads, unsure
of address or stay- as tomorrow,
when construction crews break ground
on a four-laned highway straight through
this amphitheater that's now called
home.
And where will they go-
the lilies and reeds and merry music-makers-
when this moon-illumined slough's no more?
Many years it took the cypress trees
to shape their bending love. I'd forgotten
tomorrow was the day. I
wanted to- wanted to forget
even the joys of this night,
the impermanance of this world-
that we are gypsies just like the wind
with home somewhere else not yet found,
lest we ever regret its ending.
~~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
past the sliding glass door
left ajar at the corner of the room,
as I scrambled to retrieve
the swirling pages and clips and nicknacks
upset by the sudden flurry, thinking
a visitor may be calling, or more likely,
the gypsy wind looking for respite.
I eased my way through the opened door
out onto the porch, and as I imagined,
no night callers there, nor
any reason for concern, when I heard
a peculiar stirring in the wind.
Not cries or voices familiar or unknown, but
faint rumblings, quaint and curious, with power
not unlike a magnet, drawing
me closer and deeper into the night.
Giving in to the charm, I
dawdled along, the sounds as my guide,
stronger and louder, until
a few blocks hence came the park,
the one I often haunted
on winter evenings like these,
where on the teardrop-shaped pond,
fringed with hunched cypresses
bent over from years of devoted shading
the waterlilies and grasses and reeds,
and residence to a chorus of riant frogs-
each one in its own way was my repose.
And grandest with full moon and starry sky,
as glancing moonbeams shown
the waterlilies sleepy faced-
hallf-opened, half-shut, tuckered out
from a full day's pose, giving their all
waiting up for the gala- and,
the cypresses, their shadows whiffling
across a silvery-glazed pond, conducting
a jocund choir of amphibians.
Though hearing them go on for hours, I
never once laid eyes on them, too shy
or scared to show themselves, hiding
somewhere deep in the reeds, blending
with the floating pads, unsure
of address or stay- as tomorrow,
when construction crews break ground
on a four-laned highway straight through
this amphitheater that's now called
home.
And where will they go-
the lilies and reeds and merry music-makers-
when this moon-illumined slough's no more?
Many years it took the cypress trees
to shape their bending love. I'd forgotten
tomorrow was the day. I
wanted to- wanted to forget
even the joys of this night,
the impermanance of this world-
that we are gypsies just like the wind
with home somewhere else not yet found,
lest we ever regret its ending.
~~
Copyright 2010 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
A Question of Beingness
A poem sticks deep in my throat.
I cough and cough, yet
it will not rise.
I ask the poem, Why do you rebuff
the poet's embrace?
Comes the reply, Why do you not
disrobe and go naked as you are?
I say, Out of the question- I am a man of Earth
and depend on this body.
The poem, And insist on hugging a corpse
when a Universe is there to court?
Such is the enigma baffling
a poet humanoid- a question of beingness.
Vacant in a motion like wind,
set and established like time.
Intangible as love,
manifest as a sugar maple
spurting forth spring syrup
and consumed by sweet lickings,
each and every one.
Like sun, doling out alms for the needy.
Like a painting, guardian and trustee
of the artist's beauty.
But some only worship ugly,
and scoff at you who seek perfection.
They lack the truth which is
you are soul and sand,
a spirit WITH a body.
You are the light making sky
and the seer of skylight.
You are words making verse
and the poem making words.
The beams that fall ahead,
the shadows stretched behind,
each sealed by your signet.
Enough of this silly argument!
I come to my senses and wave the white flag.
The terms of surrender are,
indeed, benevolent.
The poem tust the pen with its whimsey.
The pen trust the poem to show the way.
The flood gates of consideration open wide,
freeing the living stream to run its natural course.
And I, resolved, as one again,
the boat and the guide.
~~
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
I cough and cough, yet
it will not rise.
I ask the poem, Why do you rebuff
the poet's embrace?
Comes the reply, Why do you not
disrobe and go naked as you are?
I say, Out of the question- I am a man of Earth
and depend on this body.
The poem, And insist on hugging a corpse
when a Universe is there to court?
Such is the enigma baffling
a poet humanoid- a question of beingness.
Vacant in a motion like wind,
set and established like time.
Intangible as love,
manifest as a sugar maple
spurting forth spring syrup
and consumed by sweet lickings,
each and every one.
Like sun, doling out alms for the needy.
Like a painting, guardian and trustee
of the artist's beauty.
But some only worship ugly,
and scoff at you who seek perfection.
They lack the truth which is
you are soul and sand,
a spirit WITH a body.
You are the light making sky
and the seer of skylight.
You are words making verse
and the poem making words.
The beams that fall ahead,
the shadows stretched behind,
each sealed by your signet.
Enough of this silly argument!
I come to my senses and wave the white flag.
The terms of surrender are,
indeed, benevolent.
The poem tust the pen with its whimsey.
The pen trust the poem to show the way.
The flood gates of consideration open wide,
freeing the living stream to run its natural course.
And I, resolved, as one again,
the boat and the guide.
~~
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
Monday, December 28, 2009
No Loitering
Perhaps
it was forgotten
you were once free,
and now calloused
by false hopes
and dreams
set
with that glue
to planet Earth routine.
No longer to give
notice to the signs that read:
"No Loitering"
(City Ordinance Title 03.6732 Sec. C).
Recession Blues.
Languishing 401Ks.
Home values upside down.
Credit lines slashed, and
tight money flows.
Laid off
from company downsizing
to find you are
too educated for the job market,
or condsidered by others
too "old".
And foreclosure looms.
Space is "For Rent"
and "For Sale",
but now you are
a beggar, and
have no means.
Better change gears-
better yet,
change direction-
dump
that old set of wheels
you've been carting round in
you call the body,
hop out and snatch up
a tall, sturdy ladder,
climb
to the tip top
of your favorite tree,
and read this sign:
"Loitering Welcome.
Muse Away The Day."
~~
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
it was forgotten
you were once free,
and now calloused
by false hopes
and dreams
set
with that glue
to planet Earth routine.
No longer to give
notice to the signs that read:
"No Loitering"
(City Ordinance Title 03.6732 Sec. C).
Recession Blues.
Languishing 401Ks.
Home values upside down.
Credit lines slashed, and
tight money flows.
Laid off
from company downsizing
to find you are
too educated for the job market,
or condsidered by others
too "old".
And foreclosure looms.
Space is "For Rent"
and "For Sale",
but now you are
a beggar, and
have no means.
Better change gears-
better yet,
change direction-
dump
that old set of wheels
you've been carting round in
you call the body,
hop out and snatch up
a tall, sturdy ladder,
climb
to the tip top
of your favorite tree,
and read this sign:
"Loitering Welcome.
Muse Away The Day."
~~
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
The Albatross
Life maker,
life taker,
towering phoenix on high,
magically over the oceans you cross
with powers no one can deny.
Alone at the bow
I stood there in awe-
bound by your imposing form,
rapt in uncertainty
as to what I saw
and feelings equally torn.
Dreaded serpent from Hades
whom ancient mariners did flee?
Or, Protector of the Seas
and beacon to guide me free?
Or, a child's dream, albatross-
imagination's pilot afar.
You deathfully sank
into the flaming sun
and divinely rose
as an evening star.
A heavenly kite in aerial bliss
playfully drawing the sun
as your tail,
when by your pluck
tacked to the wind
to give impetus
to your sail.
Then assumed another form:
The wind became your brush,
the seas and clouds your hues
and painted before my eyes
a rainbow through the skies.
Mage of ethereal being
girded with unflagging wings,
showing me more
than compass,
map or guide
to a universe as free
as the boundless
endless skies.
Immortal being,
artist and creator!
The seasons follow your stay
where the sea is your dominion
and the skies ever
your play.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
life taker,
towering phoenix on high,
magically over the oceans you cross
with powers no one can deny.
Alone at the bow
I stood there in awe-
bound by your imposing form,
rapt in uncertainty
as to what I saw
and feelings equally torn.
Dreaded serpent from Hades
whom ancient mariners did flee?
Or, Protector of the Seas
and beacon to guide me free?
Or, a child's dream, albatross-
imagination's pilot afar.
You deathfully sank
into the flaming sun
and divinely rose
as an evening star.
A heavenly kite in aerial bliss
playfully drawing the sun
as your tail,
when by your pluck
tacked to the wind
to give impetus
to your sail.
Then assumed another form:
The wind became your brush,
the seas and clouds your hues
and painted before my eyes
a rainbow through the skies.
Mage of ethereal being
girded with unflagging wings,
showing me more
than compass,
map or guide
to a universe as free
as the boundless
endless skies.
Immortal being,
artist and creator!
The seasons follow your stay
where the sea is your dominion
and the skies ever
your play.
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Globalization, The Conclusion
Globalization
is an idea.
An idea can be good or bad,
constructive or destructive.
There's a wide gap
between the two poles.
As the gap
between beauty and ugliness,
love and hate,
truth and falsehood.
As the gap between
round and flat worlds.
Where in one mountain peaks
reach the heavens,
while in the other
a levelling process ends
in oblivion.
Globalization
in and of itself
is not the curse.
The curse resides
in what makes the gap
where one end expands
into greater spheres of existence
and the other end contracts
into the "only one".
The former is Truth.
The latter is a lie.
And the lie is
the Reactive Mind.
~~
Chad went on to enroll in the Anatomy of Human Mind Course at the Dianetics Foundation.
The first lecture-"The Reactive Mind"-resolved remaining doubts he'd found the map.
What struck him most? Well, it goes back to those Psych courses he'd taken in school
and never believed their weight in paper and was left to wonder what the mind really was.
It seemed far fetched to Chad how thought and ability were controlled by chemical reactions. And how it was all chalked up to heredity and Pavlov's dogs and conditioning.
Mr. Hubbard's research proved the mathematical impossibility the "brain" could store the vast quantity of perceptic memory accumulated over one's lifetime, and in fact could only store about a single month's worth of data.
The truth was the brain is not the mind at all. The mind is something much, much more.
The Reactive Mind became real to Chad as he observed it in himself and others in doing the demonstrations and drills on the course. Armed with this true data, Chad realized the fields of Psychology and Psychiatry were mere dramatizations of the stimulus-response mechanism of the Reactive Mind. The same mechanism which called up the hidden voices Chad could not quiet, held in place the pain and sorrow of his life and exacted upon him the same ferocity of a wild predator attacking its prey. To wield unbridled power without his control and forcing unreasoned acts that he'd forever regret.
The same mechanism that was flattening a round world.
Chad realized at last it was the Reactive Mind's bidding behind all the turbulence and upheavel in the world.
But with the Map, Chad had regained not only control of his thoughts, but his self-determinism to act and play to the beat of his own drum. He remained in his hometown of Buffalo, pursuing the lost dream to live as the artist he was. And to help others in his town whose hopes had been dashed by the virus of Gobalization to find their way back to a round world as Pier Angelo had helped him set foot on the Road to Truth.
As far as regrets for Wall Street, Chad wrote in his diary:
"When I embarked on the road of self-discovery, I admit I was still out for myself. Wall Street was the "King of the Mountain" and that's what I had come to believe life was all about. It was material in all its aspects."
"Losing that quest to the vagaries of a flat world, I was devastated without a Map to lead me from danger. I had to suffer through the very darkness which I had allowed to obscure my vision, to face my fears and uncertainties and wrest away from the Reactive Mind that part of me it had enslaved."
"Before I knew of such a demon running my life, I had groped through darkness with a mere spark of me to light the way. But once on the road and sure-footed by the Map, that spark became a flame and then a fire. That tiny spark had been enough to lead me to a single man and his books, and to others who offered their hands to pull me up from the edge of the abyss."
"Who's to say what the outcome might have been had I not made the trip to the library that day."
"But what I do know is that I found myself again, the person who I am, and realized the beauty of life comes from living a complete life which includes all the Dynamics or Circles or Spheres or Urges of existence. And that is what fuels the fire to make it rage ever brighter, ever larger, to make the world we live in more true, more round."
"I was asked by a friend if I ever regretted not pursuing Wall Street, regretted missing out on the billions made during the "BIG BUBBLE"?
"Pausing in contemplation and looking very stoic, I replied, But didn't you here, the bubble burst?"
THE END
~~
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
is an idea.
An idea can be good or bad,
constructive or destructive.
There's a wide gap
between the two poles.
As the gap
between beauty and ugliness,
love and hate,
truth and falsehood.
As the gap between
round and flat worlds.
Where in one mountain peaks
reach the heavens,
while in the other
a levelling process ends
in oblivion.
Globalization
in and of itself
is not the curse.
The curse resides
in what makes the gap
where one end expands
into greater spheres of existence
and the other end contracts
into the "only one".
The former is Truth.
The latter is a lie.
And the lie is
the Reactive Mind.
~~
Chad went on to enroll in the Anatomy of Human Mind Course at the Dianetics Foundation.
The first lecture-"The Reactive Mind"-resolved remaining doubts he'd found the map.
What struck him most? Well, it goes back to those Psych courses he'd taken in school
and never believed their weight in paper and was left to wonder what the mind really was.
It seemed far fetched to Chad how thought and ability were controlled by chemical reactions. And how it was all chalked up to heredity and Pavlov's dogs and conditioning.
Mr. Hubbard's research proved the mathematical impossibility the "brain" could store the vast quantity of perceptic memory accumulated over one's lifetime, and in fact could only store about a single month's worth of data.
The truth was the brain is not the mind at all. The mind is something much, much more.
The Reactive Mind became real to Chad as he observed it in himself and others in doing the demonstrations and drills on the course. Armed with this true data, Chad realized the fields of Psychology and Psychiatry were mere dramatizations of the stimulus-response mechanism of the Reactive Mind. The same mechanism which called up the hidden voices Chad could not quiet, held in place the pain and sorrow of his life and exacted upon him the same ferocity of a wild predator attacking its prey. To wield unbridled power without his control and forcing unreasoned acts that he'd forever regret.
The same mechanism that was flattening a round world.
Chad realized at last it was the Reactive Mind's bidding behind all the turbulence and upheavel in the world.
But with the Map, Chad had regained not only control of his thoughts, but his self-determinism to act and play to the beat of his own drum. He remained in his hometown of Buffalo, pursuing the lost dream to live as the artist he was. And to help others in his town whose hopes had been dashed by the virus of Gobalization to find their way back to a round world as Pier Angelo had helped him set foot on the Road to Truth.
As far as regrets for Wall Street, Chad wrote in his diary:
"When I embarked on the road of self-discovery, I admit I was still out for myself. Wall Street was the "King of the Mountain" and that's what I had come to believe life was all about. It was material in all its aspects."
"Losing that quest to the vagaries of a flat world, I was devastated without a Map to lead me from danger. I had to suffer through the very darkness which I had allowed to obscure my vision, to face my fears and uncertainties and wrest away from the Reactive Mind that part of me it had enslaved."
"Before I knew of such a demon running my life, I had groped through darkness with a mere spark of me to light the way. But once on the road and sure-footed by the Map, that spark became a flame and then a fire. That tiny spark had been enough to lead me to a single man and his books, and to others who offered their hands to pull me up from the edge of the abyss."
"Who's to say what the outcome might have been had I not made the trip to the library that day."
"But what I do know is that I found myself again, the person who I am, and realized the beauty of life comes from living a complete life which includes all the Dynamics or Circles or Spheres or Urges of existence. And that is what fuels the fire to make it rage ever brighter, ever larger, to make the world we live in more true, more round."
"I was asked by a friend if I ever regretted not pursuing Wall Street, regretted missing out on the billions made during the "BIG BUBBLE"?
"Pausing in contemplation and looking very stoic, I replied, But didn't you here, the bubble burst?"
THE END
~~
Copyright 2009 Francis Don Daniels.
All Rights Reserved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)