From time to time a poem

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11 years 10 months ago - 11 years 10 months ago #59094 by Alexandre Orion
I had originally put this in "Journals"

It should probably be here ...
My Pop Song
Part I
(17) Home again from wherefore,
Hours pass darkly by ;
Days flow out of folk-lore,
Nights return to “why ?1”

(33) Take this hand that I am reaching
Lead me out of ever-more
To the Life that I've been seeking
Somewhere over sunset's shore …

(49) Floating from the centre outward
Born in singularity ;
Turning through and ever inward
Retreating to Sukhavati.2

(65) History is storytelling3,
Love and War are poetry ;
Worlds emerge as I lie sleeping
Dreaming through their Mystery …

***

(105) Still, My Love, my ship sails
The Transcendent Sea ;
Wait, My Love, I'll not fail
To return to thee –

(121) Hold your Hope in your hands,
Let it be your guide ;
Calling out from far lands
Where our Fate resides.

(137) Into the abyss –
This is to exist –
Bless me with one faithful kiss –

This call one cannot resist :
To know thy Self is highest bliss ...

(173) Through adventure thus transforming
From belief to what is real ;
Worlds emerge as you lie weeping4
Creative Force erstwhile conceal'd5.


Part II (6:09)

(247) Be it by choice or Destiny
That I should come to Mastery ?


Part III (6:37)

(266) So the way is long,
And the mountain high,
In the tempest strong,
Through the rolling sky,
And the sea is deep,
There it's secrets keep,
From the World around,
Shade and Light collide,
Over-underground,
To the Other Side,

(276) Where Time's Temptations thrice-fold6
Touching commoners and kings
Try the learn-ed and the bold
With a thousand worldly things ;
So as now in times of old –
So tomorrow as today –
Fallen angels still have wings,
Still they dance upon the rays,
And what mischief singing brings
To the one's who've lost their way
Within the Savage Garden
Of all their generations
And where their bones have hardened
As Pyramids and Nations
May it be pain or pardon –

(291) Where did I come from ?
Where am I going ?
What is the meaning ? The way of knowing ?
Freedom or justice, courage or beauty,
How feel I what they truly mean to me ?
What is my part in this long history ?

Part IV (8:23)

(341) To crush the World
Or give it Life :
The mother's pain, The father's strife –
(345-346) Help me out of ever-after …
By blade and flame
A State to claim ;
Such is the Nature of the game
(351-352) Lead me out of this Samsara7...
Man or Machine ?
Machine or Man ?
Control - Delete or helping hand ?
(357-358) Help me break these chains that bind me …
Forbidden fruit,
The causal root –
Non sequetur, Does not compute …
(363-364) To ambition that confines me/defines me …
And from the fire
Comes my Empire,
Another Indra doth aspire8...
(369-370) Help me to find my Pleroma9...
As Pride goeth
Before a fall10
From Paradise to Cavern walls11
(375-376) Lift me out of ever-after …
Illusions wear
and fall away
My cross I bear
From Day to Day
With stolen fire12
And golden fleece13
While flute and lyre
Sing War and Peace
All my battles
Lost & Won14
The quest is Done …

Fin

(397) Waking to Redemption's sweet embrace
you hold me softly now.


– Alexandre Orion, avril 2012
1 “Why ?” has been referred to as the quintessential existential question
2 Sanskrit : 'blissful place'
3 Storytelling, Christian Salmon, Ed. La Découverte, Paris 2007
4 In reference to Queen Dido de Carthage
5 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
6 In Buddhism, the assaults of Mara ; in Christianity, the temptations of Christ as revealed in the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark & St. Luke
7 Sanskrit : of that which circulates, the states of existence under the influence of suffering, from attachment to ignorance. These are the states conditioned by "karma".
8 Hindu god of war, storms and rain -- Rig-Veda
9 Greek : πλήρωμα – the totality of divine power, spiritual fulfilment
10 Proverbs, 16:18
11 Genesis Ch. 3 & Platon, The Republic, Book VII
12 e.g. the Promethean myth
13 the myth of Jason of Argos
14 Shakespeare, Macbeth, Acte I, Scène I

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #59147 by Alexandre Orion
Rising Smoke
(For Reliah)
High tide to Low Tide, Tsunami to Snow,
Nights follow mornings, whilst Green follows Grey –
From Springs to Autumns, doth Zephyrus blow
The Life from the Rose that blossomed in May ...

The Crone was the Maiden, Steel was once Gold,
Coal was a Forest and Stone was a Star –
The robust Lover, now lies a corpse cold ;
His kiss a mem'ry, his embrace a scar ...
What Is becomes Was one grain at a Time,
Love and Fear dance this macabre pantomime,
Tears of the Dagger, Blood stains on the Cloak,
And screams heard in Heaven through Rising Smoke ~
Gods dream like Devils, no difference is there
'Tween Love of the All and Fear of the Ones1,
For the Dragon devours the sum of his fare
When Self sings to Self self-righteous Sermons ...

Hope falls from Fingers that once held the Rose,
The Dragon lie sleeping, drunk full of his feed ;
Hope freed fingers about the Sabre close,
And flash spiking the Serpent, then are freed.
Goodness and Evil unite in the Heart,
Where Mind cannot tell one nor other apart –
May solemn sacrifice such Courage evoke
That Self would lift away as Rising Smoke ~
The Moon mimics roundly Maiden and Crone,
Lovers Dead, Lovers Wed, to Lovers' Bed ;
Gold flashes the Sabre, the Star in the Stone,
The Kiss of the Soul, from the Grail fed ...

The Within that One was without awoke
And Brought to Life by Love and Rising Smoke.

Alexandre Orion
mai 2012

1. World seen as integrated whole, and World seen as disparate parts

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #59157 by
Replied by on topic From time to time a poem
Thank you, Alexandre!! :D

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11 years 10 months ago #59159 by Alexandre Orion
The pleasure and privledge were mine, Reliah ...

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #59373 by Alexandre Orion
The Perfect Love Story



is not easy to tell

for it does not correspond

to that which you expect from perfection …





Alexandre Orion


You wake into the comfortable blackness of nowhere. The perception has no name, and the obscurity is not observed as such. You look in every sense, and this with all of your senses ; in this great nothingness all is bright, the absence of light illuminating all in which you have ever wanted to believe yet just simply could not. The total vacuum is totally breathable, the absolute zero is absolutely ardent and the deafening silence, a symphony of varying rhythms, of crescendo and soft melody. With the same sight, you witness atoms and entire galaxies, and from it all comes the most profound and complete experience of Love that you have always forgotten ...



***



Love is as prolific in the universe as is Life. Every form of life is fully endowed with it. Yet, curiously, it is the gift with which you hurt yourself the most grievously ...



He is there, sitting in front of you. You do not know one another. In of all his expressions however, as in all of his gestures, there is a familiar element. Sometimes you know what he will say before he says it, and sometimes you know what he wanted to say although he didn't anything. It is reciprocal. You find this disconcerting, even troublesome. There's nothing that you want to call attraction – only wonder. You ask yourself : “From what is he made, this strange creature ?”



As every time that this mysterious sentiment intervenes in life, it is toward a person completely ordinary to the eyes of others, but magnificent to yours. Typically, it is for a being who does absolutely nothing to be noticed, who has nothing extraordinary in his behaviour. Nevertheless, there is something singular, unique and incomparably fabulous.



Your friends, with whom you speak of these emerging sentiments, offer you diverse counsel, saying that you should certainly talk to him about your feelings, or, on the contrary, that you should definitely not. Yet none of them believe that it would be a good relationship. He is too old or too young. He's gay or he's straight. He's not of your social class or he's not of your educational or economic level. Sometimes it's that he's too introverted or too extroverted. It's a futile endeavour as he's this or not that … And still, you love him. You did not decide to fall in Love. You very bitterly discovered that you were.



“Love is difficult,” you tell yourself. This is completely untrue. Love is the simplest of all enterprises. So-called love relationships, on the other hand, are the hardest of affairs. When Love settles into a life, you cannot say that it is because of or by the grace of one or the other. You do not love for any particular reason. Reason has no effect on Love, nor has it any consequence. Moreover, Reason has been the mortal enemy of Love for millennia. She most often wins their battles…



You try to be, or to remain, reasonable. You remind yourself that your friends are trustworthy, logical, intelligent and experienced and that they are looking out for your best interest. You try to think of other things, to occupy yourself differently until such a time as this foolishness passes, until it withers away and dies. You go for relaxing week-ends in the countryside with your friends, and go out to pass time having cocktails on sunny terraces. You cannot however stop thinking of that cursed One you adore. All of the songs they play in the pub or broadcast on the radio serenade him. Somehow absent, he's always there. You talk to him throughout light-years ...



You try and rationalise it, reflecting on all of the inconvenience that a relationship with this person would present. You find that you can do nothing about it. You think of him from the second you open your eyes in the morning to the very moment you go to sleep at night, if you can sleep at all. Even your dreams he invades, raising them to paradises from which you wish to never return or plunging them into nightmares from which you cannot break free. “How much time have I already lived without him, after all ?, you scream inwardly, This should not be like this ...”



But it is.



Your intuition comes to the rescue. “How many times have I already lived with this Soul ?” Such strong sentiments do not flow out of dried up springs. Where is the source ? When Love fixes itself into a heart, this proves to be a most resistant installation, and dislodging it is as arduous a task as any of the Herculean labours. Could it be that there's another phenomenon operating herein ? What is there to fear in the state of Love ?



Feelings need no action. They are not events which require response or recompense. They are only feelings. To feel Love for someone is one of the strongest. It is magical and marvellous. To love someone for no reason, no particular attraction, no hope of specific or personal gain is a godly exploit. In this manner, you touch the divine. But this is also why Love hurts so badly ...



Perfection is hardly lovable. You love what is imperfect. You imagine Life with the One you cherish, according to all the conventions of romantic Love, and you attach these images to your sentiment. Thus bound, Love, the most abundant, creative lightness of this universe, becomes a heavy and painful burden. You drag it about everywhere, and with every song, every image, you load it down more and more. You weep, you complain, you brood and then the One you love comes near and all that affliction disappears. It only takes a word, a message, for all your fear to transform into joy. You are in Love and everything is fine.



From one second to the following, everything has changed, everything has become brilliant. You desire nothing more than to be with him, to talk with him, to take nourishment and to breath with him. All of Life is connected to him. You lose yourself adoringly in his simplest, briefest glance. Every syllable he pronounces is nothing other than an angelic orchestra propelling you toward castles in the clouds. And regardless of the opinions of others, your only wish is to blend your soul with his, now and forever.



***



As you are walking in one of the streets of the city, you cross along your path an elderly couple of a nearby neighbourhood. They are holding hands. They are speaking as they slowly make their way home. They laugh. As they come close to you, you recognise the youth in the regard of one to the other, the consideration and the respect which have survived through decades of bitter-sweet togetherness – and the Love they have shared for all of a human lifetime. You feel your desire to live that with the One you love, to grow old in the company of he who you cherish so very much.



Then, as is the sight of the guillotine in the eyes of the condemned, you recall the most morbid truth which has always confronted such a beautiful image : your immortality. You will never be able to grow old with one you love in that way without having to see, by the force of fleeting years, the flower of his youth plucked, withered and dried up of all organic Life. You will never be able to share the castles so shiningly sung into being before he comes up to them by his own evolution. You cannot blend your soul with his without causing him unspeakable harm, your tyranny of Heaven, his blissful Hell. He is too old, or too young or just simply not on the same level of existence. But still you love him ...



... and so you lament. You empty all your essence by exhalations of long and salty sighs convulsing from the very foundation of your eternal being. With every eruption of your tears and blood and the primaeval waters spattering down into the dirty street where you weep in the most pathetic isolation, a star burns out, a world collapses and ubiquitous, imperishable Life envelopes you in her arms of infinite renewal. You can only love him from afar, and the farther away the better. Forever he will feel your beneficence and your protection, and this until he can come to you in another Life. And with this promise, your heart willingly whispers its final murmur and the World around you disappears.



***


You wake into the comfortable pure white of everywhere. The perception has no name, and the nebulosity is no great mystery. You look in every sense, and this with all of your senses ; in this great Evermore, all is light, the absence of shadow explaining all in which you have ever believed yet just simply could not clarify. This totality is tangible, the living warmth absolute and comforting & the symphony of variant rhythms, by crescendo and soft melody, has forever and always been your castles in the clouds. With the same sight, you see atoms and entire galaxies, and from it all comes the most profound and complete experience of Love that you will never, never forget ...

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #59387 by
Replied by on topic From time to time a poem
I'm going to quote my "favorite" (if that's possible..) parts of this one..

"When Love settles into a life, you cannot say that it is because of or by the grace of one or the other. You do not love for any particular reason. Reason has no effect on Love, nor has it any consequence. Moreover, Reason has been the mortal enemy of Love for millennia."

"...you recall the most morbid truth which has always confronted such a beautiful image : your immortality. You will never be able to grow old with one you love in that way without having to see, by the force of fleeting years, the flower of his youth plucked, withered and dried up of all organic Life. You will never be able to share the castles so shiningly sung into being before he comes up to them by his own evolution. You cannot blend your soul with his without causing him unspeakable harm, your tyranny of Heaven, his blissful Hell."

It seems like everyone is talking about love these days. Maybe because it's Spring? I'm not sure. Not quite like this, though. This was a bit different.. and as always, beautiful. :)

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11 years 10 months ago #59434 by Alexandre Orion
The Key
Oh gods, would I hate alcohol if only it weren't true,
Leaving from the very start, it's much more true than you,
So, here in one o' my favourite bars, but any bar would do,
True to me and Misery... I think I'll drink a few,
And even if I shouldn't, you know I'll drink to you.

An hour over sunset and my youth in ghostly blue,
The music's gone all grey, like my hair will be soon too ;
I catch a train for Lyons, but then any train would do,
And while memory keeps killing me, I still drink to you...
True to me, to Misery, and you... I'll drink another few.
Where the Hell is Paradise, when Heaven goes to Hell ?
Drinking doesn't stop my thinking, I just don't think very well ;
Every train's a prison and every bar's a cell,
When all you've got is freedom, the heart's an empty shell.
I've gone to Hell by living, though I would have died for you,
Light up another cigarette, and take a drag or two,
The telephone keeps ringing, and any call will do --
It's ringing, always ringing, but the caller's never you --
The key's to keep on moving, and maybe drink a few.
Where the Hell is Paradise, when Heaven goes to Hell ?
Drinking doesn't stop my thinking, I just don't think very well ;
Every train's a prison and every bar's a cell,
When all you've got is freedom, the heart's an empty shell.
The key's to keep on moving, and any place will do,
Any place with space for grace
And yeah, I'll drink a few...
And yeah, I'll drink to you...


Alexandre Orion -- janvier 2009

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago - 11 years 10 months ago #59436 by Alexandre Orion
Perhaps should I explain the above ...

A little over three years ago, a friend was in a sort of bluesy period. He dared me to compose a poem/song with a list of the words underlined, and bet me a pint that I couldn't get it done in a week.

:huh:

A week ? two or three hours later I traded him his blues song for my pint. What do you think ?

A/O

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
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11 years 10 months ago #59437 by Wescli Wardest
Those are good lyrics for a blues song and hold a lot of truth for the drinker. I think it is a rare glimpse into the mind of the self-medicating.

Monastic Order of Knights
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11 years 10 months ago #59444 by Alexandre Orion
Thank you, Clint !

When I wrote that I had in mind another friend who was on a particularly liquid downspiral (incidentally, he's much better now ...), who would, as happens frequently, drink to celebrate successes, and then drink to forget his sorrows. Then, of course, the inevitable result of such a sequence is that successes diminish as sorrow increases.

And this poor bloke did sometimes get tight, then get on a train, and well ... he had some 'interesting' adventures.

Have you, (have any of you seen) "The Irony of Fate" ? (Ирония судьбы) A 1975 Russian film that shows how sometimes the Force work through alcohol. That's of course, one point of view ...

Be a philosopher ; but, amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
~ David Hume

Chaque homme a des devoirs envers l'homme en tant qu'homme.
~ Henri Bergson
[img

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